scholarly journals Performing the city-region: Imagineering, devolution and the search for legitimacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1583-1601
Author(s):  
Charlotte Hoole ◽  
Stephen Hincks
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Local Resistance ◽  
City Region ◽  
National Interests ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions ◽  
Depth Interviews

This paper provides new conceptual and empirical insights into the role city-regions play as part of a geopolitical strategy deployed by the nation state to enact its own interests, in conversation with local considerations. Emphasis falls on the performative roles of economic models and spatial-economic imaginaries in consolidating and legitimising region-building efforts and the strategies and tactics employed by advocates to gain credibility and traction for their chosen imaginaries. We focus on the Sheffield City Region and Doncaster within it (South Yorkshire, England) drawing on 56 in-depth interviews with local policymakers, civic institutions and private sector stakeholders conducted between 2015 and 2018. In doing so, we identify three overlapping phases in the building of the Sheffield City Region: a period of initial case-making to build momentum behind the Sheffield City Region imaginary; a second of concerted challenge from alternative imaginaries; and a third where the Sheffield City Region was co-constituted alongside the dominant alternative One Yorkshire imaginary. Our work suggests that the city-region imaginary has gained traction and sustained momentum as national interests have closed down local resistance to the Sheffield City Region. This has momentarily locked local authorities into a preferred model of city-regional devolution but, in playing its hand, central government has exposed city-region building as a precarious fix where alternative imaginaries simply constitute a ‘deferred problem’ for central government going forward.

City-region governance in transitional contexts: the case of the BRICS

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
Philip Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Extended Period ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
City Region ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Abstract The bulk of the scholarly literature on city-regions and their governance is drawn from contexts where economic and political systems have been stable over an extended period. However, many parts of the world, including all countries in the BRICS, have experienced far-reaching national transformations in the recent past in economic and/or political systems. The national transitions are complex, with a mix of continuity and rupture, while their translation into the scale of the city-region is often indirect. But, these transitions have been significant for the city-region, providing a period of opportunity and institutional fluidity. Studies of the BRICS show that outcomes of transitions are varied but that there are junctures of productive comparison including the ways in which the nature of the transitions create new path dependencies, and way in which interests across territorial scales soon consolidate, producing new rigidities in city-region governance.

City regions and the cities within them: Connecting two overlapping scales

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-98
Author(s):  
John Sturzaker ◽  
Alexander Nurse
Keyword(s):  
City Region ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The City ◽  
Collective Goals ◽  
Regional Agenda

This chapter charts the demise of the regional agenda and the shift towards city-regional thinking which has underpinned much of the recent devolution agenda. Considering the similarities to the metropolitan architecture of the 70s and 80s, this discusses the emergence of Local Enterprise Partnerships through to Combined Authorities. This sets the scene for a broader discussion of the Devolution Deals being agreed at the city region level. In doing so, the chapter takes a broader look at how city regions function and, in particular, how districts can cooperate towards collective goals. This draws down recent examples from the emerging devolution deals, including how new metro-mayors are exercising their powers within their city regions, as well as lessons that can be learnt from the now nearly 20-year-old London Mayoral post.

The new political economy of city-regionalism: renewed steps in Glasgow

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
David Waite
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Local Control ◽  
City Region ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Dominant Theme ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
The City

The resurgence of city-regionalism has been a dominant theme in sub-national policymaking over the last decade. Underpinned by narratives of growth engines waiting to be unlocked through greater local control coupled with targeted interventions, city-regions are now a privileged spatial arena in the UK for seeking economic development agreements with higher orders of government. This chapter brings into focus Glasgow’s experience of city-regionalism and notably the re-emphasis brought about by the City Deal. In doing this, multiple political tensions hinging on a series of local, national and UK-wide relationships are sketched out. The chapter - in referencing the wider city-region literature and taking cognisance of the local post-industrial trajectory - poses a series of considerations concerning how and in what form city-regionalism may evolve in Glasgow.

scholarly journals State-rescaling and re-designing the material city-region: Tensions of disruption and continuity in articulating the future of Greater Manchester

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Hodson ◽  
Andrew McMeekin ◽  
Julie Froud ◽  
Michael Moran
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
City Region ◽  
National Space ◽  
Future Design ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The City

