Metropolitan Governance

DOCUMENTS

URBACT Results Brochure  Read more
URBACT Tribune 2011 dedicated to Local Support Groups  Read more
Final Publication - URBACT Cities facing the Crisis - Impact and Responses  Read more
The URBACT Tribune 2010  Read more
URBACT Citylab on 'Managing metropolitan areas across boundaries and frontiers' - Synthetic Report  Read more
City-hinterland co-operations. A challenge to accomplish in urban agglomerations made worse by the crisis  Read more
Methods of Governance across any framework: City-Region as “Marble Cake”  Read more
"Synthesis of Baseline Studies of the URBACT projects focusing on 'Metropolitan Governance'  Read more

Metropolitan Governance




The theme of metropolitan governance is particularly important within the European balanced polycentric urban model. Many of the challenges facing cities today – for example relating to the environment, transport and travel to work areas – cannot be solved by cities working alone. Metropolitan areas provide the greatest opportunities for economic growth whilst simultaneously throwing down the biggest challenges to the established European urban model.

 The recent DG Regio report, Cities of Tomorrow , stresses the importance of cities pursuing a harmonious development with their surrounding regions. It is clear that achieving the EU’s 2020 vision of smart, green and inclusive growth will rely upon sophisticated and effective metropolitan governance models.

 From 2008 the URBACT projects working on metropolitan governance focused on understanding and implementing models of governance and finance that work best in these areas:  

 JOINING FORCES (2008-2010) and CityRegion.Net (2008-July 2011) projects were linked by addressing a common problem albeit at a different scale.  Whereas JOINING FORCES addressed issues arising in large scalemetropoles which frequently cross national and regional boundaries, CityRegion.Net focused on smaller core cities surrounded by hinterlands under different jurisdictions.

 NeT-TOPIC (2008-July 2011) examined how intermediate urban areas can seek to create a stronger identity in relation to their metropolitan core city.  A classic example of this would be the relationship between Salford and Manchester.

 LUMASEC (2008-2010) worked to examine strategic land-use management as a means of intervention on a regional-city level particularly to address supra-local challenges such as land allocation for economic development impacting on the local level.

 NODUS (2008-2010) project looked to develop appropriate planning tools and support effective integrated policy-making.

 EGTC (2008-2010) focused on how to develop efficient and effective governance models to face the particular challenge of managing cross-border metropolitan areas.

 1. Articles on metropolitan governance

2. URBACT reports and papers on metropolitan governance

3. Upcoming events

 1. Articles on metropolitan governance

'City-hinterland co-operations. A challenge to accomplish in urban agglomerations made worse by the crisis', by Bernd Gassler of CityRegion.Net (January 2010).

 


1. Articles on metropolitan governance
2. URBACT reports and papers on metropolitan governance
3. Upcoming events



1. Articles on metropolitan governance

This paper explores how the vertical cooperation between the state, the region and municipalities can be improved by exploring the potential models that have already been tested in European conurbations.

This article contrasts the so-called marble cake model of governance in which competences are mixed up in a swirling manner with the rigid hierarchical allocation of competences assumed in more defined systems.

Paper on the need for integrated policies in the context of economic crisis and the new challenges of territorial governance in European cities and regions. It tackles the issues of the territorial consequences of the economic crisis, radical change in territorial governance and finance and the need for a sustainable territorial governance on macro-regional, macro-national, regional,  metropolitan, sub-regional and local levels.

2. URBACT reports and papers on metropolitan governance

Final Reports

Final publication joining all the experiences of the Net-Topic partnership. The document starts from an introduction to the thematic network and the themes and main challenges of Net-Topic (grouped in three fields: urban fragmentation and obsolete and abandoned industrial areas, identity and multifunctionality, and metropolitan governance). The core part of the document is dedicated to main findings of the project on how to become a "new" city through consolidating and building identity and centrality, renovating the physical space and the urban fabric inherited from the past, and considering how to deal with the metropolitan context from the perspective of the periphery. Finally, the report presents the conclusions and final guidelines, as well as an overview of how Local Action Plans in each of the partner cities reach the network's themes and issues.

Joining forces has explored how strategy-making and governance arrangements at the city-region level can help to address effectively the main challenges faced by urban Europe: competitiveness, cohesion and sustainability. Metropolitan areas or city-regions are increasingly recognised, even by many local authorities, as the 3real city3 level, the right one for designing and implementing more effective development strategies and governance mechanisms. Achieving successful cooperation between cities and their surrounding areas is obviously crucial to improve local cohesion, but even more to increase territorial competitiveness and sustainability.

The project ran from 2008 to 2010.  The Lead Partner was Lille Metropole -   (France), other partners included City of Burgas (Bulgaria) City of Brno (Czech Republic) Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) Eindhoven (Netherlands)City of Florence (Italy) Krakow (Institute of Urban Development) (Poland) and the City of Seville (Spain).
 
