ABSTRACT
The latter decades of the twentieth century posed major challenges to metropolitan governments. Expanding population, the migration of new peoples, urbanisation and counter-urbanisation, disparities between cities and suburbs, demands for popular participation and better public services were some of the common problems faced by metropolitan governments worldwide. Although their experiences were similar in these respects, responses to the common problems of governance were highly varied. A number of distinctive approaches emerged, ranging from strong and unified governmental control to pluralistic or even fragmented systems. Attempts to co-ordinate policy and urban development in some areas stressed the need for elected metropolitan councils – and in some cases high-visibility Mayors – to achieve the goals of strategic planning and development, while elsewhere the contrasting experience was one of shifting away from area-wide government to reliance upon collaboration between a multitude of bodies, central and local. This book is about how six cities are coping with these pressures of growth and change, adapting their structures and processes and endeavouring to position themselves in the league tables of world cities.
