METROPOLITICAL

Discussing the role of political processes on metropolitan

governance starting from the cases of Bogotá, Barcelona, and
Montréal

Jose Gabriel Perdomo Guzmán

Politecnico di Milano

Master of Science in Urban Planning and policy design

METROPOLITICAL
Discussing the role of political processes on metropolitan governance
starting from the cases of Bogotá, Barcelona, and Montréal

Student: Jose Gabriel Perdomo Guzmán

Tutor: Prof. Stefano Moroni
Assistant: Silvia Zanetti

Master thesis A.Y 2019/2020

School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering
Master of science in Urban planning and policy design
Politecnico di Milano
A ordem global busca impor, a todos os lugares, uma única racionalidade. E os lugares
respondem ao Mundo segundo os diversos modos de sua própria racionalidade.

No primeiro caso, a solidariedade é produto da organização. No segundo caso, é a

organização que é produto da solidariedade. A ordem global e a ordem local constituem
duas situações geneticamente opostas, ainda que em cada uma se verifiquem aspectos da
outra. A razão universal é organizacional, a razão local é orgânica. No primeiro caso,
prima a informação que, aliás, é sinónimo de organização. No segundo caso, prima a
comunicação.

A ordem global funda as escalas superiores ou externas à escala do cotidiano. Seus

parâmetros são a razão técnica e operacional, o cálculo de função, a linguagem
matemática. A ordem local funda a escala do cotidiano, e seus parâmetros são a co-
presença, a vizinhança, a intimidade, a emoção, a cooperação e a socialização com base
na contiguidade. A ordem global é "desterritorializada", no sentido de que separa o centro
da ação e a sede da ação.

[…] Cada lugar é, ao mesmo tempo, objeto de uma razão global e de uma razão local,
convivendo dialeticamente.

Milton Santos, A Natureza do Espaço. Técnica e Tempo. Razão e Emoção

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

"Thanks to life that has given me so much" say the verses of Violeta Parra. In this thesis,
written in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, I give thanks for what I have received
before thinking about what has been lost. Thanks to Alejandra, my girlfriend, for the days of
work hand in hand, for being that impulse to write this work. To Stefano Moroni and Silvia
Zanetti for their words and advice, for the time they have spent thinking and inspiring me
about the metropolitan issue. To my extended family, but especially to my mother, my
grandmother, my sister, and my brother in law. All of them never stopped asking me "how
is the thesis going”. To my colleagues with whom I discussed on several occasions what it
means to "be metropolitan" in this world more than ever. To the teachers and assistants who
accompanied me at this time.

I also thank the Polytechnic of Milan, Milan and Italy, for being my home during these rare
days. For the snow in winter and the beach in summer. To all the people I met at this time
and who allowed me to rethink the way I see this metropolitan world where "many things are
so recent that to mention them you have to point your finger at them."
ABSTRACT
In the 21st century, Metropolitan areas have become the scale in which we understand the
world, partly displacing the power of the Nation-States and local scales. Urbanization–which
transcends political borders and will increasingly do so in the coming years– generates
metropolitan events that require coordinated efforts for their effective treatment. This
condition has been supported by a narrative that shields political decisions in “technical”
motivations. The present thesis, however, reflects on the role of political processes in the
configuration of entities in this process of re-scaling of power structures, overcoming the
technical and post-political narratives that permeate the public debate.
For this, the thesis presents and analyzes the main paradigms, contrasting them in three case
studies: Bogotá (Colombia), Barcelona (Spain), and Montréal (Canada), based on the themes
defined by Daniel Galland and John Harrison (2020): Institutions, public policies, spatial
imaginaries, and forms of planning, as objects in which the incidence of political processes
becomes evident.
The clash between global and local rationalities calls for new governance models at a
metropolitan scale, capable to respond to power transfer fluctuations in bureaucratized
environments and to legitimize institutional arrangements of participation processes.
Key words: Metropolitan, political process, Bogotá, Barcelona, Montreal, governance.

ABSTRACT
Nel 21 ° secolo, le aree metropolitane sono diventate la scala in cui comprendiamo il mondo,
spostando in parte il potere degli Stati-nazione e delle scale locali. L'urbanizzazione - che
trascende i confini politici e lo farà sempre di più nei prossimi anni - genera eventi
metropolitani che richiedono sforzi coordinati per il loro trattamento efficace. Questa
condizione è stata supportata da una narrativa che protegge le decisioni politiche in
motivazioni "tecniche". La presente tesi, tuttavia, riflette sul ruolo dei processi politici nella
configurazione delle entità in questo processo di ridimensionamento delle strutture di potere,
superando le narrazioni tecniche e post-politiche che permeano il dibattito pubblico.
Per questo, la tesi presenta e analizza i principali paradigmi, confrontandoli in tre casi studio:
Bogotá (Colombia), Barcellona (Spagna) e Montréal (Canada), sulla base dei temi definiti da
Daniel Galland e John Harrison (2020): Istituzioni, politiche pubbliche, immaginari spaziali
e forme di pianificazione, come oggetti in cui diventa evidente l'incidenza dei processi
politici.
Lo scontro tra razionalità globale e locale richiede nuovi modelli di governance su scala
metropolitana, capaci di rispondere alle fluttuazioni del trasferimento di potere negli ambienti
burocratizzati e di legittimare gli assetti istituzionali dei processi di partecipazione.
Parole chiave: Metropolitano, processo politico, Bogotá, Barcellona, Montreal,
governance.
RESUMEN
En el siglo XXI, las áreas metropolitanas se han convertido en la escala en la que entendemos
el mundo, desplazando en parte el poder de los Estados-Nación y las escalas locales. La
urbanización, que trasciende las fronteras políticas y lo hará cada vez más en los próximos
años, genera eventos metropolitanos que requieren esfuerzos coordinados para su eficaz
tratamiento. Esta condición ha sido respaldada por una narrativa que blinda las decisiones
políticas en motivaciones “técnicas”. La presente tesis, sin embargo, reflexiona sobre el papel
de los procesos políticos en la configuración de entidades en este proceso de re-escalado de
estructuras de poder, superando las narrativas técnicas y pospolíticas que impregnan el debate
público.
Para esto, la tesis presenta y analiza los principales paradigmas, contrastándolos en tres casos
de estudio: Bogotá (Colombia), Barcelona (España) y Montreal (Canadá), a partir de los
temas definidos por Daniel Galland y John Harrison (2020): Instituciones, políticas públicas,
imaginarios espaciales y formas de planificación, como objetos en los que se evidencia la
incidencia de los procesos políticos.
El choque entre las racionalidades globales y locales exige nuevos modelos de gobernanza a
escala metropolitana, capaces de responder a las fluctuaciones de transferencia de poder en
entornos burocratizados y de legitimar los arreglos institucionales de los procesos de
participación.
Palabras clave: Metropolitano, proceso político, Bogotá, Barcelona, Montreal, gobernanza
metropolitana.
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 1
2. METROPOLITAN WORLD AS PARADIGMS AND CONCEPTS: PRELIMINARY
CLARIFICATIONS ............................................................................................................... 9
2.1. Key concepts .......................................................................................................... 11
2.1.1. Metropolitan phenomenon.............................................................................. 12
2.1.2. Metropolitan governance ................................................................................ 15
2.1.3. Governance bodies and systems ..................................................................... 18
2.1.4. The institutional shift in the metropolis.......................................................... 20
2.1.5. Topics of metropolitan change ....................................................................... 23
2.2. Theoretical framework: The paradigms of metropolitan governance ................... 27
2.2.1. Main Paradigms in Metropolitan Governance: The schools .......................... 28
2.3. Factors that influence metropolitan governance capacities ................................... 41
2.3.1. Process and frictions on the construction and change of governance ............ 43
2.3.2. The framework, the research variables, and its operationalization ................ 45
2.4. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 49
3. CASES .......................................................................................................................... 51
3.1. First Case: Bogotá and the metropolitan chimera .................................................. 53
3.1.1. General issues ................................................................................................. 54
3.1.2. The political rationale and its boundaries in metropolitan Bogota................. 62
3.2. Second Case: Barcelona Metropolitan Tradition Beyond Legitimation ................ 68
3.2.1. General issues ................................................................................................. 69
3.2.2. The autonomy as the source of metropolitan coordination ............................ 73
3.3. Third Case: Montréal open metropolis .................................................................. 79
3.3.1. General issues ................................................................................................. 80
3.3.2. Urban planning and collaboration as tools to enhance the metropolitan
governance .................................................................................................................... 87
4. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................... 93
4.1. Metropolitan Institutions........................................................................................ 94
4.2. Public policy and ideas ........................................................................................ 101
4.3. Spatial imaginaries ............................................................................................... 108
4.4. Forms of Planning ................................................................................................ 115
5. CONCLUSIONS: BETWEEN LOCAL AND GLOBAL. THE METROPOLIS
POLITICAL ARENAS. ..................................................................................................... 122
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 130

FIGURES
Figure 1. Differences between central and hierarchical and metropolitan governance. ..... 19
Figure 2. Variables and assumptions in the four metropolitan governance paradigms. ..... 42
Figure 3. Variables and assumptions in the four metropolitan governance paradigms. ..... 47
Figure 4. Analytic elements, thematic, and dimensions. ..................................................... 50
Figure 5. Bogotá urban footprint expansion 1997-2016. ..................................................... 53
Figure 6. CAR Directors Board. .......................................................................................... 60
Figure 7. Barcelona metropolitan region divided in crowns with density and surface
extension. .............................................................................................................................. 68
Figure 8. Urbanization in Relation to the Downtown Core. ................................................ 79

TABLES
Table 1. Metropolitan regionalist projects in the 1990s: the new conjuncture in the USA . 30
Table 2. Public choice school topics and dimensions .......................................................... 33
Table 3. Metropolitan regionalist projects in the 1990s: the new conjuncture in the USA . 35
Table 4. Theoretical frameworks on regionalism ................................................................ 38
Table 5. Metropolitan governance analysis matrix .............................................................. 50
Table 6. CAR financial structure ......................................................................................... 61
Table 7. Bogotá current metropolitan political process structure. ....................................... 66
Table 8. Bogotá proposed metropolitan political process structure. .................................... 67
Table 9. AMB resources structure ....................................................................................... 71
Table 10. Barcelona metropolitan political process structure. ............................................. 78
Table 11. Montreal metropolitan political process structure. .............................................. 92
Table 12. General facts about the cases. .............................................................................. 94
 1. INTRODUCTION
The world is an increasingly urban place. Currently, 4.2 billion people live in cities (55%)
and by 2050, it will be 6.8 billion (68%) (United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs 2018). This growth will occur mainly in the biggest cities in developing countries.
The disappearance of distance (Gleaser, 2011, pág. 10) and the construction of global cities
(Sassen, 2007) in a post-industrial economic context (Shaw, 2001) in which inequalities are
growing (OECD, 2016), are elements that form a complex framework within which the cities
are at the same time concrete challenges and tools to address these problems. For that reason,
new forms of governance and practices are required to improve the coordination and
coherence of public policy (Ahrend et al., 2017) to address this issues, following a specific
agenda to solve the biggest global problems like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
and the New Urban Agenda (NUA).

This process of constant urbanization currently involves the configuration of metropolitan

phenomena, related to functional areas that overcome traditional administrative boundaries,
making difficult a coherent and coordinated attention, what makes it a relevant topic in the
global agenda. On the one hand, the construction of institutions or mechanisms to address
these metropolitan phenomena implies institutional flexibility and coordination between
stakeholders and, on the other hand, there is not a single answer as it can take several forms
resulting from political processes in specific contexts. These differences can be portrayed
looking at international experiences, where the diversity of institutional approaches, public
policy expertise, spatial imaginaries of what is metropolitan, and even the planning traditions,
is observed. An initial observation is that the notion of "metropolitan space" remains
contested as an object of public policy within political processes and discussions.

