Exploring the creation of the metropolitan city-region government

The cases of England, France and Italy

Bibliographic Data

ID21601693
AuthorsChristophe Demazière (0000-0002-7294-7565, University of Tours, UMR 7324 Cités, Territoires, Environnement et Sociétés, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume29
Issue11
Pages2038-2055
Publication date2021-11-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Planning Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0965-4313 • E-ISSN: 1469-5944
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09654313.2021.1923666
OpenAlexW3160343710
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited29

Over the past decade, several European countries have undergone reforms that modified the distribution of allocated powers and/or the geographical area of intervention of local authorities. This paper focuses on the institution of metropolitan governments. National legislative and executive powers usually claim that they want to provide densely urbanized areas with a more integrative level of action. As a result, the public authorities in large cities would get a greater capacity to deal with issues such as economic growth, increased soil sealing, socio-spatial inequalities, etc. This paper explores the motivations and forms of such metropolitan reforms in three European countries within the last decade, with the creation of Combined Authorities in England, of métropoles in France and of citta metropolitane in Italy. We argue that the forms of metropolitan government that have emerged in the three countries are embedded in very different institutional systems (Section 2). Considering the strategies of key protagonists, we show that the new modes of governance differ across and sometimes within countries (Section 3). In particular, the spatiality and the autonomy of the new metropolitan governments vary in the three countries (Section 4)

Autonomy · Business · City region · Corporate governance · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Institution · Legislature · Local government · Metropolitan area · Political science · Regional science · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Political Systems and Governance · Public Administration · Urban Planning and Governance

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