Governing the Metropolis: An International Review of Metropolitanisation, Metropolitan Governance and the Relationship with Sustainable Land Management

Abstract

Recent research has identified the potential of the metropolitan scale, and indeed metropolitan bodies, in achieving greater coordination and more effective land-use management. In this paper, we have undertaken a systematic scoping review of the English-language literature (2014–2019) on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance, with a view to understanding the potential relationship with more sustainable land management. Our scoping review identified several dominant trends within current research on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance illustrating the complexity between sustainable land management and issues of territorial politics, resourcing, and power relations. The centrality of collaborative working relationships in supporting sustainable land management is identified, yet collaboration and effective metropolitan scale governance is not always an easy task or readily implemented. The paper identifies a series of challenges and concludes that while there is general consensus that the metropolitan arena may be an appropriate scale through which to support more sustainable land management, there is no agreement on the mechanisms to enable this. Steering and more strongly directing metropolitanisation processes through either formal metropolitan governance structures or other tools could provide a potential approach but will require significant adaptation in power and funding structures.

Towards balanced regional attractiveness in Ireland

“…Adopting a framework for multi-level engagement which is collaborative and empowering (see Table 3.3) and embedding it in every level from the earliest stage of the policy cycle can help to bridge this gap. Indeed, actors should be engaged from the earliest stage of problem identification and empowered to develop solutions together with the various levels of government (Moore-Cherry et al, 2022 [51]). While the Irish country context has enjoyed the benefit of informal cooperation to date, this has also resulted in this asymmetric working relationship.…”

“…The regional role is especially vital as Ireland undergoes an industrial and a spatial transformation, with a decline in the agricultural sector and increased urbanisation. This necessitates a more bottom-up approach to planning that connects the realities and impacts of industrial transitions to the benefits and services that can be provided by nearby urban areasa role the regional assemblies are well placed to deliver (Moore-Cherry et al, 2022 [51]). The realities of rural places in relation to the development of cities need to take into account the continuum of rural realities, which can be distinguished by i) rural areas inside a functional urban area (FUA), ii) rural areas close to FUA, and lastly iii) remote rural areas (OECD, 2020 [62]).…”

Urban agglomeration, glocalisation, and the governance of scalar transformation in the global south: a case study from Cape Town, South Africa

“…However, notwithstanding the fact that forms of glocalisation have increasingly become a feature or urban agglomeration, particularly in the global North, there is little evidence to suggest that it is leading to greater spatial and socio-economic inclusion. To the contrary, with exception of the most economically advanced countries, growth-oriented strategies introduced under the mantle of global competitiveness have not yielded the anticipated welfare gains and have increased rather than decreased social and spatial inequality (Moore-Cherry et al, 2022;Tomaney et al, 2019).…”

The Expression of Illegal Urbanism in the Urban Morphology and Landscape: The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Seville (Spain)

“…The consequences of these types of settlements for the territorial structures in which they are present and the way in which they have been integrated into the different spatial spheres are some of the issues that still need to be studied. This is especially relevant for a full understanding of metropolitan dynamics, despite it being a subject that has been widely addressed by the geographic discipline on an international scale [49][50][51][52], at a Spanish level [53][54][55][56], and in the specific case of the metropolitan area of Seville [57][58][59][60][61].…”