This thesis reflects about how political processes affect the configuration of metropolitan
governance. The way in which these political processes of construction of metropolitan
governance schemes are developed is relevant and have repercussions on the formal and
informal arrangements. Two major elements can be considered central in the development of
these processes. On the one hand, there are the paradigms and theoretical models of
metropolitan governance. On the other hand, the context in which they take place demands
and allows different solutions throughout the world. The predominance of the traditional

1
European and North American context in the construction of paradigms and models of
metropolitan governance is challenged by current and future trends of urban growth in cities
with States that are much more limited in their capacities for the provision of infrastructures
and provision of services.

Another key issue for metropolitan thinkers and planners is the relevance of the European
perspective. Indeed, according to UN data, the projected increase in the size of the world’s
urban population is expected to be highly concentrated in just a few countries. Together,
India, China and Nigeria will account for 35% of the projected growth of the world’s urban
population between 2018 and 2050. Close to half of the world’s urban dwellers reside in
settlements with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, while around one in eight live in 33
megacities with more than ten million inhabitants. By 2030, the world is projected to have 43
megacities, most of them in developing regions […] To what extent will the metropolitan
models of governance that have been implemented in Europe suit these current and future
developments? […] The institutional reforms and the arguments might be similar (mergers,
metropolitan governments, voluntary cooperation, efficiency, austerity, and so forth), but the
pillars of the welfare state are not alike. (Tomàs, 2020, p. 37)
The exponential growth of cities in the global south poses new elements to be considered in
theories such as the development of informal and precarious housing, in the development and
provision of public service networks, or with the configuration of areas with unattended
social issues. The evolution of paradigms and theory must be directed to respond to these
challenges, from the transfer of knowledge and experiences, and with the development of
new approaches that seek to close these gaps. In this way, a transition is created towards post-
metropolitan narratives that are broader in their understanding and capable of being more
representative in the face of diversity. The process remains political from its conception.

Among the common elements between developed and developing countries regarding the
process of construction of the metropolitan schemes, is the dispute over the scales of action
of the State, specifically the metropolitan. Traditionally, the territorial entities (local,
regional, or national) have been central actors in this process. From the post-fordism era, and
with the development of the public-private associations as government approach, a broader
cast of stakeholders have acquired relevance in the design and gearing of new agreements
and metropolitan governance systems. Nowadays, the development of the civil society
engagement on participatory planning and co-creation processes, under the governance
discourse the metropolitan map of actors has changed.

2
The proposals for change affect the status quo on issues related to the provision and
management of the metropolitan territory and are the expression of a political process and
stakeholders’ interests. The pre-existing institutional apparatus is modified on the basis that
it is inefficient or unable to achieve optimal results in terms of public policy objectives,
implying resistance from the status quo regarding new competitors for government functions
and resources. The changes on the stakeholders looks for legitimacy and increased effectivity
to achieve objectives. Even if this is a shared issue, the conditions for the development of
answers remains completely different.

There is an increasing awareness of the metropolitan as a political space, making its

pertinence highly disputed, and its nature more complex, and full of frictions. The effectivity
of the paradigms and models is discussed for its results in controlling the spontaneous forms
that these phenomena take, and the unexpected consequences of the actions taken. New
models are understood as political responses to new local and global trends that, however,
are not equally distributed in the territory, so their theoretical and practical treatment is
usually equally disparate, ad hoc, and constantly changing.

The management of these conflicts and the processes of change are normally advanced amid
discussions in multiple spheres. The thesis considers a gap between practice and theory that
is accentuated in the global south and must be distinguished and discussed. This analysis on
the impacts of political process in the metropolitan field is carried in four themes: Institutions,
policy and ideas, spatial imaginaries, and forms of planning (Galland & Harrison, 2020).
Each theme is characterized in 4 dimensions answering the questions about (1) what are the
purposes (ends)? (2) with which means (tools) to achieve it? (3) Which actors are involved
and with what interests? and (4) what is the nature of the relationships between them?

Every paradigm and model adopted establish, first, a set of objectives or ends to be addressed
and, second, the means or tools to achieve them. This two elements account for a self-
explanatory logic: The efficiency of the means depends on their ability to achieve the
objectives. However, the definition of these objectives and means does not occur in a
vacuum, nor does their implementation. The recognition of different actors explains the
problematization as political issue of several issues. Likewise, the nature of the relationships
that they maintain between the actors involved as processes of competition or cooperation in
3
decision-making or vertical/horizontal structures. Only through the identification of the
actors present and the understanding of their relationships and their incidence in the
formation of objectives and tools for their achievement, such as their role in implementation,
provide a contextual background sufficiently explanatory of the nature of these relationships.

Understanding the political nature from this process, and the role of the metropolitan scale
as a disputed space, this thesis aims to analyze and discuss the impacts from the process
nature, dispute, and development of the metropolitan governance on these 4 themes and
dimensions. The thesis presents three cases: Barcelona, Montreal, and Bogotá, selected as
representative examples of diverse institutional and social contexts. Montreal is a city in the
autonomous province of Quebec, that is part of a parliamentary federation of Canada, a very
developed state, and has been working on its metropolitan issues for a long time. Barcelona
is the second city in the Spain, the capital of the most independent province of the country:
Catalunya, which gives to the city a special framework to develop its own regulations to take
attention of its metropolitan issues, that has been fighting against the central power even
during Franco’s dictatorship with big changes on the last ten years. Bogotá is the capital city
of Colombia, a developing country, and has been struggling with the coordination of its
metropolitan territory from a urban boom that started in the 50s.

Using the concept of Metropolitan governance which has become widely used to designate
the forms of organization in the management of phenomena that transcend political-
administrative borders, the thesis aims to explain the struggle on the processes and forms of
governing. The research question is how do political processes affect the configuration of
institutions, policies, spatial imagery, and planning in metropolitan governance? The
hypothesis is that the nature of the political process and the social context establish important
limitations for the construction of metropolitan governance in these 4 themes that pose
challenges from different natures that must be addressed from likewise differentiated
approaches. The main objective is to provide inputs to the discussion of the construction of
new institutional models considering the socio-institutional context, regarding the nature of
the upcoming challenges in global south future megalopolis. Next, the notion of the political
nature of the metropolitan construction process is deepened a little and, subsequently, the
path followed by the thesis is briefly presented.

4
 1.1. The political and disputed nature of the

metropolitan issue

One effect from the accentuation of urban growth derived from the industrial revolution was
the appearance of the metropolitan question. Throughout the 20th century, with the
multiplication of the number of large cities and the exponential development of their spatial
extensions and numbers of inhabitants, governments pursued diverse objectives, posing
different questions about how to deal with these phenomena effectively, finding divergent
solutions as well. The paradigms of urban planning served as the basis for making proposals
in this regard, going hand in hand with the discussion in this discipline on the role of the
technique, the importance of different forms of participation, or the scope and role of the
urban planning as practice. In the end, the responses ranged from a discursive spectrum that
ran from simplified planning by a single actor that would guarantee redistribution, going
through an expansion of democracy on a metropolitan scale that would occur between
municipalities and territorial entities, until the appearance of forms governance network,
actively linking the population and civil organizations. Regardless of the paradigm, the
metropolitan narrative shares the need to “change”, facing several forms of opposition.

Changes in the distribution and development of public functions involve modifications in

public resources and their focus and impact on areas and systematic problems of different
government levels. For example, it is different to plan or provide transportation services at a
regional level or a municipal one. Nevertheless, there is not a unidirectional impact of the
changes by working on a metropolitan level. Instead, the governance scheme chosen defines,
first, the relationships and participation of the different actors involved and, second, the
issues addressed and its prioritization. It is at this point, on the definition of normative
objectives and ways to achieve them, where the different paradigms have been configured,
which have delivered varied responses with a changing prioritization in the definition of
objectives. Nevertheless, the metropolitan phenomena have a physical and contingent
manifestation that is addressed particularly for every case, with ad hoc models and objectives.

How specific negotiation processes solve frictions due to changes in government structures
is a relevant issue in the political configuration of metropolitan areas. The definition of

5
ambitious agendas and the tendency to see absolute responses, closed to new interpretations
and experimental processes, constitutes the basis of beliefs on which conflicts unfold. The
negotiation between indivisible arguments and interests subject to exchange makes this
process a turning point in the way of strengthening the governance schemes of metropolitan
areas. Friction is contextual and depends on elements like the previous configuration of
structures and factors such as their flexibility and legitimacy. Necessarily, conflicts between
institutions and new arrangements arise for defending their interests. For this reason, it is
relevant to discuss the conceptualization of the challenges to be addressed and its
relationships with the tools selected as a political process in the 4 themes.

The general concepts of metropolitan discussion are presented, and the themes are
introduced, enabling the presentation of the paradigms and models and the construction of a
theoretical framework and a methodology for the study cases. The role of power structures,
stakeholders’ involvement, and the change proposals are discussed according to its
legitimacy in each institutional environment for the definition of metropolitan governance
models. This is context-dependent and its interpretation is relevant to explain the perception
of failure or success. On each case, the themes and the dimensions are characterized to
identify frictions, struggles, and elements that feed the political process and its own character.

The thesis presents several narratives of the metropolitan discourse, more competitive or
cooperative perspectives, different ways to work, diverse planning systems and design
practices of metropolitan arrangements. The political configuration of governance schemes
must expose several interests, provide conditions to guarantee the effectivity of the changes
to solve the problems defined, and address frictions in the negotiation. For that reason, the
legitimacy must be the base of the decision-making process, and that must be done
recognizing the political character involved in the metropolitan discourse and its
construction, as it is mentioned by Swyngedouw:

[…] the theoretical and political priority never resides on a particular geographical scale
but rather in the process through which particular scales become (re)constituted. Struggling
for the command over a particular scale can, in a given sociospatial conjuncture, be of
eminent importance’ (Swyngedouw, Neither global nor local. ‘Glocalization’ and the Politics
of Scale, 1997, p. 141)

6
 1.2. The path

The proposed research question is about the future challenges for the practice of metropolitan
governance. A first step would be the identification of this gap as a way to provide insights
and feedback to the theories on this topic and the way they deal with the complexity of the
metropolitan phenomenon nowadays. For this reason, the present work aims to analyze
contemporary processes and forms of construction of metropolitan governance, contrasting
them with the theoretical paradigms in which they are supported through case studies. The
document is divided in three sections, the first one of conceptual, theoretical, and
methodological clarifications. The second section refers to the study cases developed. The
third refers to the discussion, reflection, and analysis about the main insights.

The first part, metropolitan world as paradigms and concepts, presents the theoretical
support of the metropolitan governance structures and is divided in four parts. First, are
presented some key concepts and definitions (metropolitan phenomenon, governance,
configuration process, transformation of metropolitan structures). Second, the four main
paradigms of metropolitan governance are characterized. Third, the assumptions defined in
these paradigms about the metropolitan governance capacities are presented. And fourth, the
methodology to analyze the study cases is presented regarding this theoretical development
as the final part of this first section. This exercise is based on the use of secondary sources
and the analysis from the conditions under the construction of narratives and discourses that
support the decision-making process.

