Metropolitan Governance

Metropolitan governance refers to a two-fold process of consolidating a new political space at the metropolitan scale, which involves intrametro-politan conflicts as well as political transformation through new governing instruments and interest-mediation mechanisms, and consolidating the metropolis as a collective actor in intergovernmental relations, global markets, and international politics. In brief, it entails profound transformations of the role of the city in the political process.

The debate around metropolitan governance is not new. At the turn of the twentieth century, a reform movement in the United States pushed for redefining urban politics, among other ways, by consolidating municipalities to counter a political fragmentation that was seen as fostering inequity, inefficiencies, and failures in the democratic system. In the post–World War II period, public choice theorists proposed instead that political fragmentation was a necessary condition for liberty, efficiency, and democracy. Charles Tiebout privileged the individual right to “vote with one's feet” when dissatisfied with the tax service package offered in a municipality. The ability for people to “shop” their residential location and to choose their neighbors was thought to produce more efficiency in delivering services and more democracy.

On the other hand, early reformers such as Chester Maxey trusted bureaucratic planning more than the aggregation of individual decisions. Planning was viewed as the most efficient means to effective service delivery and the most democratic solution, given that consolidation and tax sharing permitted a more uniform and equitable governance system throughout the metropolitan region.

The resurgence of interest in metropolitan governance in the 1990s came hand in hand with debates on the political effects of global economic restructuring. New regionalism is a label that conveys two meanings. First, effective metropolitan governance does not necessarily require municipal consolidation; it may be better to think in terms of a shift from governmental reform to new governance mechanisms. The notion of political territory is thereby replaced by a more fluid concept of political space. Second, the increasing importance of city-regions as collective actors in the global market and within national intergovernmental relations is a sign of a profound [Page 507]transformation of the political process under the ideological pressure of neoliberalism; that is, the ideological push toward fiscal austerity and the decentralization of governmental programs.