In a context of globalisation, the emergence of city-regions and the politics and dynamics of their constitution has been debated for almost two decades. Recent writings have extended this focus to seeing city-regions as a geopolitical project of late capitalism where the state takes a critical role in the re-design of city-regions to make them amenable to international competition and to secure strategic inward investments in the built environment and infrastructure. We explore this issue in the context of state redesign of sub-national space in England and focus on Greater Manchester, as the de facto exemplar of ‘devolution’ to English city-regions. We argue that though re-scaling in Greater Manchester is a long-term historical process this has been punctuated by the UK state’s process of ‘devolution’ since 2014, this has involved a re-design and formalisation of Greater Manchester’s governing arrangements. It has also involved invoking a long dormant role for city-regional planning in articulating the future design of the material city-region over the next two decades as an attempt to formalise and continue a pre-existing, spatially selective growth trajectory by new means. Yet, the disruption of new hard governing arrangements also provides challenges to that trajectory. This produces tensions between, on the one hand, the pursuit of a continuity politics of growth through agglomeration, material transformation of the city-region and narrow forms of urban governance and, on the other hand, a more disruptive politics of the future of the city-region, its material transformation and how it is governed. These tensions are producing new political possibilities and spaces in the transformation of Greater Manchester. The implications of this are discussed.

scholarly journals Growth, exclusion and vulnerability: evaluation of the socio-spatial transformation of post-apartheid Pretoria-Tshwane (South Africa)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Horn
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Current Approach ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
Spatial Integration ◽  
City Region ◽  
African City ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The City

Apartheid left South African city regions with two major challenges: social integration at a city level and spatial integration at a regional level. The task to finds solutions to these problems was left to municipalities, the lowest level of the three trier government system introduced after 1994. This article critically evaluates the success of the post-apartheid municipal government of Pretoria-Tshwane to address the said challenges in the reorganization of the city region over a 25-year period. The paper starts with a reconstruction of the apartheid city to display its socio-spatial contrasts and to define the challenge of integration and compaction. The investigation is based on literature, census information and observation. The main finding is that the progress made with the integration of the city at both scales is being neutralized by demographic trends, choice of association, urban sprawl, uncertain management, the scale of aspirations, unrealistic expectations and, most of all, municipal incapacity. The failure of the local government of Pretoria-Tshwane to achieve the said goals points to the inefficiency of the current approach that obligates municipalities with the complete task to rectify the dichotomies of the apartheid city system within their regions.  It is advocated that additional governmental entities be implemented to support local governments with the planning and re-development of post-apartheid city-regions.

scholarly journals Da metrópole à cidade-região: na direção de um novo arranjo espacial metropolitano?

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Nunes Coelho Magalhães
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Spatial Process ◽  
City Region ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Industrial City ◽  
Time Compression ◽  
Planning Framework ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

Este artigo tem como objetivo abordar a configuração da cidade-região – enquanto um ente geográfico em processo de fortalecimento – e os processos socioespaciais diversos que a compõem. A cidade-região é entendida como a área metropolitana mais concisa somada de seu entorno imediato, incluindo uma série de centralidades de pequeno e médio porte no alcance dos processos de metropolização. A urbanização extensiva é um processo socioespacial chave por trás da formação da cidade-região, que também se relaciona à compressão espaço-temporal presente de forma heterogênea nestas regiões urbanizadas. Privilegia-se uma perspectiva teórica acerca do tema, propondo uma morfologia da cidade-região, visando esclarecer sua relação com os processos econômico-espaciais contemporâneos (sobretudo no que diz respeito à restruturação produtiva). Dois elementos territoriais principais compõem esta extensão do tecido urbano para além das áreas metropolitanas: a exopolis e a cidade industrial pós-fordista. O regionalismo competitivo se manifesta neste contexto como uma prática hegemônica de planejamento, tanto na escala regional quanto na escala das diversas localidades inseridas neste processo.Palavras-chave: cidade-região; pós-fordismo; expansão metropolitana; urbanização extensiva; condições gerais de produção Abstract: This article summarizes a theoretical discussion on the formation of the city-region (as a privileged spatial scale) and the social spatial processes behind it. The city-region is here understood as the more concise metropolitan area added to its immediate hinterland, included as an outer ring in the reach of contemporary metropolization processes. The concept of extended urbanization is a key social spatial process behind the formation of city-regions, which also relates to the space-time compression which manifests itself heterogeneously across these urbanized regions. Two major territorial elements are at the forefront of the production of space in these areas: the exopolis and the post-fordist industrial city – and both these elements need a certain level of physical proximity to the metropolitan core. This new spatial fix inserts itself in the contemporary race towards territorial entrepreneurialism, in two major trends: a competitive regionalism, which involves city-regions competing with one another in the global scale; and with places inside these areas also inserting themselves in the strategic planning framework. Keywords: city-region; post-fordism; metropolitan expansion; extended urbanization; general conditions of production.