The second section is related to the study cases and is divided in three parts, one for each
case. Every case is presented in two steps: the first one refers to the general introduction and
the identification of contextual elements about the governance model followed by each city;
the second one consists on the analysis developed following the use of the paradigms and the
unfold of the process and struggles of the metropolitan governance. The three cases selected
are Bogotá (Colombia), Barcelona (Spain), and Montreal (Canada). The process of building
metropolitan governance and the frictions produced by the introduction of changes in these
schemes will be presented. The results must allow the identification of gaps between theory

7
and paradigm, that must find explanations on the contexts and the processes regarding the
assumptions included into its structures.

The third section presents a discussion from the main insights identified with the study cases.
It is organized following the four themes identified (institutions, public policy, spatial
imaginaries, and forms of planning) with several reflections for each one, referring
permanently to the cases presented. Following this, are proposed some conclusions aiming
to summarize the relation among the constitutive elements from each case. Finally, some
critical remarks are presented according to the characteristics of the process and its elements
in contrast to the paradigms in the metropolitan governance and the current trends in the
topic. The conclusions will be presented in the last section.

8
 2. METROPOLITAN WORLD AS PARADIGMS AND
CONCEPTS: PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS
Metropolitan phenomena are the result of agglomeration processes and require management
mechanisms and institutions capable of addressing them in a coordinated and coherent
manner. However, for institutions to be able to intervene in these phenomena, they require
the use of a common language, of meanings and signifiers that allow dialogue, coordination,
planning, and the implementation of actions in the territory, what remains fundamentally a
political and institutional process. For this reason, from the 20th century on, theories have
been constructed to explain this phenomenon, its characteristics, and its variations. This
theoretical and conceptual body is the basis on which metropolitan governance actions
throughout the world have been designed and implemented, as a partial response to the
dimensions that the phenomenon has taken in different cities. Currently, its development
continues to be an open challenge and one that concentrates more and more efforts while
positioning itself on the international agenda due to the urgency of the metropolitan
phenomenon that grows without giving further explanations. Given the purposes of the thesis,
it is necessary to present these conceptual bases in order to discuss their scope and limitations
in relation to the case studies that make up the next chapter.

The objective of this chapter is to present the existing theoretical and conceptual body
regarding metropolitan governance to build a methodological approach to the study cases. It
is divided into three parts. In the first, some central concepts are presented, seeking to give
broad definitions and some of the elements that come into discussion within their respective
configuration. The selected concepts are four: (1) metropolitan phenomenon, (2)
metropolitan governance, (3) governance bodies and systems, (4) institutional shift in the
metropolis, and (5) the thematic of metropolitan change. The second part introduces the main
paradigms in metropolitan governance through the presentation of four schools, following
the periodization proposed by Tomàs (2019, p. 75) and Galland, and Harrison. (2020, p. 7)
according to the ‘dominant thinking school’: (1) the reform school (1900-1920 and 1950-
1960), (2) the school of public choice (1970-1980), (3) the new regionalism (from 1990), and
a mix of the contemporary schools proposed by Zimmermann & al. (New city regionalism
in the 2000s, Multi-city regionalism in the 2010s, and Virtual regionalism proposed for the

9
2020s). This first two parts of the chapter are the conceptual core of the thesis and feed the
definition of the methodology that is the third part of the document

There are multiple definitions and frames related to metropolitan management, involving
different combinations of issues, levels, and stakeholders to be addressed by the theoretical
and conceptual framework. The role of institutions, the design of policies, the construction
of social imaginaries, or the planning styles are elements of the thematic dimension
(Zimmermann, Galland, & Harrison, 2020, pp. 3-5) that must be characterized on each period
to analyze the cases in face of ideal types. The results are presented below and their links
with the methodology are made explicit on the third section, as well with the 4 criteria
proposed (purposes, means, actors, and relationships) to make the bridge between the
structure for the analysis of the specific and contingent cases and the theoretical and
conceptual framework.

10
 2.1. Key concepts

The expansion of globalising cities into global city-regions poses fundamental questions about
how best to govern the new metropolis. Partly because of the relentless pace of change, these
newly emerging metropolitan spaces are often reliant on inadequate urban-economic
infrastructure and fragmented urban-regional planning and governance arrangements.
Moreoveras the demand for more ‘appropriate’, widely understood to mean more flexible,
networked and smart, forms of planning and governance increases, new expressions of territorial
cooperation and conflict are emerging around issues of increased competitiveness, infrastructure
development, the collective provision of services, and further governmentalised remapping(s) of
state space. (Harrison & Hoyler, Governing the new metropolis, 2014)
In the last decades, a discourse of competition and cooperation between large cities has been
configured, which seems to position itself as hegemonic. The metropolitan government
constitutes an intermediate tool for cities to satisfy the needs of their citizens and of the
agglomeration, becoming attractive places for the economic and human capital that it requires
to compete. This has led to the perception of a change in the configuration of power structures
between the State and the Metropolis based on the demographic, social, economic and,
increasingly, political weight of large cities. This narrative reinforces these cycles of
configuration of global cities and translates into the permanent conceptualization of the
phenomenon in terms that are functional to explain it and, thus, reinforce the growing role of
metropolitan areas in the world as the center of the discourse of the preponderance of urban
power over the spatial imaginaries.

The different forms of State government define the conditions of local governability and
metropolitan relationships, i.e. in highly centralized states or with a too broad urban primacy
(participation of a city over social and economic values of a country such as in the population
or the GDP), the national government tends to take care of metropolitan affairs with an almost
absolute lack of local representation. On the other side of the spectrum are governments with
high levels of local government and systems of differentiated cities, where local
organizations govern metropolitan issues in a fragmented manner. In this part of the
document some key concepts (metropolitan phenomenon, metropolitan governance, the
process of configuration of metropolitan schemes, and the themes of metropolitan change) in
the study of the metropolitan phenomenon and its frictions are presented, starting from the
following definition of metropolitan area that will be discussed with the different concepts,

11
but understanding that remains a polysemous and malleable concept. (Zimmermann,
Galland, & Harrison, 2020, p. 14)

A metropolitan area or metropolitan region is typically a collection of municipalities that

together form a unified labor market and is often defined statistically by the commuting patterns
of its residents between home and work. For instance, the Chicago metro area consists of
hundreds of municipalities and fourteen counties that stretch across the U.S. states of Illinois,
Indiana, and Wisconsin; the city of Chicago accounts for less than one-third of the metro
population. The São Paulo metropolitan area includes not only the city of São Paulo but also
thirty eight surrounding municipalities within the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The geographic
extent of these broader regions takes in economic activities that are often found outside cities
themselves, such as manufacturing, logistics, and agriculture. (Katz & Bradley, 2013, p. 2)

2.1.1. Metropolitan phenomenon

The concept of metropolitan phenomenon is the axis of the definition of a metropolitan area.
This is what makes a metropolitan area a metropolitan area, even if it remains as an
ambiguous and almost subjective concept. There are three distinct approaches according to
the agglomeration, the functional, and the territorial-scalar, where the urbanization, the
integration and the governance are considered starting points for its definition.
(Zimmermann, Galland, & Harrison, 2020, p. 14). Lang and Knox analyze the configuration
of metropolitan phenomena and even its evolution into megalopolis using three dimensions
to characterize it: The form, the scale, and the connectivity. (Knox & Lang, The new
metropolis: Rethinking metropolis, 2009, p. 792)The result is that the phenomenon is often
characterized by these perspectives as its manifestation: An agglomeration that outgrowth its
boundaries, spreading functional relations and creating a new scale that has in common the
overflow of local administrations or political boundaries.

There are no unique, universal definitions as to what are metropolitan areas, global
metropolises, metropolitan regions, and so on. […] Regardless of the name and definition,
the phenomena are that the functional areas of cities continue to transcend their political
boundaries, with labor, service, and financial markets, as well as physical extensions of
cities, spreading across the jurisdictional territories of several municipalities (Gómez-
Álvarez, Rajack, & López-Moreno, 2017, p. 21).
From the most traditional approach, the inclusion of an urban system composed of several
functional systems that generate the metropolitan phenomenon implies the existence of
different metropolitan phenomena. These phenomena, although usually similar, are
characteristic and ad hoc of each metropolitan area and demands solutions in situ for its
attention. Its definition implies the definition of frameworks to first achieve its technical and

12
formal recognition and, second, lay the foundations for future understanding for its
metropolitan governance. In this context, they can be classified according to their
characteristics as physical continuity between continuous physical phenomena and non-
continuous. Ortíz and Kamiya present the following reflection in this regard:

There is a tendency to think that continuous systems require more coordination than
discontinuous ones. That is why municipalities feel a greater need to have a consistent
metropolitan policy when dealing with green and gray infrastructure, unlike when dealing
with housing, productive, or social policies. The need for coordination is more difficult to
perceive for the discontinuous components and comes about only in more complex stages of
metropolitan evolution, most frequently in decentralized or devolved systems (Ortiz &
Kamiya, 2017, p. 101).
The relevance in the criteria of the definition of the so-called metropolitan phenomena is that
those that are recognized are those that will have special attention and resources destined for
their management from a metropolitan coordination level. An extreme case that shows the
importance in the definition of what a metropolitan phenomenon is found in Colombia, where
the Valledupar Metropolitan Area declared the Vallenata culture as a metropolitan issue, with
implications for the entity's work for its protection and strengthening, even when it is an
ethereal element without a clear relation with the metropolitan debate (Valledupar
Metropolitan Area, 2020).

In summary, metropolitan phenomena share the notion of crossing political-administrative

boundaries, but they are variable in their conception according to specific contexts. Urban
nature or physical continuity can be basic elements for its definition, without limiting them.
For example, environmental management is usually linked to phenomena with physical
continuity, as well as in the regulation of associated polluting activities of ecosystems. An
example from the non-continue urban metropolitan phenomenon can be the economic
coordination, related with fluxes and points. The conceptualization of phenomena as objects
of public policy is an unfinished process that reflects political positions on the configuration
of the metropolitan scale in social and cultural processes. The abstraction of an object as an
element of metropolitan public policy is an exercise of power.

Nevertheless, the metropolitan phenomenon is not consolidated as a policy object, but

something that is constantly redefined. The permanent encounter between stakeholders make
the definitions of metropolitan a field of struggle regarding the positioning and inclusion of

13
elements under stake in the imaginaries of the urban regions. For example, to Gross, Gualini
and Ye the reconfiguration of metropolitan space is viewed as a constitutive dimension of
policy and governance practices.

The metropolitan space, far from being a consolidated policy object, is currently being
redefined. It is increasingly viewed as a political stake, and, as such, it is being
constructed and contested as a spatial scale through policy practices and discourses
related to spatial economic development objects. In this sense, we stand for the heuristic
significance of a distinctively social constructivist and strategic-relational understanding
of metropolitan space as object of inquiry. (Gross, Gualini, & Ye, 2018)
The changes in the conception of the redundant metropolitan space are the result of the
conception of the phenomenon in a broad sense that disregards assumptions based on public
policy interests. The conception of what is or is not metropolitan, of the phenomenon, is
directly related to a spatial scale called metropolitan that depends on the presence of these
phenomena and, based on these limitations, theories and conceptual approaches that support
the models of governance and its implementation. In this sense, it is essential to find the
points of discussion and the interests at stake in the processes of metropolization. However,
as explained below, the probabilities and paradigms that seek to capture the ethos of the
metropolitan phenomenon have shortcomings derived from their own biases for the interests
of the actors involved.

