To complement Zack Taylor’s paper on Regionalism from Above: Metro Governance in Canada, the journal commissioned four short ‘perspectives’ from Commonwealth countries grappling with similar issues – Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa. The purpose was not in any way to ‘review’ Taylor’s work, but rather to establish a broader picture of issues and trends in metropolitan governance, and to identify common threads. The perspectives from Australia, England and South Africa focus on recent developments and governance issues in particular metropolitan areas. These are respectively the fast-growing outer metropolitan sub-region of Western Sydney; the long-established conurbation of Greater Manchester; and the vast, emerging ‘multi-nodal sprawl’ of South Africa’s Gauteng City Region, centred on Johannesburg. The New Zealand perspective takes a different approach, exploring the implications of shifts in national policy towards a focus on wellbeing and the quality of life in communities, with significant implications for the future of local government and the way metropolitan areas are governed. Nevertheless, all four perspectives reveal similar underlying concerns that metropolitan governance frameworks and practices often struggle to keep pace with global trends, urban growth, community needs and national priorities. Effective inter-government relations are crucial, but local governments may not be at the table, or their views may be largely ignored. The governance of metropolitan regions becomes increasingly fraught, a battleground between the forces of devolution and centralisation. How can meaningful and effective collaborative governance be realised? Who should take the lead and do we have the right tools and skills? In such a complex and fluid environment, can we realistically expect anything more than brief periods of clarity and consensus that at least enable agreement on the next few steps?

This paper uses a policy mix approach to examine the institutional and governance issues arising from the UK's support for innovation in low carbon manufacturing sectors. The paper draws on interviews with managers of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises as well as policy practitioners and industry experts. The analysis of these interviews highlights issues in the multi-scalar design and delivery of these policies, including gaps and tensions in the policy mix, as well as the importance, and relative neglect of, regional institutional entrepreneurship in driving change. We find that coherence and consistency in UK low-carbon innovation policy is lacking, which is creating uncertainty and hampering private sector investment. The loss of regional capacity and anchor institutions challenges local and national actors to leverage instruments and connections but with much depleted resources, lacking a clear mandate, and facing a fragmented intermediary and support landscape.

The web site provides the possibility to download and examine the most recent documents produced by finalised and ongoing ESPON projects. This basic report exists only in an electronic version.

This essay takes up the challenge posed by Manuel Castells in the essay "Is There an Urban Sociology?" (1968) by giving reasons for the persistent lack of a consensus within urban sociology on the theoretical status of space and time and speculating about the loss of esteem within North American sociology for the study of urban life. Despite the rapid increase in urbanization around the world, urban sociology in the U.S. suffers from a specific American dislike of cities and greater growth in suburban and exurban peripheries of metropolitan cores. Moreover, recalling the origins of urban sociology in the U.S. in the study of "problem" populations, urban sociologists find it difficult to distance themselves from grants and careers supported by the state while they often confront abuses of states and markets in their everyday empirical practices. Analyzing the interaction of social, economic, and cultural forces in bounded urban spaces is made more complicated, finally, by the recognition of difference among cities in different regions of the world and the importance of mobility, technology, and struggles for dignity in modern life.

This chapter discusses the implications of the theoretical ideas on people–place relationships for prisoner reintegration policy. Policy initiatives implemented to tackle the problems of cities and pockets of deprivation within them often highlight the issue of urban crime, the governance of crime and local community safety. The chapter argues that a conceptual approach, broad and nuanced enough to assess 'criminal behaviour in context', should take into account individual criminal histories – past experiences, present situations and future prospects. It assesses the potential relationships between offenders and practitioners to support processes of rehabilitation and desistance. The report on social exclusion in England and Wales pays scant regard to the geographical location of offenders, or the extent to which it correlates to spatial patterns of social deprivation. Social policy must concentrate on developing what Sen …

This essay updates the once vibrant political economy literature on Manchester and argues that good governance, as well as good fortune, underpinned an uneven but strong urban-regional renaissance from the late 1980s through the economic boom period leading up to the financial crisis. After establishing the case for making this claim, it goes on to consider the extent to which Manchester and its broader city-region has proven resilient in the face of recession and is likely to be affected by the fall-out that will result from UK government attempts to manage the second phase of the crisis through swingeing public expenditure cuts and fundamental policy realignment. It concludes by anticipating whether a radically changed economic and political environment is likely to lead to the continuation, collapse or recalibration of Manchester's unique and emergent city-regional governance arrangements.ResumeReactualisant les textes d'economie politique autrefois enflammes qui traitaient du cas de Manchester, cet article affirme qu'une bonne gouvernance, alliee a un peu de chance, a pu etayer une renaissance, inegale mais solide, de cette region metropolitaine a partir de la fin des annees 1980 et tout au long de la periode d'essor economique qui a precede la crise financiere. Apres avoir presente les arguments a l'appui de cette affirmation, il s'interesse a la mesure dans laquelle Manchester et sa region metropolitaine ont su resister a la recession, mais risquent d'etre affectees par les repercussions des tentatives du gouvernement britannique cherchant a gerer la deuxieme phase de la crise au moyen de coupes sombres dans les depenses publiques et d'un realignement fondamental de l'action publique. La conclusion etudie si, dans un contexte economique et politique totalement different, les dispositifs uniques de gouvernance de Manchester qui s'instauraient a l'echelon de la region metropolitaine sont susceptibles de perdurer, de se disloquer ou de se reconfigurer.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to ask how the UK Government can currently hold such incommensurable positions, explicitly and implicitly, in respect of spatial development priorities within England, and suggest a research agenda that might produce a better understanding of such contradictions.Design/methodology/approach - The paper contrasts evidence on the changing spatial economic geography of the UK with data on recent trends in identifiable regional public expenditure. Current spatial development policy is analysed in detail and contrasted with a range of implicit development decisions made by central government in recent years. The paper considers the adequacy of the literature on metropolitan dominance within UK political and economic life in explaining the discrepancies between what government says and does in terms of spatial development.Findings - Significant discrepancies are found between formal spatial development aspirations as expressed in the Public Service Agreement on Regional Economic Performance and the outcomes of actual spatial development decisions, which are likely to widen rather than reduce the gap between regional growth rates. An important part of the explanation for this divergence is the metropolitan dominance of London but further work is needed on how this might better be conceptualised and measured.Practical implications - A number of key lines of enquiry for further research on the future of UK metropolitanism and the sustainability of current policy choices are outlined.Originality/value - This paper makes an original contribution to detailing the disjuncture between formal and implicit spatial development priorities, which will be of value to academics and policy makers.