Spatial reconfiguration and problems of governance in urban regions of Europe

Abstract

Since the 1980s under the challenges of globalisation, de-industrialisation and tertiarisation European urban regions are changing their traditional urban fabric and pattern and their economic orientation. Fragmented structures and the rise of advanced business related services are to be observed in most urban agglomerations. The traditional core-periphery pattern of the “urban continuum” turned into an urban patchwork, in which peripherical locations were upgraded and now host some of the most active economic functions of the city regions. The liberalization of regulated social and economic systems, the opening of national boundaries, the globalization of economic and social networks in functional supra local interdependencies, and the acceleration by informational technologies changed the spectrum of urban governance in a complex fabric of non-local and local interferences. Privatization and deregulation of public policies created new action spaces for economic and social actors in the private sector. Also within the domain of the public sector, tendencies of differentiating the proactive role of national government in the intergovernmental relationships – via simultaneous processes of decentralization and internationalization – created a new multi level arena of public governance, which involves all governmental levels of scale in the making of urban policies. Thus, the clear single dominancy of central government of the welfare society disappeared and changed into a plethora of intergovernmental relationships.This article gives a short overview on these spatial and political tendencies. It also moderates the following articles, which are more or less related to the knowledge created by the EU-project COMET – Competitive Metropolises, realised in the 5th Framework Programme.

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