Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development

John Harrison and Jesse Heley
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John Harrison: Loughborough University, UK
Jesse Heley: Aberystwyth University, UK

Urban Studies, 2015, vol. 52, issue 6, 1113-1133

Abstract: Despite a select group of urban centres generating a disproportionate amount of global economic output, significant attention is being devoted to the impact of urban-economic processes on interstitial spaces lying between metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable silence in city-region debate concerning how rural spaces are conceptualised, governed and represented. In this paper we draw on recent city-region developments in England and Wales to suggest a paralysis of city-region policymaking has ensued from policy elites constantly swaying between a spatially-selective, city-first, agglomeration perspective on city-regionalism and a spatially-inclusive, region-first, scalar approach which fragments and divides territorial space along historical lines. In the final part we provide a typology of functionally dominant city-region constructs which we suggest offers a way out from the paralysis that currently grips city-region policymaking.

Keywords: city-region; metropolis; spatial planning; functional areas; rural space; subnational governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:6:p:1113-1133

DOI: 10.1177/0042098014532853

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