scholarly journals Priority sectors in city regions? Some issues from a study of the Cardiff Capital Region

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 576-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Crawley ◽  
Max Munday
Keyword(s):  
City Region ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Capital Region ◽  
Functional Regions ◽  
Economic Development Policy ◽  
Special Support ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

The City Region is becoming the spatial focus for economic development policy across many parts of the European continent. But these functional regions have taken on a new impetus in the UK with the introduction of ‘city deals’ aimed at improving network and coordination of actors in local authorities. One of the goals of city regions is to improve industrial policy particularly lacking since the abolition of many of the Regional Development Agencies across the UK. However, city regions in developing policy appear to be following in an unquestioning manner the industrial priorities of earlier institutions, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of the identification of priority industry development sectors. Too often the selection of industries and clusters for special support has been undertaken in an unquestioning manner. In this paper we focus on the case of the Cardiff Capital Region. We review approaches to identify priority sectors in this case and the problems associated with this policy approach.

Spatial inequality in the city-regions in the Yangtze River Valley, China

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 672-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Li ◽  
Yehua Dennis Wei ◽  
Elfie Swerts
Keyword(s):  
Yangtze River ◽  
Yangtze River Valley ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Spatial Inequality ◽  
The Yangtze River ◽  
City Region ◽  
Spatial Form ◽  
State Sector ◽  
City Regions ◽  
The City

The city-region has emerged as an important scale of state spatial strategy in China to promote equitable and sustainable development. This study investigates the spatial inequality of city-regions in the Yangtze River Valley (YRV) in terms of population, land, GDP and productivity, and examines changing patterns and factors of GDP per capita. We find that the spatial form of the YRV is typical of city-regions in China, where population density and productivity around mega-cities are much higher and decline from the low to the middle and upper reaches of the YRV. We also find that inequality across city-regions is high, and that most inequality is due to differences within city-regions. We find that the YRV is driven by capital-intensive and labour-intensive growth, with an emerging significance of productivity. Our analysis reveals the significance of institutional factors, including the processes of marketisation, globalisation, decentralisation and urbanisation in regional development. Moreover, the importance of the non-state sector in economic growth has been increasing, while the role of globalisation has been declining.

scholarly journals Yudicial Review of Teacher’s Certification Implementation in Magelang City

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 667-672
Author(s):  
Sri Mulyani ◽  
Wahyu Prabowo
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Certification ◽  
Central Government ◽  
School Teacher ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Primary School Teacher ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The City ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Regional Governments

This study aims to analyze the suitability between the implementation of primary school teacher certification policies with the laws and regulations in the city of Magelang. This study used a qualitative research method by conducting in-depth interviews, observation and documentation of research objects with data analysis techniques with interactive models proposed by Milles, Huberman and Saldana. The results of the analysis show that (1) Structural analysis shows that the implementation of the Teacher Certification Policy involves many organizations from the central government to regional governments with greater authority to the central government than regional governments, 2) Substance Analysis shows that the contents and material of the policy are not entirely applicable in the regions because there are variations in the conditions of schools and teachers in each district and city. Therefore, we need policies that specifically regulate the implementation of teacher certification policies in the regions. 3) Cultural analysis shows that there is no rejection of policy implementation due to the provision of professional allowances for teachers who have received an educator certificate. However, equity is needed in determining the quota of teachers receiving education certificates in order to meet the principles of justice and equity.

scholarly journals Auckland Council: is it too big to last?

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Central Government ◽  
City Region ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Reserve Bank ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
The City ◽  
Migration And Development

Auckland is a city-region under intense political pressure. Migration and development are transforming streetscapes and communities. Local government has to plan and budget for significant investments in infrastructure as the city grows, and there is no strategy that pleases all sectors of residents at once. Property owners love their rising asset wealth, but central government is under pressure to address homelessness and home affordability. The Reserve Bank and the Treasury, moreover, watch Auckland’s over-heated housing market nervously, as it poses risk to the whole economy (Makhlouf, 2016). 

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