scholarly journals The networked economy of firms in city-region peripheries

2020 ◽  
pp. 096977642097584
Author(s):  
Jacob Salder
Keyword(s):  
City Region ◽  
Regional Geography ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Spatial Economy ◽  
Administrative Units ◽  
Networked Economy ◽  
Networks Of Practice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

City-regions have become a core unit of analysis for spatial economy, providing an explicit link between bounded administrative units and more networked spaces of production. Too often, however, such analysis is focused on the core of the city-region, applying presumptions of gravity-based agglomeration. This paper examines these networked spaces of production from the city-region periphery, using a firm-based approach as critical determinants of spatial economy via their key interactions. Focused on the Greater Birmingham city-region, UK, the paper explores the integration of city-regional geography with firm-based networked economy. In doing so, it applies a set of networks of practice, focused on firms’ factored, transactional, and transitional dependencies. Using these networks of practice, it critically analyses the spaces of production formed through firm-based interactions, and their concomitance with city-regional designations. It makes two key contributions. First, it enhances the call for greater understanding of the relationship between core and periphery in the context of city-regions. Second, it argues that network-based approaches, which form spatial economy around firm interactions over administrative configurations, offer useful insight into understanding firm–place relationships which more conventional place-based approaches cannot.

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.

scholarly journals Representing ‘Place’: City Climate Commissions and the Institutionalisation of Experimental Governance in Edinburgh

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Creasy ◽  
Matthew Lane ◽  
Alice Owen ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Dan Van der Horst
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Key Industries ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

Against the backdrop of increasingly fragmented and poly-centric urban climate governance, this article examines the establishment of city climate ‘commissions’ as an experimental means of addressing the challenge of climate change at the city-scale. In doing so it addresses the question: What constitutes diversity in voices and perspectives when trying to represent the city as a place for climate action? To answer this question, the article presents an analysis of the Edinburgh Climate Commission’s establishment, drawing on participatory ethnographic research carried out by a researcher embedded within the project team. The account of how this new mode of urban governance was both conceptualised and then put into practice offers a new institutional angle to the literature on urban ‘experimentation.’ Through our reflective analysis we argue that aspirations to ensure pre-defined ‘key’ industries (high carbon emitters) are accounted for in commissioner recruitment, and an over-emphasis on capturing discernible ‘impacts’ in the short term (by involving organisations already pro-active in sustainable development) hindered an opportunity to embrace new perspectives on urban futures and harness the innovative potential of cities to engage with the multifaceted nature of the climate challenge. Furthermore, new insight into the relationship between local authorities and other ‘place-based’ agents of change opens up important questions regarding how to balance the attainment of legitimacy within the political status quo, and the prospect of a new radical politics for urban transformation.

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.

Infrastructure, City-Region Development, and Africa's Territorial Spaces

2019 ◽  
pp. 186-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Innocent Chirisa ◽  
Gift Mhlanga ◽  
Abraham Rajab Matamanda
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
National Level ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
City Region ◽  
Good Case ◽  
City Regions ◽  
Management And Development ◽  
Development And Management ◽  
The City ◽  
Broad Understanding

The chapter seeks to investigate, explore, and document the management and development of infrastructure in city-regions within the context of Africa. The specific objectives guiding the chapter are to explore the significance of the city-region concept in Africa, to examine the state of and approaches to infrastructure development in selected city-regions in Africa, to assess the approaches that have been used to facilitate the success of the such city-regions as the Gauteng in South Africa with regards infrastructure development and management, and to draw the lessons and positive implications for planned infrastructure development in city-regions in Africa. Hence, the Gauteng City Region provides a good case because the city-region is of utmost significance to the local, regional and national level. Specifically, data were gathered through a desktop approach wherein various plans and city visions will be critically analyzed to have a broad understanding of the issues on the ground.

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