From a sociospatial perspective, this is critical in enabling us to better understand who

or where stands to gain the most and conversely who or where stands to gain the least
(or worse still, lose the most) as a consequence of metropolitan regionalisation. (Galland
& Harrison, Conceptualising metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial
imaginaries and Planning are influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 15)
The following definitions of metropolitan governance, of bodies and systems of governance,
and on the configuration processes and tensions, are based on the interests contained in the
definition of the metropolitan phenomenon as support for each one. The discussions that are
reflected in the divergent positions in each of the concepts reflect the tension in the definition
and response of the metropolitan as a scale and political space of cities in a highly globalized
system, that is highly contested.

14
 2.1.2. Metropolitan governance

There is a large literature about the topic of how urban regions are governed and experienced
in a metropolitan scale. Allen Scott questions this topic and establish a purpose: ‘What main
governance tasks do global city-regions face as they seek to preserve and enhance their
wealth and well-being?’ (Scott, 2001, p. 12). Several answers have been proposed by the
different cities and the topic relevance is increasing with the global urbanization rate. The
main idea about governance is find a scheme to guarantee coordination and coherence to
achieve the better life conditions in three dimensions, according to Salet, Thornley and
Kreukels (2003, p. XIII): the spatial, functional, and sectoral. In other words, the recognition
of a metropolitan phenomenon implies the existence of issues that, due to their metropolitan
nature, must be addressed in a coherent and coordinated manner beyond local administrative
units and traditional borders. As mentioned in the introduction, this is a growing and more
frequent problem throughout the planet, so it is essential to have tools and action frameworks
flexible enough to seek attention in the pursuit of public policy objectives. The desired result
is an effective scheme able to guarantee metropolitan governance to improve the urban
conditions.

As the metropolitan phenomenon dramatically arises all over the world, achieving effective
metropolitan governance has become one of the most pressing challenges of our time. In this
context, the absence of institutional and legal frameworks at the metropolitan level is a
common problem faced by the great majority of metropolises. (Blanco-Ochoa et al, 2017, p.
290).
According to Birch, metropolitan governance is a tool, a vehicle critically important to
implement global agreements that have recently been approved by United Nations Member
States. (Birch, 2017, p. 61) The changes on institutional configurations and purposes must be
questioned to understand the nature of the governance schemes. It is a relatively recent
concept with different extensions and explanations, that are mainly related to the political
and administrative structures of the States.

Metropolis governance is about understanding and managing complex urban ecosystems

(with innovation) more than about delineating new boundaries and forcing the creation of
new institutions (Gómez-Álvarez et al., 2017, p. 45).

15
However, among the different ways of addressing these complex urban systems, there are
several points of consensus. David Gómez-Álvarez et al., point out three widely accepted
ideas about their nature and development processes:

1. They are determined by the nature of the governance structures with relation to the
levels of fragmentation, the degree of control over urban functions, and the degree of
formality or informality in the coordination of metropolitan area units.
2. Public and private sectors have a role to play in the formation and functioning of these
governance models and the legal status of the metropolitan area.
3. There is a real need to include social and political participation in the governance
structures (Gómez-Álvarez, Rajack, & López-Moreno, 2017, p. 31).

These general points allow us to identify a framework from which governance forms can be
characterized through their similarities and differences or in the nature of the actors involved.
The processes in which these metropolitan governance bodies are configured depend largely
on the political systems. Just as the phenomena must be defined particularly for each
metropolitan area, the design of metropolitan governance mechanisms depends on an
institutional context that opens possibilities to guarantee their management. In the end, as
seen in the following quotation, although the nature and forms of metropolitan governance
bodies may change, their objective remains unchangeable.

Metropolitan governance bodies are defined as organizations that cover the core and
surrounding commuting zones of metropolitan areas and are dedicated to coordinating
policies that are of direct and predominant relevance to the metropolitan areas. They have
local and potentially regional governments as members or have themselves the status of the
regional government. They can be distinguished from sectoral authorities and special
purpose bodies through the breadth of their field of work. In contrast to most sectoral
authorities, they work on more than one policy area (Ahrend et al, 2017, p. 55).
The characterization presented proposes the association of metropolitan governance to a scale
of government that should operate intersectorially. At the same time, the definition is
supported in the conceptualization of the city-region and the metropolises that determine the
type of institutions that govern in such a way that they can achieve the objectives set. For
example, in the contemporary agenda, the concept of competitiveness has become a central
element but recently it has been transferred to the field of deterritorialization as references
for relational networks perspectives, understanding governance as the possibility of renewed

16
cooperation and consensus between a range of a range of private and public actors. (Ekers,
Hamel, & Keil, 2012, p. 408) These types of changes in the conception of impactful cities
reflect on the scales of what is metropolitan and the type of functions on the agenda of
metropolitan governance bodies. The central theme in this transition is on the path of
institutional and public policy reorganization on a different scale.

Initially conceptualized as competitive and strategic territories in a complex system of

multilevel governance, city-regions have become empirical referents for advocates of non-
territorial, non-scalar, networked relational perspectives. (Harrison & Hoyler, Governing
the new metropolis, 2014, p. 2251)
The different periods and schools of thought identified in the field of metropolitan governance assume
different definitions of the role of metropolitan areas and, therefore, of their governance structure.
The adaptation to new scales and the development of metropolitan public policies is part of a global
research agenda that allows the generation of international good practices that are replicated in global
cities around the world as local public policies. This configuration of global networks is a form of
mobility of recent knowledge within an elite of cities.

The transition away from national planning and policy making of metropolitan areas towards
a global policy industry poses fundamental questions about how ideas, policies and practices
for metropolitan development are generated; how and why some ideas, policies and practices
are subsequently captured, become mobile and travel; how and why some ideas, policies and
practices mutate and are absorbed more easily than others in practice? (Galland & Harrison,
Conceptualising metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and
Planning are influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 12)
The result of these processes are new conceptions and forms of governance that aim to be global and
local at the same time. Although there are common points at present about what metropolitan
governance is and what its objectives should be, it is necessary to keep in mind how the imaginary
has been forged, as well as the appearance of new scales for the exercise of power in trans-scale
structures that go beyond of traditional conceptions of metropolitan government, institutions and
policies. At this point, the call appears for the processes of participation and collaboration with
citizens in metropolitan public policies that demand permanent reform of metropolitan values and
institutions. The definitions and conceptions of what is metropolitan assumes the necessity to have a
governance capable to guarantee the coordination to pursue normative values, giving to the definition
of governance a normative definition that involves State, market, and organized civil society. (Ekers
et al., 2012, p. 408)

17
 2.1.3. Governance bodies and systems

The organization of the metropolitan governance bodies presents specific results despite the
general and open conditions in which they are configured. Under different names such as
areas, regions, metropolitan committees, large urban areas, with different degrees of linkage
to their parts, these bodies are constituted institutionally. Different theories seek to define
characteristics in which metropolitan governance schemes are located, just like the public
policy coordination among municipalities and sectoral entities. According to OECD (2016):

Metropolitan areas are economically integrated units, but they are often divided into a large
number of local jurisdictions without adequate mechanisms for co-ordinating public policy.
In this respect, metropolitan areas can have different levels of administrative fragmentation,
meaning different extents to which their governance is characterized by many and
uncoordinated administrative units (OECD, 2016, pág. 86).
In general, metropolitan governance schemes are established on hierarchical (vertical)
relationships, and on competition and collaboration (horizontal) relationships. The discussion
on the type of structure that should be generated and the way in which the relations between
its members will work is a central part of this discussion with questions such as whether any
actor should have pre-eminence over the others, or whether they should some binding and
obligatory mechanism in the decision making. In this sense, a governance problem would be
related to the way in which relationships are structured to achieve the established objectives.

In contrast to the common perception that new forms of governance are more democratic and
participatory comparatively to the state and contrary to normative expectations, emergent
forms of governance are increasingly authoritarian. Non-governmental organizations,
public–private partnerships, development corporations and various stakeholder- based
associations are often autocratic and are producing questionable forms of political
citizenship. Arguably authoritarian forms of governance are proliferating most quickly in
suburban spaces. (Ekers, Hamel, & Keil, 2012, p. 416)
However, these elements may be insufficient. The presence and inclusion of multiple actors
is an element required, going beyond the traditional government, and even requiring citizen’s
participation as essential for an effective system. Nevertheless, this governance beyond the
state can replicate in the metropolitan level some risks conceived as a Jano-faced issue, where
certain kinds of citizenship supporting authoritarian

Institutions and public administrations have been built considering the logic of competence
and hierarchical government structures. The governance of metropolises, on the other hand,
has mainly been created based on the need to address issues unresolved by the aggregative
configuration of cities. Metropolitan governance often resulted in a lack of clear competence

18
 delimitation and a certain authority deficit. In our opinion, the deficits of metropolitan
governance will not (only) be solved with more formalization and more hierarchical
structures. (Subirats, Dilemmas: Multilevel government, Network governance, and Policy
co-production, 2017, p. 88)
One of the main characteristics of the metropolitan governance schemes is the management
form and structure is not hierarchical or center-peripheral but based on dialogue and
cooperation between different actors. The rules and laws must determine the distribution of
competences and resources, setting a starting scenario for dialogue between actors to reach
stages of coordination, convergence, and cooperation, to the point where new institutional
forms are created. According to Subirats (2017, p. 89), the evolution of economic, social, and
technological environments has been moving toward network structures as an elaborate
response to complexity.

The management of a metropolis is not based on orders provided from the upper tier of a
unitary system, it is based on a peer dialogue among all the institutions and organizations
within the limits established. The law outlines the distribution of responsibilities and
competences among them. A metropolitan management structure is neither based on a
unitary hierarchical pyramid (the top-down Aristotelian ‘potestas’) nor on a centripetal
(center versus periphery) model of imposed decisions. Metropolitan management structure
is based on a matrix of dialogues among the actors and stakeholders involved (Ortiz &
Kamiya, 2017, pp. 101-102).

Figure 1. Differences between central and hierarchical and metropolitan governance.

Source: (Ortíz, 2020) Retrieved on www.pedrobortiz.com

The relevance of hierarchical or matrix forms has implications for the negotiation capacities
of different actors. Although a priori the operation of this type of relationship may seem fair
and clear, in practice there are difficulties. The relationship between actors does not usually
occur between equals, with the same institutional capacity of resources. The dialogue
between a dormitory municipality and the core of the metropolitan area allows us to perceive

19
two different magnitudes from which the negotiation stages can be misrepresented. As well,
Swyngedouw presents a challenge related with the governance beyond-the-State and its
impacts in the governmentality on the different scales it has been involved.

In a context of perceived or real ‘state failure’ on the one hand and attempts to produce systems
of ‘good’ governance on the other, institutional ensembles of governance based on such
horizontally networked tripartite composition are viewed as empowering, democracy enhancing
and more effective forms of governing compared with the sclerotic, hierarchical and bureaucratic
state forms that conducted the art of governing during much of the 20th century. While these
innovative figures of governance often offer the promise of greater democracy and grassroots
empowerment, they also exhibit a series of contradictory tendencies. (Swyngedouw, Governance
Innovation and the Citizen: The Janus Face of Governance-beyond-the-State, 2005, p. 1992)
Some of the questions that must be resolved in the face of these new types of relationships
to guarantee metropolitan governance is in relation to the ways in which the actors are being
involved and the impacts on the results of metropolitan management. For example, having
relationships directly between municipalities 1-1 is not the same as having them within a
round table. In many cases, a loss of local or regional autonomy can be perceived. Even
citizen voices can be made invisible if the scale is not known as a political space from its
structure or, on the contrary, allow the overlapping of interests of organized citizen groups
against individuals without a voice under the false premise of greater degrees of
democratization over a metropolitan scale.