The project asked what mechanisms are being or can be developed at the city-regional level.  
This question was explored across seven themes:
- Strategic and Spatial Planning
- Mobility management and Transport
- Main environmental issues: air and noise pollution, waste disposal, water supply, etc.
- Knowledge economy (Creativity, Research & Education)
- Private sector involvement in metropolitan Governance (public/private arrangements)
- Social inclusion, participation and empowerment
- Attractiveness & competitiveness (including Promotion / Marketing)

LUMASEC -'Land Use Management for Sustainable European Cities'-  has been working on issues of strategic land use management which is a key topic for competitiveness, attractiveness and sustainability of European city-regions. The project argues that the definition of strategies of land use implementation has been limited, and therefore the recycling processes of urban brownfields are inefficient. Strategic planning is mostly unable to manage land use and one result is growing sprawl.

LUMASEC has attempted to fix this problem by focusing on both the strategic level  planning methods and the operational level of land use management and has developed a four-level model which involves intervention across three conceptual layers: 'capacity', 'governance' and 'spatial pattern', all built on a fourth 'real world' layer.  (see figure 1 below)

Figure 1: LUMASEC four-level model

Level 4 Capacity:  Participation of inhabitants and other non-professional stakeholders; awareness and political backup for land use and its management; competences to deal with complex problems and tools at both the policy and administrative level)  
Level 3 Governance: Stakeholders involved (e.g. private sector, civil society), structures, processes and tools of governance; metropolitan governance at a higher level than the individual municipality
Level 2 Spatial patterns: Mapping existing patterns; getting an overview on development potentials; traditional land use planning (e.g. building permits and spatial policies)
Level 1 The real world: Creating an image of the reality by different professions; mapping indicators and competences; getting and sharing an understanding of the use of land; setting up a management approach by intervention on different layers


The LUMASEC  approach is to start with the strategy rather than with the individual site.  They use the skills of different professions to create an integrated image of the reality – mapping structures, identifying the need for land-use tools, involving stakeholders. They take this approach instead of starting with each individual project. Their method of identifying integrated financial tools also helps to push towards integrated thinking. However, the final result must be the actual development of individual project sites. This model has been developed and tested with five partner cities in the project which were Bristol, Baia Mare, Kavala, Epures and Bytom.  

The approach could be a way forward in the current financial crisis where it is increasingly difficult to find private investors, especially as they are only interested in individual projects, and will never finance overall strategies. The public sector thus needs to create the link between projects and counter-balance financing, giving more to those areas where less private money is available.

LUMASEC offers a tried and tested approach to organise land use in a better way.  They have written a book to celebrate the completion of the project and to disseminate the results to other cities.  The book is published by CERTU, the French scientific and technical network, dealing with urban issues.  


NODUS has focused on the links between regional governance, spatial planning and urban regeneration in its two year long work. The aim has been to improve the coordination between these policies, in order to achieve more balanced urban development at supra-local (regional or city) level. NODUS aimed to investigate planning policy and how the governance system which can play a decisive role in the steering of local area-based urban renewal programmes and projects.
 
NODUS had a large diversity in its partners which enabled the project to look at the regional and city levels. Three partners were regions Catalunya, Emilia-Romagna and Mazovia, while the others four partners were cities Amsterdam, Katowice, Alba Iulia, and Dobrich.  

The NODUS framework

The broad framework for NODUS is based on linking regional level strategic planning with area-based urban renewal policy. NODUS work contains the following four stages:

Stage 1: multi-level government cooperation model for determining regional level planning and renewal policies ideally organised at the city-region or metropolitan level.

Stage 2: methods to identify and select deprived areas, dependent on the aims of urban renewal and the strategic plan towards renewal. This relies on high quality spatial data available at granular levels (city block, street)

Stage 3: possible approaches to achieve the social goal (sectoral and area-based policies), including the content of integrated urban renewal activities

Stage 4: evaluating the outcomes on regional level to achieve territorial balance and greater effects for the whole area.  

The book produced by NODUS covers the four parts of their approach.  Chapter 1 sets out the theoretical framework.  Chapter 2 goes on to explore the administrative, planning and policy framework.  Chapter 3 looks at the identification and selection of deprived areas.  Chapter 4 looks at the content of the policy in area based interventions and chapter 5 explores how to monitor the results of interventions. 

EGTC have produced a CD rom titled: 'Cross border agglomerations towards a better governance' to coincide with their final conference meeting held on 6th and 7th May 2010 in  Esztergom, Hungary.  The same content can be found at their URBACT minisite and includes:
- EGTC (May 2010) European Action Plan. This paper sets out the EGTC findings on how   governance can be organised for conurbations that cross borders.
- EGTC (May 2010) Handbook on the Governance of Cross-Border Conurbations.  This handbook is targeted at practitioners and policy makers who wish to develop better cross border governance for conurbations.
- EGTC (May 2010) Final Conference – Presentation of the Final Results.


