European Cities in a Networked World during the Long 20th Century

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the contemporary revival of European municipalism should be examined within the rich context of the ‘long’ 20th century and the many and varied links forged between municipalities across national borders. In the first two sections we trace the emergence of the networked European municipality from the ad hoc individual connections made during the final decades of the 19th century, through the golden age of municipal internationalism during the interwar years, to the intensive cross-national cooperation pursued in the aftermath of the Second World War. We argue that the historical experience of these municipal connections was an essential prerequisite of the long-term move towards the multilevel networking experienced by European municipalities today. In the final section we focus on Eurocities, the main European municipal lobby group since the late 1980s, to show how municipalities have continued to utilise networking as their main tool within a supranational Europe, in effect to reinvent themselves within a globalised postindustrial economy.

Town Twinning in Cold-War Britain: (Dis)continuities in Twentieth-Century Municipal Internationalism

“…The exception here is Ewen and Hebbert's research on interurban networking during the long twentieth century 21 -to which we return below -and a small literature on town twinning in post- In this respect, the first part of the argument presented in this paper supplements that of Ewen and Hebbert when they place contemporary municipal internationalism in the context of the long twentieth century and view this historical experience as an 'essential prerequisite' of today's multilevel networking. 32 The second part of the argument is that, while more continuities can be found in twentieth-century municipal internationalism than is often acknowledged -including a desire on the part of local authority members and officers for peace, understanding, knowledge, know-how, and local welfare -significant discontinuities can also be found in twentieth-century municipal internationalism that relate to national and international politics which provide an opportunity structure for local desires, interests, and practices. and less relaxed about town twinning and more and more active in the promotion of certain forms of town twinning over others.…”

Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945

“…There has been next to nothing published on town twinning by geographers since 1991 (though see Clarke 2010aClarke , 2010b. The same cannot be said for other disciplines where a literature does exist on town twinning and related fields such as municipal internationalism (Ewen and Hebbert 2007), municipal diplomacy (Hobbs 1994, Kincaid 1989, Kirby et al 1995, Shuman 1986-87, 1992, and municipal exchange (Bontenbal and Lindert 2009, Hewitt 1996, Shuman 1994. In particular, a few historians have studied the ideals and institutions of post-war town twinning in Western Europe (Campbell 1987, Vion 2002.…”

Actually Existing Comparative Urbanism: Imitation and Cosmopolitanism in North-south Interurban Partnerships

“…But this activity has been heightened since at least the nineteenth century when European colonialism placed cities as sites of encounter between different planning cultures or sites of production for new planning 5 knowledge and techniques (King 2004, McFarlane 2008. It has been heightened again since the late nineteenth century and the birth of relatively organised and formalised municipal internationalism (Ewen and Hebbert 2007, Rodgers 1998, Saunier 2001 (Saunier 2002).…”