2.1.4. The institutional shift in the metropolis

The definition of metropolitan governance depends on formal (with competences and

financial resources) and informal (attitudes of local actors toward cooperation) institutions,
that interact and shape each other. (Tomàs, 2020, p. 26) Change processes are usually
associated with implementation and the search for specific objectives, as mentioned above.
However, they are often motivated by processes with a broader scope. The present subsection
articulates three questions that describe the institutional shifts.

Mariona Tomás presents two perspectives that include explanatory elements of the variations
between periods and schools of thought that differ in the focus of analysis. On the one hand,
the Neo-Marxist and structuralist perspective conceives metropolitan reforms as strategies of
the central State to privilege a scale in the development of public policies within a process of
restructuring within a neoliberal framework. (Brenner, Decoding the Newest “Metropolitan

20
Regionalism" in the USA: A Critical Overview, 2002) On the other hand, there is the
institutionalist approach that analyzes the roles and agency of those who lead the processes
of change, considering their interests and the proposed results, accommodating multiple
theories. (Tomàs, 2020, p. 28) In brief, the main issue is about the definition of the
metropolitan scale as a territorial approach to reshape power relations. This is the first set of
questions: What does each proposal for the construction of a metropolitan scale respond to?
Who are the interested parties? Who are opposed?

The past ten years have also seen a marked shift in how the spatiality of cities and regions
should be best captured conceptually. Initially conceptualised as competitive and strategic
territories in a complex system of multilevel governance, city-regions have become empirical
referents for advocates of non-territorial, non-scalar, networked relational perspectives.
(Harrison & Hoyler, Governing the new metropolis, 2014, p. 2251)
On the mainstream language, the process of building a metropolitan governance scheme is
usually presented as a necessity to address the problems at this level. However, this is not an
automatic process related to urban development. Christian Lefèvre points out that the
metropolitan scale has not become a political arena that matches the economic power
represented by the entities at this scale. This implies that there is no open discussion for the
definition of objectives and the selection of solution to the needs at this scale. How this
process is developed is essential to explain the origin of frictions, including those of
environmental management. This is the second set of questions: How are participation and
decision-making built and developed on this scale? How are narratives about metropolization
and coordination presented? How is power transferred and exercised on this scale?

Metropolitan areas have become the new spatial fix of globalized capitalism. However, their
economic strength is not matched by their political strength because metropolitan areas
remain politically weak (Lefèvre, The improbable metropolis: decentralization, local
democracy and metropolitan areas in the Western world., 2010, p. 623).
The difficulties related to the conversion of the metropolitan scale into a political space are
due to how the formal institutions are configured. The processes for transferring competences
and functions, with the associated resources, which eventually become sources of power for
public policy action, can be described through the categories of decentralization and
devolution. Decentralization and deconcentration are ways in which the central State seeks
to improve management forms at territorial scales. In most centralist countries, these
processes have gone hand in hand with the delivery of powers to local entities such as

21
Municipalities, Provinces, Regions or Departments, or the name they receive in each State.
The devolution, meanwhile, implies the possibility of participation in the election of leaders
and the corresponding social and political control. This would meet the construction of the
metropolitan scale as a political space, responding to the common shared scholar vision of
this scale as the new fix from the globalized world. This is the third set of questions: How
does conflict occur and manage during the transfer of power? What narratives are built
around these processes? Who build them?

Decentralization must not be mistaken with devolution. In a metropolitan devolution process,

the accountability of the metropolitan appointees is transferred from the central government
to the citizens of the metropolis. The head of the metropolitan agency is accountable to the
electorate (Ortiz & Kamiya, 2017, p. 103).
In the search for the configuration of the metropolitan level as a political space, the conflict
is constantly present. ‘The scale of struggle and the struggle over scale are two sides of the
same coin.’ (Smith, 1993). The proposal of channels or mechanisms by imposition or
negotiation is a central element in the explanation of the origin and the resources used in the
conflict. Imposition processes, devoid of dialogue, produce conflict and resistance at
structural points over their creation, making them unfeasible in many cases. Lefèvre
advocates the need for concerted processes for the creation of these institutions. However,
according to Western experiences, they face three types of problems:

- States are unwilling to decentralize at that level because they are afraid about
establishing strong political counter-powers to their authority.
- Local governments belonging to the Metropolis also fears of losing power and having
actions and policies imposed by metropolitan bodies.
- When these authorities have been established, they have encountered the rivalry of
central cities which have been able to significantly reduce their juridical power
(Lefèvre, The improbable metropolis: decentralization, local democracy and
metropolitan areas in the Western world., 2010, pp. 629-630).

A fourth difficulty could be added: the resistance of regional and sectoral institutions against
the loss of competences and additional competition for resources. As a closing of this
subsection, some of the elements presented in the previous concepts should be brought up.
First, the types of relationships that are held between the market, the State and civil society

22
at the local level shape the forms of governance that are exercised and the prevalence of their
interests in spaces for negotiation respond to the models defined by academics (and which
are presented in the next section). Second, the periods and mastery of different discourses do
not respond solely to a monolithic academic agenda, but, on the contrary, vary in each context
and flow according to the interests that the actors define. Local conflict, therefore, also shapes
the consumption of narratives and discourses on the metropolitan scale, without ignoring the
role towards homogenization that globalization presents.

2.1.5. Topics of metropolitan change

The details about the process change can be part of transitions, results in transformations,
and produce frictions in different topics. The thesis takes the topics proposed by Galland and
Harrison in their TTP methodology: Institutions, Policy, Social imaginaries, and Planning.
(2020, pp. 2-18) The changes proposed become tangible in these topics, what makes relatable
the different narratives and approaches to produce and adapt the current metropolitan status
quo into something new. The selection of these topics, as argued by Galland and Harrison, is
because they are the most salient in debates on processes of metropolitan change. In this way,
they are relevant enough to analyze the phenomena that impact the discourses and practices
of metropolitan governance in their different dimensions. Furthermore, in these four topics it
is possible to identify the dimensions of analysis defined in this thesis (ends/purposes, means,
actors, and nature of relationships). In this section each of these topics is briefly presented
with some references to their relationship with the units of analysis.

Across the world, we have more institutions—both formal and informal—operating at, across
or nominally on behalf of metropolitan regions than ever before, yet we appear increasingly
skeptical about their capacity to impact positively on metropolitan development. There are
those who argue vehemently that metropolitan regions— or more precisely, their leaders and
new institutional arrangements—are blazing a trail in reshaping economies and political
systems in progressive ways that are providing solutions to what were previously seen as
intractable sociospatial problems. (Galland & Harrison, Conceptualising metropolitan
regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and Planning are influencing
metropolitan development, 2020, pp. 9-10)
The issue of institutions and institutional change is probably the most visible in the public
sphere. The discussions addressed here are about the modifications to the territorial ordering,
the distribution of functions or resources. The way in which these institutions are configured,
as mentioned in the concept of metropolitan governance bodies and the configuration

23
process, gives them aspirations that are hardly achievable when turning them into the solution
to these problems. The discussion regarding the configuration of institutions, the incidence
of actors from different territorial levels or sectors becomes evident. The role of institutions
-formal and informal- can be characterized through the purposes assigned to them, the means
they have to achieve them, as well as the nature of the actors involved with it, and the types
of relationships developed. The boundaries and the administrative fragmentation must be
considered, as well as the nature of the institutions described for each case. “The problem is
one of the metropolitan praxis: how to put the abstract (simplified) reasoning of institutional
theory into (concrete/complex) institutional practice via policies and governance
arrangements for metropolitan regions?” (Galland & Harrison, Conceptualising metropolitan
regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and Planning are influencing
metropolitan development, 2020, p. 11)

[…] metropolitan environmental resources and infrastructure typically spread across

municipal boundaries. As a result, their effective protection and management require a
coordinated approach to overcome sub-optimal outcomes resulting from administrative
fragmentation (Gómez-Álvarez, Rajack, & López-Moreno, 2017, p. 31).
The second topic refers to policy and ideas in the methodology from Galland and Harrison,
which are in a clear connection with institutions as “the institutions are what they do”. The
analysis of metropolitan policies is reflected in two types of literature: General abstractions
(long-term discursive parameters) and Systematic reviews about its implementation processes
in specific contexts, highlighting what works, where, and why. (Galland & Harrison,
Conceptualising metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and
Planning are influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 12) The current reflections in a
globalized context are mainly about the mobility of ideas all over the world and its incidence
in specific contexts, considering the proliferation of metropolis networks and associations. It
is not only about how the ideas are mobilized but who decides which are and which not. This
puts over the table the capabilities and involvement of actors, the power relations in these
global multi-city and ‘local’ metropolitan organizations, and the results for the construction
of imaginaries and design of planning and management tools: The policies as results and
means that reflects effects from global trends as the globalization and the flexibilization of
the governance models over the world.

24
 The transition away from national planning and policy making of metropolitan areas towards
a global policy industry poses fundamental questions about how ideas, policies and practices
for metropolitan development are generated; how and why some ideas, policies and practices
are subsequently captured, become mobile and travel; how and why some ideas, policies and
practices mutate and are absorbed more easily than others in practice? (Galland & Harrison,
Conceptualising metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and
Planning are influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 13)
The metropolises have become the ideal space to face the problems of cities, such as the
provision of services that provide them with a high level of competitiveness and productivity,
and the world, such as discussions on environmental management and social inclusion.
However, questions regarding the unequivocal definition of what it means to be metropolitan
remain open. When does a metropolis become such? (Galland & Harrison, Conceptualising
metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and Planning are
influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 15) The construction of imagery responds to
the mental structures on which the configuration of institutions and the implementation of
political ideas are supported, as well as planning exercises. The relationships between actors
are, at the same time, result and active agents in the configuration of these imaginary. They
are the lenses through which the metropolitan space and the relationship of citizens and other
actors with it are understood. In this context, an essential question is who builds these
metropolitan imaginaries and why he does it. (Feiertag, Harrison, & Fedeli, 2020)

There is no simple or single definition of what a metropolitan region is, nor a threshold by
which a region—however, defined—becomes a metropolitan region. Like all spatial concepts,
metropolitan regions are imagined and constructed across space and time, with different
actors having their own imaginations of what metropolitan regions are and are for.
Metropolitan spatial imaginaries are not static, natural or uncontested. Rather they are
constantly evolving and contested. And often, some actors recognise one metropolitan spatial
imaginary while others an entirely different one. (Harrison, Fedeli, & Feiertag, 2020, p. 135)
Finally, the role of planning shaping metropolitan areas is questioned. The forms and styles
of planning that cities around the world have adopted must be presented in relation to the
positions facing the global market, strongly characterized by an urban competitiveness
agenda. The planning process involves the association of objectives with the media, while
defining actors and types of relationships that become visible in the results and the planning
process. The types of governance, the imaginary, the institutions, and the policies affect the
configuration and scope of planning at the metropolitan scale, as well as the actors involved
and the relationships that they can sustain in pursuit of their interests. The redefinition of
scales is part of permanent negotiation processes that are related to traditional planning
25
mechanisms through the configuration of new geographies of statehood. (Brenner, 2009, p.
124) The alleged depoliticization of both processes (planning and re-escalation) become
scenarios of legitimization of actors and interests. “Depoliticisation and post-politics
constitute ‘a lens through which we can frame and understand contemporary planning’ via
techniques that displace key (political) debates from planning into other managerial or
technical (post-political) arenas”. (Galland and Harrison, 2020, P.17, quoting P.
Allmendinger, 2017, P.191) This invocation of the demise of ideology is itslef and
ideological act aimed to produce changes in public policy and planning from the rhetoric
discussion. People would not think that the decision-making is a political exercise towards
the legitimation of certain ideas and practices. (Davoudi, Galland, & Stead, 2020, p. 18)

Despite the apparently rigid, cascade-like hierarchy of several national planning systems,
the formation of ad hoc horizontal and vertical networks of actors determines the possibility
for metropolitan regions to undergo episodes of strategic spatial planning. While this
reorientation of governance capacities has been evident insofar as fostering competitive
metropolitan regions in settings where territorial relationships are characterized by complex
urban and regional dynamics, the range of strategic plans at different levels of planning
influenced by relational logics is wide and similarly influences the processes and outcomes
of metropolitan development. (Galland & Harrison, Conceptualising metropolitan
regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and Planning are influencing
metropolitan development, 2020, p. 16)
The utility of these four themes, which could be more including governance or environment
in the words of Galland and Harrison, lies in the fact that they are complex enough to deal
with ontological and deontological, structural, and functional processes. This allows
observing different layers of change in the structuring of the theoretical and practical
discourse in the metropolitan governance with multiple implications for its analysis and
exercise. The relationship with objectives, means, actors and relationships between these are
the materialization and part of these processes, with which the analysis in case studies allows
to contrast the gaps between theory and practice, as well as current trends.