Thematic Reports/Papers

This thematic publication gives a conceptual framework of the seminar theme. It shares experiences of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Haidari and Kladno on building new urban identities, giving a short report from the working session among the cities. The publication sums up the main findings and discoveries derived from the seminar.

The report consists of  papers by: David Ludlow (UWE, Bristol) on Governance of sustainable land use management; Brian Field (The European Investment Bank)  on JESSICA Strategy: An Instrument to Finance Integrated Urban  Development; Professor Katie Williams (UWE, Bristol), on Brownfield Policy in England; Sarah O' Driscoll (Bristol City Council) and Michael Reep (North Somerset Council) on Sustainable Land Use – making it happen locally and a paper by David Ludlow (UWE, Bristol) and Didier Vancutsem (LUMASEC Lead Expert) on Recommendations for Local Authorities.

This thematic publication gives a conceptual framework of the seminar theme. It tackles urban fragmentation and urban cohesion in the NeT-TOPIC cities (Siemianowice Slaskie, Barakaldo, Sesto San Giovanni). It sums up the main findings and conclusions derived from the seminar.

Before the start of the seminar, this document circulated among the participants having the function of a real "framework" ensuring a clear focus of the seminar. The paper reflects the work carried out by the participant cities in the construction of new identities. They are addressing several questions-dilemmas with the aim to define the strategies for building new identities and new city models.

A paper on theoretic approaches of the participatory process in land use management. It gives a detailed description of a participatory process model and a review of the participatory process of urban planning in Greece. The report contains the  Synthesis of "INVOLVING PEOPLE" practices around the LUMASEC partner cities and their SWOT analysis.

This is a seminar report prepared by the lead expert from the event held in Florence from 16 to 18 February 2009. The objective of the seminar in Florence was to examine roles and instruments of governance in the field of transport as a characteristic public function carried out at city-region scale, while highlighting the linkage between the basic profile of Joining Forces and transport as general topics. Author portrays the close connection between mobility and transport by emphasizing the fact that daily functioning of large urban areas is very much depending on public transport, and that public transport is strongly influenced both in terms of efficiency and competitiveness by the structural organisation of urban areas. Representatives of eight partners present at the seminar were asked to prepare reports from their cities/regions covering the following topics: Main characteristics of transport management at the city-region level; Forms of governance in transport management at the city-region scale; Public transports: tools of city-region development; Citizens' (consumers') and stakeholders' participation in the governance of transport at the city-region scale. These reports are included in the seminar report, followed by the programme and the summary of the seminar, as well as the summary of the meeting with Florence's Local Support Group.

Didier Vancutsem outlines a European Framework for land use management, followed by a presentation of Municipality of Bytom on wide range of information necessary for sustainable land use management. The paper also presents the work of Natasa Pichler-Milanovíc of Ljubljana University on occurrence and mechanisms of urban sprawl and four case studies exchanging knowledge between LUMASEC partners.

Working document prepared by Lead Expert from the seminar held in Eindhoven from 29 to 31 October 2008, presenting an overview of frames and processes of strategic and spatial planning, as well as options for future development within the eight partner cities and city regions. At the seminar, partners have been invited to answer questions on the existence of a framework (legal or administrative) of strategic and spatial planning within their structures, on the awareness of the need to work at this level and existence of political will regarding this, and on the existence of practice in this field. The report gives an overview of the answers to these questions, as well as a run-up of the programme of the seminar, visits organized during the three-day event, and the meeting with Eindhoven's Local Support Group.

The baseline study of the project focused on the role of cities in integrated regional development. With the main objective of the network defined as elaboration of working programmes and policy recommendations for improving the cooperation between cities and their surrounding municipalities, the study begins with an overview of partner cities and regions presenting their general characteristics and key challenges, and a brief overview of existing strategies on integrated city-surroundings development. The central part of the study is dedicated to the expectations of partner cities and regions, the exchange issues and benefits from exchanges, as well as description of intended outputs and description of actions that will lead to desired outputs. Issues also addressed in the study include the creation of the local action plans (through a roundup of topics for the plans) and local support groups (through instructions on its composition and tasks). Finally, attention is addressed to the working methodology and the involvement of partners. Overall, the issues that would be addressed within the network are grouped into two clusters: Planning tools and financing instruments for a sustainable city-hinterland development and Regional structures as basis for a successful cooperation.

An annex to the Baseline study presenting a framework of key words, concepts and overall background to the creation of the network. In all, the author introduce us to the notions of regional policy and its key objectives, relations between cohesion policy and cities, city and region, sustainable urban development, participation, networks, experience exchanges and means of financing urban renewal. Several examples of projects linking cities and surroundings and overall development of the two are listed in key detail.


3. Upcoming events

  • NET TOPIC: Final Conference, L'Hospitalet, 2-3 March 2011
  • CITY REGIONS NET: Final Conference, Graz, 6-8 April 2011