ABSTRACT
While in Anglo-American geography Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration gained momentum throughout the 1980s, in German geography Benno Werlen's similar, albeit competing, programme of action-theoretical social geography received much attention (Werlen, 1987). It is particularly his conception of 'everyday regionalizations' (Werlen, 1995; 1997), which conceives of regions as produced and reproduced by social practice, that I will apply in the following account. In this context, the term 'regionalization' means that spatial structures are established or transformed by way of functional, symbolic, signifying, and normative attributions, as well as in the course of intentional acting. 'Spatial structures' refer to the relational configuration of bodies and things (the term 'spatiality' as applied by Massey, 1999, for instance). In this sense, metropolitan areas comprising a core city and a surrounding suburban area may undoubtedly be regarded as 'regions'. 'Social practice', which creates a bond between the various places or parts of the entire region, refers to the individual activities and social interactions of its inhabitants, which embrace the utilization of the infrastructure of both the core city and the suburban area, working and living there and participating in a set of discourses bound to that area. A feeling of 'regional identity' may evolve as an outcome of these discourses.
