Urban Regional Guidance and
Management Structures:
a precondition for the competitiveness of
metropolitan regions
Wolfgang Knapp
ILS, Dortmund
A serious problem:
actual/potential functional
city regions (constituted
through socio-economic
practices; with unstable
boundaries that change
with changing social
practices)
existing territorial
administrative- and
steering-structures
(typically fragmented
among a range of
levels and agencies)
The key challenge:
... to create a quasi-regional administrative
‘body’ that enables regional actors to institutionalize and consolidate management-,
development- and marketing- activities on
the actual (and potential) functional
city-regional scale
Building new regional
institutional capacity:
• Mobilisation, generating the impetus and power
to create new relations and alliances, and develop
new policy agendas
• Creating new arenas, rules of engagement and
modes of practice (institutional design)
• ‘Mainstreaming’ in some form, in which the new
relations and networks, and the new agendas
become normalized and embedded in the flow of
governance activity
(Patsey Healey)
Organising capacities for
metropolitan regions:
an "organising capacity" is the capacity to
involve all relevant stakeholders in order to
develop collectively new ideas and policies,
which support a sustainable development
in metropolitan regions
(Leo van den Berg et al.)
Leadership
Political support
Societal support
spatio-economic conditions
Vision
&
Strategy
Public
Sector
Private
Sector
Performance
More city-regional co-operation and co-ordination
embedded in specific contexts
• political-administrative structures on the national
scale
(more centralized states like France, UK and Ireland versus
federal-states like Germany with strong local self-government)
• political-administrative structures on the local scale
(monocentric city-regions with an intra-urban polycentricity
especially at the scale of the core-city versus inter-urban
polycentric configurations without a clear leading city)
• specific actor and power constellations, structures
of interest and potential for compromise under the
given circumstances
(initiators and proponents versus opponents and critics)
Proponents and Opponents of cityregional co-operation / co-ordination:
Proponents
• central government/
federal government
Opponents
• central government/
federal government
(fear creating a potential within
the state which would change the
existing geography of power)
(interested in modernisising
administrative structures in
metropolitan areas / expect to
permit greater control over the
local level)
•
core cities
•
core cities
(in periods of economic prosperity)
(in periods of losing economic
capacity, population, and revenues) • suburban governments /
outlying communities
(fear losing power, influence, functions and revenues)
Proponents and Opponents of cityregional co-operation / co-ordination:
Proponents
• Industrie and its actors
(interested in simplifying political
and administrative structures, and
specific location systems)
•
Opponents
• Middle-tier government
and existing associations
of local authorities
(fear a loss of competencies and power
especially through the establishment of
new territorial authorities)
Professionally involved
actors
(with specific objectives and interests on new sales and advertising
markets)
•
Experts
(critisize new structures as democratically deficient, too narrow in scope or
too complex)
Only a few Types of city-regional
co-operative Approaches
• Informal or privately organised
(fora, networks, PPPs., Ltds...)
• Single function or single project institutionalised co- operation
between a few entities
(e. g. special-purpose organisational units in Germany; ‘syndicats
intercommunaux à vocation unique’ in France)
•
Multisectoral co-operation between numerous authorities in the
form of an association, covering various activities and services
(e. g., obligatory multi-purpose associations in Germany;‘Communautés
de villes’, ‘Communautés Urbaines’ in France; Regional Development
Agencies)
• (Sub-) Regional associations with elected or delegated members
(e. g. Ile-de-France Région; Grater London Authority, Kommunalverband Ruhr, Dublin Regional Authority)
On the hard way to city-regional organizing capacities:
- a photo 2001 -
London
RheinRuhr
1990
Dublin
?
Paris
?
?
European Metropolitan Region
RheinRuhr‘ –
a ‘designer region’ without regional
government but new regional
associationalism in a persistent context
of administrative and institutional
fragmentation
London Region –
no true regionalisation recognising the
FUR, but a number of new regional
institutions increasing the complexity of
governance, with potential for competition
and a new regional territoriality resulting
in new boundaries dissecting the South
East(ern) region and separating London
with its Greater London Authority and
high profile mayor from its hinterland
Dublin Region –
a ‚landscape‘ of strong centralised
local government, two regional
authorities, and a range of
organisations and semi-autonomous
agencies of the central government
looking for... new region - wide
institutional arrangements
Paris Region –
an advanced but unstable system of
regional governance
(built on increased fragmentation of
political and economic players and a
restructuring of their respective roles
and relations)