This subsection presented some key concepts to understand metropolitan governance and
break it down into some problematic analytical units to allow its observation in case studies.
The theoretical approach to rescaling processes of power structures must be critically
questioned to explain its scope and limitations. In the next section, the main paradigms
constructed in the face of these processes are presented, in which this re-escalation exercise
of power has been translated into cities.

26
 2.2. Theoretical framework: The paradigms of

metropolitan governance

The construction of paradigms in metropolitan governance is a subject that has remained in

continuous discussion and development during the last century. Each of the paradigms
proposes a configuration and a type of organization for the management of metropolitan
phenomena, and they have been developed or grouped into schools of metropolitan thought.
Among their differences are the objectives that define, from their conception of the State,
democracy, governance, planning, and the role of institutions to achieve them, among other
things. These schools have been developed in specific places and times that are usually
associated with periodization exercises such as those developed by Neil Brenner. Based on
these periodization and school identification exercises, this section based on Tomàs (2019,
p. 75), and Galland and Harrison. (2020, p. 7), defines the following schools to describe as
paradigmatic: (a) the reform school (1900-1920 and 1950-1960), (b) the school of public
choice (1970-1980), (c) the new regionalism (from 1990), and (d) a mix of the contemporary
approaches proposed by Galland and Harrison (New city regionalism in the 2000s, Multi-
city regionalism in the 2010s, and Virtual regionalism proposed for the 2020s).

Each of these schools will be characterized according to their positions on the topics defined
in section 2.1.3. (institutions, policies, social imagery, and planning) in the four dimensions
of analysis defined within the objectives of the thesis (objectives, means, actors, and types of
relationships). The definition of ideal or paradigmatic types is made on this basis and it is
understood that they have a considerable normative and ideological burden, included in the
conception of the themes, which materializes in the dimensions of analysis. The objectives,
assumptions and hypotheses are elements that make evident the beliefs of those in charge of
defining the agenda or designing the institutional arrangements for their achievement. These
models end up defining metropolitan governance mechanisms that can be used to evaluate
existing arrangements as better or worse.

For this reason, in the second and third part of this subsection on paradigms, the elements
that influence the capacities of metropolitan governance in each school are characterized.
Identifying the dominant assumptions and ideas in each paradigm will allow analysis and

27
identification in the case studies of the next chapter. In the second part, the factors that
influence governance capacities in each of the models are defined (whether it is the strength
of an institution for the execution of projects or as a space for dialogue, etc.). The third part
presents a reflection on the tensions produced by the processes of change considered in each
paradigm (processes of devolution, decentralization, amalgamation, etc.). As part of the
closing of the subsection, the theoretical framework on which the design of the methodology
is based is presented in summary form. The role from this chapter is provide the elements
that supports theoretically the study case and the identification of the gaps between the
existing paradigms explaining the metropolitan governance issues and the cases proposed
(Bogotá, Montréal, and Barcelona).

2.2.1. Main Paradigms in Metropolitan Governance: The schools

a) Reform school

Also known as the old regionalism. According to Galland and Harrison, the reform school
was dominant in two periods: First between 1900-1920 and, later, in the 1950s and 1960s.
The conception of the metropolitan phenomenon must correspond to a political unit that is
capable of integrate your government to guarantee the implementation of redistributive
policies in the territory. Institutional fragmentation is negative because it hinders the
provision of services and the equitable redistribution of resources throughout the same
functional territory. (Savitch & Vogel, 2009, p. 106) The central problem is that
fragmentation divides the metropolis, which is a single economic and social community,
resulting in higher levels of inequity in the distribution of public resources and services,
problems coordinating the distribution of services, and the inability to address regional
problems.

The proposed solution is structural change to produce political integration in the metropolis.
More incremental approaches such as annexation were viewed as insufficient since there is
so much citizen opposition to central city expansion. Initial metropolitan reform focused on
city-county consolidation to create a metropolitan city. (Savitch & Vogel, 2009, p. 108)
According to Tomàs, the authors of the school of the reform understand two proposals to
address these problems: (a) the annexation and merger of municipalities, and (b) the creation
of metropolitan governments. (Tomàs, 2019, p. 76) The first was carried out by removing
and recomposing the political-administrative borders to adapt them to the metropolitan

28
phenomenon. The second sought to transfer to a new scale of public administration the
powers and resources necessary to address metropolitan dilemmas. Both ideas seek to
configure an entity that covers the metropolitan area although they differ in the management
of existing local institutions (in one case they disappear and in the other they become part of
the new territorial organization).

The characterization of the four themes in the four dimensions proposed is presented below.
Institutions are characterized by a comprehensive conception of the metropolis as a unit. It is
considered that from a rational logic, the management of a functional territory must
correspond to the political-administrative borders and this must guarantee the redistribution
of resources within the territory, thus supporting a top-down logic in the other phenomena.
The objective was to configure entities capable of managing metropolitan phenomena from
the scale. The means were those mentioned above for mergers and the configuration of supra-
institutions. The actors were mainly territorial entities, prioritizing cascading planning logic
and top-down thinking.

Old regionalism (Reform school)

Purposes Means Actors Relationships
Institutions Set up public institutions 1. Merger and Public institutions as Various types of
that cover the amalgamation of service providers. Role relationships between
metropolitan territory municipalities. of a new entity or a territorial public actors,
(Hard governance) 2. Creation of new larger-scale city and municipalities, urban
metropolitan entities municipalities. nucleus, and other
with political, financial intermediate and
and administrative national (or federal)
autonomy. levels of government.
Policy and Cover the provision of Traditional public policy Public institutions. The sector entities are in
ideas goods and services on a tools and, later, Sectoral design of charge of managing
functional scale from the Keynesian. Public policies with institutions from the metropolitan
public sector. spending as a tool for responsible for their level the cycle of design
the provision of design and and implementation of
services. implementation and public policies in a top-
inclusion into local down or by imposition
policies. perspective in a sectoral
approach.
Spatial Configure the Official representation Metropolitan political The metropolitan
imaginaries metropolitan space as a (statistical unit) and elite and Academia from conception of the
political and identity configuration of a technocratic territory must prevail
unit from its metropolitan problems perspective. over the local one in
functionality, as part of a on the public agenda order to guarantee the
natural process of urban (commutation and general good.
growth services). Relationships must come
from metropolitan
interests over (local)
individuals and not vice
versa.

29
Planning Rationalistic, exhaustive Traditional rationalist Public administration Comprehensive urban
planning on the planning tools. planning
metropolis. The only
change was the scale.
Table 1. Metropolitan regionalist projects in the 1990s: the new conjuncture in the USA
Source: Own elaboration using the topics from the TTP Framework by Galland and Harrison (2020).

Public policies and ideas of the metropolitan were limited to service sectors, such as
transportation, infrastructure, and basic sanitation. The functional trend of these issues, which
are samples of phenomena with physical continuity that transcends administrative
boundaries, became the main element in identifying fields of metropolitan intervention.
Subsequently, exercises were carried out to collect information and construct direct responses
to these problems. If there was a traffic congestion problem between two municipalities, it
was required to build more roads to have the necessary capacity, and for this to happen, an
entity was required to group these territorial entities and could build the road directly.

Spatial imagery pointed to the notion of metropolitan unity. The configuration of systems on
the metropolitan scale is a central element in the imaginary to justify the idea that intervention
is required. Although these systems are analytical units to understand the territory, it is sought
that they be established as certain truths in public discussion and, in turn, justify the proposed
policy interventions and the exercises of planning and metropolitan government.

Planning was rationalistic and based on a technocratic discourse. The metropolitan

government, using scientific methods and technique, can define the themes, objectives, and
tools to deal with them. The change that is needed, then, is one of a political-administrative
scale that allows the comprehensive approach to phenomena that are functionally
metropolitan. The government is sovereign and has the technique as a tool to address urban
problems, which are simple and organized. In this sense, planning is a comprehensive
practice that must be developed on the appropriate scale and that will have the full capacity
to address these problems.

b) Public choice school

The school of public choice was born in response to the rational postulates of top-down
planning and management incorporated in the school of reform in the 1950s and 1960s, with
a presence widely documented in the literature until the end of the years. 80. The logic was
based on the market as an ideal mechanism to support decision-making that would optimize

30
the delivery of public goods and services. The starting assumption is that the metropolitan
phenomenon must be assumed locally as part of the context in the management of multiple
institutions that through competition to attract benefits end up producing an increase in the
overall accumulated benefit. In this sense, institutional fragmentation is no longer seen as an
obstacle to become an incentive for competition that will have as a final result a general
improvement in living conditions. (Savitch & Vogel, 2009, p. 109) The main argument with
which this school was born based on the assumptions of rational choice was that the top-
down proposals of the reform school threatened the autonomy of the municipalities and, in a
certain way, of their residents and citizens. There was no independent justification for the
metropolitan model to impose decision making from a higher sphere.

The recognition that metropolitan agreements were supported in a top-down normative

structuring allowed two criticisms. On the one hand, the first criticism was that of the
deterioration of democracy and local autonomy, which was violated by entities without
political recognition on many occasions by the primary constituent (the citizens). On the
other hand, the lack of market presence in the design and genesis of these structures, in a
way, showed a forced formulation of state intervention that did not correspond to the real
dynamics of the processes. Despite these criticisms, the defenders of this school trusted in
the management and the metropolitan approach, recognizing some importance in the
conceptualization of the problems on this scale but restoring the role as decision makers to
the local entities. (Savitch & Vogel, 2009, p. 109)

[…] although, if they want, municipalities can collaborate to jointly provide a service (water
supply, waste management, public transport, fire protection service). Thus, the municipality
is the basis of the model: the metropolitan dimension will be carried out from sectoral
agencies for the provision of a service, but without being metropolitan governments with
political powers and recognition, but as technical entities of indirect choice and provision of
services. (Tomàs, 2019, p. 77. My traslation)

Considering a central role in the market as a means for the allocation of resources through
demand and supply exercises, within which municipalities are located as more direct
intermediaries with citizens, the need and convenience of having a metropolitan entity with
binding capacity for its members. This type of entity conditions the freedom of citizen choice
and the autonomy of the municipalities to compete by becoming a distortion of the
metropolitan market.

