Short description:

This book makes a new contributution to the current lively debate on city regional governance, offering a genuinely comparative approach, covering Europe (East and West) and North America, and thus different ?cultures? of city regionalism.

Long description:

This book investigates the ways in which city regions view themselves as single entities, how they are governed, what is meant by ?governance?, why the question of city-regional governance matters, and the extent to which the balance between internal and external factors is important for finding governance solutions. Examples from North America and Europe are compared and contrasted to gain a better understanding of what matters ?on the ground? to people and policy makers when seeking answers to the challenges of a globalised, rapidly changing world.

In order to analyse the conditions involved in making local decisions, the author looks at the impact of established policy-making practices, socio-economic patterns among the population, existing views of the ?local? and the ?regional? and their respective roles among the electorate and policy makers, and the scope for building city-regional governance under given statutory and fiscal provisions. The complex interaction of these factors is shown to produce place-specific forms and modi operandi for governing city regions as local-regional constructs.

This book will be of interest to urban and regional policy makers and scholars working in the fields of economic geography and political geography.

?This integrated volume addresses the increasingly important issue of city region governance through a structured and methodical framework, drawing on genuinely comparative practice and perspective from North America and Europe. It is a very welcome addition to the literature.? Mike Danson, Heriot-Watt University, UK

?Few things are as important today as creating new ways to address challenges to metropolitan sustainability and survival. This book lends a strong hand to the work of practitioners and scholars concerned with how metropolitan regions make progress towards creating sustainable, livable, and governable city regions.? Ethan Seltzer, Portland State University, USA

?If regions were the spatial focus during the 1990s, the new millennium has seen city-regions emerge as the critical site for harnessing economic competitiveness. Herrschel?s latest book presents a unique take on the governance of these city-regions, navigating as it does the different cultures of city-regionalism which has seen the decentralisation of socioeconomic decision-making and policy implementation to city-regional level institutions, frameworks and supports take on different forms throughout Europe and North America. In particular, Herrschel should be commended for tackling head on the challenging issue of the role that is played by the (nation-)state in formulating the conditions under which city-regions can form, operate, and govern.? John Harrison, Loughborough University, UK

Table of Contents:

1. Cities Between State and Globalization: Towards city-regional governance  2. Defining City Regions: Cities between urban and state theories  3. Cities and the Global: Changing relationship between ?inside? and ?outside?  4. Cities, City Regions and the State: Locating trans-local governance  5. City-Regional Governance: Between state hierarchy and ?inter-local assemblages?  6. City-Regional Governance as Product of Impetus, Milieu and Structure: Comparing Policies  7. Conclusions