One of the most outstanding elements of the territorial transformation in recent years has been the consolidation of the urbanization process. The process of metropolitanization is the concentration of the population in a set of differentiated municipalities from an administrative point of view, but with a social and economic characteristics that go beyond these boundaries and that influence the processes of mobility and daily life of its inhabitants.
The gap between institutional and functional areas has forced public administrations to find the most appropriate formulas to govern metropolitan areas and to generate public policies aimed at solving the new emerging problems, such as social inequalities and climate change. These formulas are more or less institutionalized and bring in different outcomes in terms of input and output legitimacy.
The urban politics literature has explored metropolitan governance models, especially from the perspective of their institutionalization. From this point of view, it is important to analyze and advance knowledge about metropolitan political processes, which must have the capacity to provide adequate responses to the new urban development model. These political processes materialize, among other things, in different governance models for metropolitan areas, both in terms of institutional design that articulates cooperation and collaboration between different public and private actors, as well as in the configuration of different types of management solutions.
The purpose of this Research Topic is to present the analysis of the different models of metropolitan governance, answering the following research questions:
- Is there a link between the role of national and regional governments and the development of metropolitan governance processes?
- What is the relationship between the different types of public policies that have a metropolitan dimension and the type of institutional design that supports them?
- What factors explain the evolution of governance models in a given metropolitan area?
- What is the impact of having a direct election of metropolitan representatives in terms of political participation and accountability?
- Can we talk of a metropolitan citizenship, of a sense of belonging to a metropolitan space? Are metropolitan areas a suitable scale for social mobilization and political claims?
The contributions to the Research Topic must answer to the research questions. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers. In the last case, we welcome papers that cover the topic from both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. Papers can be comparative or focused on one single territorial unit.
One of the most outstanding elements of the territorial transformation in recent years has been the consolidation of the urbanization process. The process of metropolitanization is the concentration of the population in a set of differentiated municipalities from an administrative point of view, but with a social and economic characteristics that go beyond these boundaries and that influence the processes of mobility and daily life of its inhabitants.
The gap between institutional and functional areas has forced public administrations to find the most appropriate formulas to govern metropolitan areas and to generate public policies aimed at solving the new emerging problems, such as social inequalities and climate change. These formulas are more or less institutionalized and bring in different outcomes in terms of input and output legitimacy.
The urban politics literature has explored metropolitan governance models, especially from the perspective of their institutionalization. From this point of view, it is important to analyze and advance knowledge about metropolitan political processes, which must have the capacity to provide adequate responses to the new urban development model. These political processes materialize, among other things, in different governance models for metropolitan areas, both in terms of institutional design that articulates cooperation and collaboration between different public and private actors, as well as in the configuration of different types of management solutions.
The purpose of this Research Topic is to present the analysis of the different models of metropolitan governance, answering the following research questions:
- Is there a link between the role of national and regional governments and the development of metropolitan governance processes?
- What is the relationship between the different types of public policies that have a metropolitan dimension and the type of institutional design that supports them?
- What factors explain the evolution of governance models in a given metropolitan area?
- What is the impact of having a direct election of metropolitan representatives in terms of political participation and accountability?
- Can we talk of a metropolitan citizenship, of a sense of belonging to a metropolitan space? Are metropolitan areas a suitable scale for social mobilization and political claims?
The contributions to the Research Topic must answer to the research questions. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers. In the last case, we welcome papers that cover the topic from both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. Papers can be comparative or focused on one single territorial unit.