31
 […] excellence in efficiency and democracy is obtained in small municipalities […] there
should be no metropolitan government that coordinates policies and the provision of services,
since the competition between the municipalities is positive [...] In relation to the management
of services, and unlike the defenders of big government, it is understood that this should not
necessarily be carried out by local authorities, but can be outsourced to companies or other
companies following criteria of rationality and efficiency. […] Regarding democracy, small
municipalities are considered to guarantee greater transparency of decisions and greater
political participation, since there is more proximity between politicians and citizens. […]
Ultimately, according to the public choice school, the causal relationship also exists, but in
reverse: small units ensure greater democracy and efficiency. (Tomàs, 2010, pp. 128-129.
My traslation)

The authors of this school build a relationship between the size of institutions and the quality
of democracy and efficiency. The smaller the entity, the greater the capacity to guarantee a
quality democracy, as well as to promote greater efficiency in the delivery of services derived
from competition between municipalities. Cooperation must not be forced, and the initiative
must be local. Thus, the institutions are public in their genesis, but they contemplate an
opening towards the private sector in case it turns out to be more efficient as part of a rational
choice. The objective is to provide the services and guarantee the democracy quality, and the
means must be the municipalities as primary tools to drive the decision-making process under
a competitive context in the metropolitan areas. The actors are the municipalities and,
potentially, the private sector, and the relationship is based on horizontal relationships that
demand permanent negotiation.

Public choice
Purposes Means
Institutions Soft instances in a The configuration of
metropolitan context formal institutions is not
with local decision required, but it can be
making through achieved through
negotiation, competition negotiation processes
and cooperation between local entities
processes. and with the
development of informal
institutions.
Policy and Local management of Decision making
ideas phenomena typical of a oriented by the
metropolitan and "market". The State
sectoral context. becomes a facilitator for
access to metropolitan
public services through
sectoral and negotiation
policies.
Actors Relationships
Municipalities should be Mainly horizontal
the axis in decision- relationships between
making, but the role of local public institutions.
the market as an
institution that shapes
and supports
metropolitan affairs is
introduced.
Local sectoral Local and sectoral.
institutions. Design and Importance of local
implementation with negotiation and the
negotiation processes market system for the
based on rational choice. management of services
and public goods.

32
Spatial Maintain the notion of The protection of Local municipal elite Promote the notions of
imaginaries the metropolitan scale as interests and local and academics of autonomy, market, and
a scenario of market autonomy is a rational choice. democracy as the
competition between requirement for the structural axis of any
local entities. construction of a metropolitan notion.
discourse by local elites
against the imposition of
larger structures. The
metropolitan is
presented as a mainly
local matter. (provision
of services and
democracy)
Planning Local planning and Local planning in Municipalities and local Local and autonomous
projects through dialogue with other entities. decision making in
negotiation on specific municipalities and from multiple planning
issues. the understanding of exercises subject to
citizens as rational negotiation and
actors. coordination processes.
Table 2. Public choice school topics and dimensions
Source: Own elaboration using the topics from the TTP Framework by Galland and Harrison (2020).

Public policies are local and only respond to the metropolitan when they are the result of
negotiation and cooperation exercises between peer institutions. One of the great cons with
which this school was facing was the difficulty in guaranteeing the simultaneous coordination
and management of projects pursuing a shared goal, in the absence of entities that imposed
them. In this sense, the sectoral and local implementation of public policies produces a great
variety of elements that require the same number of negotiation processes.

The spatial imagery pointed to a metropolitan space but that must be built from the local. The
metropolitan space only exists due to the local configuration of multiple entities that generate
functional relationships that allow them to cooperate or compete for its management,
depending on the nature of the phenomenon and its relationship with the market. The
metropolitan, then, is a fiction that depends on the local, on an elite of institutional actors
who build and use it according to their interests through competition between equals.

Planning was based on the school of rational choice and, although it did not despise the
technocratic discourse, the basis of its supports was in democracy and the citizen
manifestation of their interests through multiple means, such as voting systems or simply in
the market. In this case, the technique is refined towards a more complex understanding of
the phenomena where democracy acquires a central role and there is a decentralization of
reason towards local government. The planning exercises become more horizontal, as well
as the definition of the themes, objectives, and tools.

33
 c) New regionalism

The new regionalism emerged from the 90s as a response to the dichotomies established in
the arguments of the school of reform and public choice. Although it is made up of different
currents of thought, according to Neil Brenner, there are three different forces that drove the
regionalization trend in this period. First, the reconfiguration of the urban form, in what
Brenner called the spatial reconstitution of urban form: rescaling the urban process. Second,
the phenomenon of globalization and its impacts on the restructuring of cities in the world,
recognized by Brenner as Global economic restructuring: rescaling capital. Third, the
configuration of power at new territorial scales, such as the metropolitan, to adapt to other
processes and as a response of the State to exercise power, in what Brenner identifies as
Neoliberal state restructuring: rescaling the state. (Brenner, 2002)

Restructuring and Consequences for
rescaling process cities and regions
1. The rise of the
'edge city' and the
'exopolis'
The spatial
2. Intensified
reconstitution of
metropolitan
urban form:
jurisdictional
fragmentation
The deconcentration
3. Continued
and reconcentration of
population dispersal
metropolitan
and industrial
settlement spaces and
deconcentration
production complexes
4. 'Spreading' of urban
problems into suburbs
5. Urban sprawl
1. Process of de- and
re- industrialization
Global economic
and the shift towards
restructuring:
'lean production'
2. Intensified inter-
The globalization,
urban competition for
(re)territorialization
mobile capital
and localization of
investment at
various factions of
regional, national,
capital
continental and global
scales
Neoliberal state 1. Federal devolution,
restructuring: 'lean' government,
'entrepreneurial' states
the 'destructuring' and and 'revanchist' cities
reconstitution of state 2. Intensified
policies coupled with city/suburban fiscal
the upscaling and disparities
Resultant Putative
governance metropolitan Selected examples
problems solutions
Spacial mismatch Regional growth and
between public environmental 1. Various state laws
resources and social management: passed in New Jersey,
needs Inefficient - Comprehensive Oregon, Florida,
delivery of public regional land use Georgia, Maryland,
services. planning California, and
Increased spatial - 'Smart growth' Minnesota.
concentration of projects 2. State-level approval
poverty and minority - Construction of for new planning
populations in city regional or powers for
cores metropolitan growth metropolitan agencies
Sever traffic boundaries in Portland,
congestion - New forms of Minneapolis-St. Paul
Environmental environmental and Atlanta.
destruction legislation
Capital flight,
Regional economic
unemployment and
development policies: 1. Bay Area Council
derelict industrial
- Coordinated (San Francisco)
sites
regional industrial and 2. Metropolis project
Deskilling of local
labor policy (Chicago)
labor supplies
- Regional 3. Greater
Decay of local
investements in Philadelphia First
industrial
human capital and 4. Greater Houston
infrastructure
infrastructure Partnership
Enhanced local fiscal
- Regional land-use 5. Trade Development
constraints and
planning Alliance of Greater
declining tax revenues
- Regional place- Seattle
from locally collected
marketing
taxes
Local fiscal crises Regional revenue- 1. Tax base sharing
Lack of funding for sharing and schemes in
key social services: redistributive Minneapolis/St. Paul
Affodable housing, arrangements: 2. Regional asset
schools, public - Tax-base and districts in Denver
transportation, revenue sharing and in Allegheny
infrastructural measures County, PA.

34
downscaling of state 3. The shift from improvements, etc. - Region-wide 3. Struggles to
functions welfare to workfare Expansion of provision of low introduce regional
4. Increased class- repressive functions income housing, 'fair share' low
and race-based of the local state public transit and income housing in
sociospatial (policing, prisons) infrastructural Minneapolis and
polarization Explosive social development Montgomery county,
5. 'Ghettoization' of unrest - Regional Maryland.
poverty enforcement of laws
against racial
discrimination in the
housing market.
Table 3. Metropolitan regionalist projects in the 1990s: the new conjuncture in the USA
Source: Decoding the Newest “Metropolitan Regionalism” in the USA: A Critical Overview. (Brenner, 2002,
p. 12)
The new regionalism is the third major theory of metropolitan and regional governance. This
approach evolved in the 1990s. Given the practical difficulties of establishing metropolitan
government, less emphasis is placed on structural reform. New regionalists highlighted the
continuing problem of city-suburban disparities, particularly in the US context. The public
choice school's failure to acknowledge the inability of the market process to address the
equity problem was also apparent. Combining the advance offered by the new ‘local public
economies’ school highlighting a more complex metropolitan governance arrangement and
the more pragmatic approach to metropolitan reform, a more nuanced and problem-oriented
strategy of ‘metropolitan governance without government’ evolved. (Savitch & Vogel, 2009,
p. 108)

The new urban hierarchy, mentioned by Brenner (2002), which results from the globalization
process, together with the rescaling phenomena of the State, and the emerging urban forms,
end up producing different types of problems that share the assumptions of metropolization.
However, as Brenner also mentions, the responses are divergent from each other. They are
still open processes, which went through exercises in soft and hard metropolitan structures,
as mentioned in the examples in Table 3. In general, the notion of a tectonic movement from
the government paradigm to that of reformulating relations is shared between central cities
and suburbs. In this first stage, an important difference is recognized between guaranteeing
the provision of a service, which must be given by the public sector, and the final production
of the service, thus opening a window for cooperation processes with private institutions.
Subsequently, this paradigm will go further as will be seen in the last subsection.

The metropolitan institutions of the new regionalism must respond to a new localism. The
objectives of these institutions go from being a direct provision or from neutral spaces for
negotiation to spaces that can be molded according to the case with harder or softer structures.
It is considered that there must be a valid dialogue between local entities, where a good source
of power to which metropolitan structures aspire, and new metropolitan estates in search of

35
greater economic competitiveness and a reduction of the negative externalities of the
agglomeration as it happens with environmental issues.

Regarding public policies, considering that the new regionalism transcends traditional
discussions between the paradigms of the school of reform and public choice, proposing a
view that contrasts specific experiences with the design of theoretical solutions ad hoc, the
policy practices was equally contingent and tailored. “The ‘new-regionalist’ paradigm
emerged as a rich but not unproblematic combination of theoretical contributions capable of
accounting for new governance and regulation practices as background to the economic
geography of late ‘globalized’ capitalism.” (Gross & Gualini, 2018, p. 4). One of the main
characteristics, nevertheless, was the involvement of actors and the changing agency of the
state on the metropolitan matters, over the functionalist assumption of cities as unit with
related performance-oriented policy responses as main objectives, renouncing to a deep
political understanding of how metropolitan spaces are constructed and its role in the
objectives and means definition.

a significant shift has emerged from considering metropolitan areas as outcomes of

‘metropolitanization’ processes based on linear growth and development patterns – to be
administratively ‘managed’ – to conceiving metropolitan regions as policy spaces for
‘performative’ issues to be actively addressed at different policy levels and spatial scales – local,
national and transnational. (Gross & Gualini, 2018, p. 5)

The construction of a metropolitan imaginary is based on their configuration as objects of

public policy. Its reification, in the words of Gross and Gualini, also responds to the
functionalist bias that is given to it as efficient units of the global neo-capitalist system in the
ongoing processes identified by Brenner. The understanding of the metropolitan space
happens, then, as a result of political processes with underlying ideological constructions.
The imaginary, then, can be configured by the State or the result of self-determination
processes of cities in search of greater autonomy to deal with their issues, always on the
premise of achieving greater economic competitiveness more efficiently compared to the
status quo. Relationships, increasingly open and horizontal, produce collective imagery vis-
à-vis what the metropolis is and what should be.

