Urban Regional Guidance and Urban Regional Guidance and Management Structures:Management Structures:

a precondition for the competitiveness of metropolitan a precondition for the competitiveness of metropolitan regionsregions

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:

‘body’ that enables regional actors to insti-tutionalize and consolidate management-, development- and marketing- activities on the actual (and potential) functional city-regional scale

... to create a quasi-regional administrative

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.)

Vision&

Strategy

PrivateSector

Performance

LeadershipPolitical supportSocietal support

spatio-economic conditions

PublicSector

More city-regional co-operation and co-ordinationembedded 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-govern- ment)

• 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 city-regional co-operation / co-ordination:

• central government/ federal government (interested in modernisising administrative structures in metropolitan areas / expect to permit greater control over the local level)• core cities (in periods of losing economic capacity, population, and revenues)

Proponents Opponents

• central government/ federal government (fear creating a potential within the state which would change the existing geography of power)

• core cities (in periods of economic prosperity)• suburban governments / outlying communities (fear losing power, influence, func- tions and revenues)

Proponents and Opponents of city-regional co-operation / co-ordination:

• Industrie and its actors (interested in simplifying political and administrative structures, and specific location systems)

• Professionally involved actors (with specific objectives and inte- rests on new sales and advertising markets)

Proponents 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)

• Experts (critisize new structures as democrati- cally 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, Kommunalver- band Ruhr, Dublin Regional Authority)

On the hard way to city-regional organizing capacities:

- a photo 2001 -

RheinRuhr Paris

London

Dublin

1990 ?

??

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)