LIST OF PANELS

One of the most outstanding elements of the territorial transformation in recent years has been the consolidation of the urbanization process. Indeed, it is estimated that by 2050, 68% of the world population will live in urban areas (United Nations, 2018). Moreover, recent types of territorial development dynamics include the process of metropolitanization, which 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. The urban politics literature has explored metropolitan governance models, especially from the perspective of their institutionalization (Bish and Ostrom, 1973; Lowery, 1999; Heinelt and Kübler, 2005). 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 (Medeiros and Der Zwet, 2020). 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 panel is to present the analysis of the different models of metropolitan governance, answering the following research questions:

•       Is there a relationship between the configuration of the socio-territorial processes of metropolitan areas and the institutional design of metropolitan governance?

•       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?

•       How the models of metropolitan governance are adapting to the new integrated sustainable urban development model?

Cited references:

Bish, R.L. and Ostrom V. (1973). Understanding urban government. Metropolitan reform considered. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

Heinelt, H. and Kübler, D. (eds.) (2005). Metropolitan governance. Capacity, democracy and the dynamics of place. London: Routledge.

Lowery, D. (1999). Answering the Public Choice Challenge: A Neoprogressive Research Agenda. Governance, 12: 29-55. doi:10.1111/0952-1895.0008

Medeiros, E. and Van Der Zwet, A. (2020). Evaluating Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies: a methodological framework applied in Portugal. European Planning Studies, 28(3), 563–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1606898

United Nations (2018). Urban population.  https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-PressRelease.pdf

The contributions to the panel must answer to the research questions. We especially encourage the presentation of analytical models of metropolitan governance, cases studies and concrete experiences. Namely:

-       Processes of conformation of metropolitan areas and institutional designs.

-       Public policies of a metropolitan nature.

-       The integrated sustainable urban development model and its application to metropolitan areas.

-       Case and comparative studies that include some of the topics.