Abstract
Metropolitan areas have long been understood to benefit from the existence of regional governance structures. However, some large urban areas still lack effective coordinating agencies. In the case of Lisbon, Portugal, the legal framework has been steadily refined since 1991 to task the Metropolitan Area with a set of mandates, but has yet to be granted a compatible framework in terms of coordinating power and human/financial resources. Portugal, in comparison to others European countries, suffered a late urbanisation and even more recent metropolization. The accelerated, formal and informal growth of the metropolitan area was achieved through the intervention of a broad but not well-coordinated group of actors with very high costs of effectiveness and efficiency, penalising the quality of metropolitan life. The future, and roles, of metropolitan areas in the country have been entangled in the politically-sensitive debate surrounding regionalisation. Inter-municipal collaboration tends to occur only in contexts of cross-border, mutually beneficial, specific projects and/or where there were incentives for collaboration (such as additional funding). Our study of comparable southern European metropolitan area governance structures is focused on analysing the scope of their mandates, in terms of sectors and level of planning, management and legislative authority, and highlight a set of “best practices” for tackling the new political, institutional, and economic contexts. Thus, this paper provides an updated state of the art by critically scrutinising of metropolitan governance models in similar economic, political and cultural contexts. We seek to answer the following questions: What governance models exist in Southern Europe? How do they work? Who is involved? How do public and private entities interact throughout the process? From this analysis, we develop proposals on how to improve metropolitan governance structures. The methodology is based on the review of literature (legal documents, academic papers) with the objective of identifying the variables to be analysed and the relevant case studies, which is complemented with interviews with experts and stakeholders of each country to refine the information on the inner workings of each metropolitan area governance structure. Four case studies located in Southern Europe were selected considering some governance principles and comparable criteria based on the demographic and economic dimensions as well as metropolitan challenges that they face. We focus especially on answering the question of how/if metropolitan governance structures promote inter-sectoral cooperation and coordination, and how multi-jurisdictional collaboration is conducted. Southern Europe countries have recently furthered metropolitan areas’ administrative/legislative powers, often accompanied with the creation of elected government bodies, such as a metropolitan mayor or a metropolitan assembly. Increasing the visibility, transparency, and accountability of regional coordinating authorities therefore appears to be a trend in several southern European countries. These metropolitan areas are now host to a constellation of new actors (private lobbies, interest groups, NGOs) and emerging societal challenges (aging, climate change, mobility, e-government, economic crisis, immigration, housing, among others) that are often incompatible with fragmentary, sectoral action, requiring instead concerted solution across sectors and involving multiple jurisdictions. Best practices suggest that the creation of truly collaborative networks can, and should be, promoted by the metropolitan areas. These entities should hold a role as mediators between different stakes, and as facilitators of cooperative action, while not foregoing their authority as decision-makers. From our comparative analysis, metropolitan governance structures will become effective only when vested with the appropriate resources (funding, expertise, decentralised authority).