Regarding planning, it promotes a "reinvention" discourse of planning focusing on what is

known as strategic planning. The idea is that at the metropolitan level or scale guidelines and

36
projects should be given within the specific problems. The planning process opens up to
different types of horizontal relationships, producing rules that in some cases determine
hierarchical functions, although there are no hard rules in many cases. The means (guidelines
and projects) are used to reach coordination and cooperation arrangements that promote
greater efficiency in terms of economic competitiveness for the agglomeration (purpose).

d) Global city, networks, and virtual regionalism

The identification of pressures that shape the metropolitan governance schemes from the
emergence of neo-regionalism, supposes a heuristic exercise of the actors involved in the
process, their interests, and the exercises of power behind these processes. Ultimately, this
gives rise to what Savitch and Vogel recognize as re-escalation or re-territorialization (2009,
p. 112), which are mainly political processes and range from the redefinition of the
metropolitan phenomenon in a contingent and contextual way, but also assuming the
pressures identified in globalization. and the role of metropolitan cities. Economic
competitiveness and political power produce scales that are contested by their political nature
and the confluence of multiple actors in the process, making the metropolitan space an object
of politics currently in the process of redefinition. (Gross & Gualini, 2018, p. 3)

Old regionalism Public choice New regionalism Rescaling and

(Polycentrism) reterritorialisation
Timeframe 1900-1960 1950-1990 1990 to present 2006 to present
Pattern of Monocentric Multi-centered Multi-centered Megalopolis
urban metropolis but core metropolis but core less
development still dominant dominant
Problem Fragmentation Centralization Equity and Competitiveness
competitiveness
Solution Hierarchy Market Hierarchy/Cooperation Rescaling/Restructuring
Establish metropolitan Rely on market which Government plus Economic globalization
government (e.g. leads cities to keep governance in city- leading to local state
annexation, taxes low, provide region; focus on strategic restructuring involving
consolidation, or new good public services, metropolitan decisions realignment of
tier) and a good business either through boundaries, roles,
climate to attract consolidation or functions, and resources
business and residents governance arrangements and relations with
private actors

37
Major - Evidence that - Lack of equity as Selective and weak - Tendency towards
Critique consolidation may lead poor can't move easily regionalism (Frisken and economic determinism,
to higher costs and lack (Warren et al., 1992) Norris, 2001; Lefèvre, high level of abstraction
of responsiveness - Citizens do not 1998) and 'absence of politics'
(Bish and Ostrom, behave as Tiebout Unlikely to reduce (Le Galès, 2006;
1979) model predicts and disparities (Altshuler et Beauregard, 2006)
- Two-tier metropolitan they lack infromation al., 1999) - Provides higher level
government leads to about tax and services Misnomer and reflects theory of what is
better infrastructure provided by localities 'postfordist urban driving state
development but not to make informed restructuring and restructuring but little
equity (Self, 1982) choices about location neoliberal … state normative guidance on
- Problem of minority (Lyons et al., 1992) retrenchment' (Brenner, whether the local region
dilution (Powell, 2000) 2002) should embrace or
- Political infeasibility resist.
(Downs, 1994)
Table 4. Theoretical frameworks on regionalism
Source: Savitch and Vogel. (2009, p. 110)

Within these new forms of power at scales, with changing actors and interests, the categories
proposed by Galland and Harrison appear as specific responses to these new scalar policies:
New city regionalism in the 2000s, Multi-city regionalism in the 2010s, and Virtual
regionalism proposed for the 2020s. The fist one, has an emphasis on the network dimension,
the second one in the urbanization processes, and the third one in the virtuality. The
institutional shifts, mentioned by the authors, are for the New-city at the metropolitan-scale
with growth coalitions, with a metropolitan mayoral model and a deal-making, with a focus
on labor market and resilience for the policy aspects; for the multi-city the shift is for the
infrastructure alliances between cities, with a focus on the supply chain expansion and the
narrative of smart cities and regions; and for the virtual city the institutions responds to ad
hoc flexible governance arrangements, with a policy focus on balancing policy transfer with
individual place distinctiveness and a place IP. (Galland & Harrison, Conceptualising
metropolitan regions: How institutions, policies, spatial imaginaries and Planning are
influencing metropolitan development, 2020, p. 7)

The presence of a political factor that gathers economic, institutional, and spatial pressures
is a distinctive element in the configuration of new paradigmatic approaches. However, the
results necessary to present in post-political terms, where is the technique and the economy
served as a floor to determine decision-making based, increasingly, on the use of data and
evidence. In this scenario, the institutions that continue to be multi-actors, but in addition to
including private agents for the development and implementation of public policies,
recognize the role of civil society organizations. The transition to 4P (public-private-producer
associations) carries out its manifestations on the metropolitan scale.

38
 In contrast to the previous approaches, the regionalists argue that metropolitan areas are
made up of interdependent municipalities and other public and private actors who must
cooperate to address common problems. Instead of creating megacities, flexible
arrangements that include a plurality of actors are the best way to promote economic
competitiveness and to deal with social inequalities and urban sprawl (Swanstrom, 2001).
For instance, strategic planning is a tool of public-private cooperation that establishes a
shared long-term vision of metropolitan challenges. The move from government to
governance can be an opportunity or a threat for local democracy, depending on the degree
of transparency and accountability in public-private arrangements. (Tomàs, 2012, p. 556)

The construction of metropolitan public policies appears as an instrument based on the

competitiveness of the agglomeration within the global network of cities. The role of the
different actors must be in line with these objectives, where the agglomeration competes
internationally to attract international companies that provide local jobs and "improve" the
city's position on the international stage. The variations derived from the different accents
range from the configuration of better relations with networked cities, going through the
construction of post-political consensus, exclusively discursively ruled by technique, until
arriving at a new type of metropolitan state that is fundamentally virtual.

In this sense, the metropolitan scale becomes a functional unit, similar to that of the school
of reform, but the State has a guarantee role for the provision of services rather than as a
provider. This still happens in the scenario of re-escalation of power relations in the
metropolitan nature, under a process of legitimization. Representation becomes a central
element to include within the new structures, producing a mixture of soft and hard forms of
metropolitan governance in some cases. The politicization of the re-escalation process opens
the window to different forms of contestation and resistance to institutional configuration
and to the development and implementation of public policies. However, as Gross and
Gualini mention, the metropolitan scale is a space of action rather than a unit of action, that
is, a space of politics and interactions rather than a territorial unit.

Accordingly, dominant narratives of metropolitan governance are connoted by a

constructivist ‘relativization of space’ as they increasingly question territorial reifications of
metropolitan space. ‘New regionalist’ interpretations, in particular, as they emphasize the
decline of approaches to territorial reform and jurisdictional consolidation, redefine
metropolitan regions as ‘action spaces’ rather than ‘action units’, focusing attention on
governance practices aimed at the modernization of competition – and growth-oriented
policies, and on the development of multi-actor forms of cooperation and co-production.
Metropolitan spaces are seen as defined by governance practices that reframe actors,

39
 institutions and their interests around these performative issues. (Gross & Gualini, 2018, p.
5)

Metropolitan planning has remained unchanged during the period of the new regionalism.
Initially, the ideas of strategic planning, broad lines of projects and general decisions that
should be adopted locally, were the starting point to achieve regional objectives. The
increasing participation of non-public actors ended up shaping the objectives towards the
search for functional solutions. This was connected with the idea of planning that renounced
its political character justifying itself in the use of evidence and a monolithic idea of
metropolitan public interest, which has been reinforced with the use of information
technologies and the possibility of develop constant planning exercises over time with
permanently updated information.

Although much of these end-of-ideology sentiments depends on how ideology is defined, we

argue that the invocation of the demise of ideology is itself an ideological act aimed at
cloaking changes in public policy and planning in postideological rhetoric. (Davuodi,
Galland, & Stead, 2020, pág. 18)

40
 2.3. Factors that influence metropolitan governance

capacities

Within the different schools and conceptual approaches presented of the metropolitan
phenomenon, a series of assumptions can be identified that provide clarity on what each
considers would increase the governance capacity of the respective metropolitan areas:

- In the school of reform, it is assumed that the correspondence between functional area
and political-administrative borders improves the conditions of public administration,
allowing a greater redistribution of wealth in the form of services and public goods.
- The school of public choice defends the fragmentation between territorial units as a
simile of the free market to the extent that it allows competition between them and,
thus, maximum efficiency is achieved to the extent that demand ends up dictating the
best way to delivery of public goods and services.
- The new regionalism, for its part, argues that the coordination and metropolitan
competence of public election, and the articulation in new institutions with scope to
the functional metropolitan territory are not exclusive, but must be complementary
and make a transition from public government to forms of public-private governance.
As these agreements work, metropolitan areas will be better profiled in matters of
competitiveness in the international system.
- The different variants of the most recent decades, such as the opening of the idea of
governance towards producers and civil society, such as project orientation, and the
technocratic discourse based on the permanent updating of the metropolitan
government propose the idea of ways of post-government policies that will produce
better results in competitiveness and sustainability.

41
 Figure 2. Variables and assumptions in the four metropolitan governance paradigms.
Source: Own elaboration.

The implementation of these assumptions has led to multiple attempts to control the
development of metropolitan areas, with different levels of institutionalization as a
crosscutting element in all paradigms. Mariona Tomàs identifies four models according to
these criteria, depending on the type of institutional agreements that are reached seeking the
implementation of these assumptions in the search to increase the capacity of metropolitan
governance in pursuit of the objectives indicated in each paradigm. (Tomàs, 2015 and 2017)
The identification of scales that best respond to the problems defined in each paradigm, as
well as the specific construction of these institutions, derives in the configuration of the
models that are characterized by the formality of their structures, their forms of financing,
the binding nature of their decisions, positions in the face of fragmentation, and the type of
competencies assigned to it. (Tomàs, 2015, p. 3)

- Metropolitan governments: Structures created to face metropolitan challenges, that

responds to some of the reformist principles like the rely on a directly elected council,
exclusive competences and funding by law. Are the expression of political
recognition to the metropolitan scale as unity of action,

42
 - Metropolitan agencies: Institutions created to address one single topic or
configuration of sectoral aspects in a metropolitan scale. Some examples are normally
related with public services provision, like water or transportation. Their scope can
move from the final provision or just the configuration as authorities to regulate the
service provision in the metropolitan area.
- Vertical co-ordination: Metropolitan policies are made by other levels of government
(a region, a province, a department, etc.). Its function is to put in practice the
metropolitan policies as a manager on this level, but not to create it.
- Horizontal collaboration: Voluntary cooperation between metropolitan actors
between equals, from a local initiative that does not mean reforms in existing
structures. The way in which they work depends on the configuration of their own
statutes and the degree of binding that they want to grant to the decisions that are
made, as well as to the entry and exit requirements assigned to their associates.
(Tomàs, 2017, p. 4)

These models can be translated into specific instruments in norms and laws in each context,
so the existence of one does not imply exclusivity but, on the contrary, on many occasions’
complementarity and co-existence. There is no linearity between these models, and their
existence must always be considered as contextual and, normally, they develop in post-
constitutional spaces through laws (national or state) that are ratified through mechanisms of
popular endorsement, such as be direct voting or the use of local councils and decision-
making bodies. Considering this nature of the different models and their relationship with the
exposed paradigms, each one ends up assigning a greater value to the types of relationships
or results achieved as presented in the previous figure. Nevertheless, the use of indicators
and evaluations are topics that certainly must be addressed on each case, answering the
following question: Has the model worked to achieve the objectives that were set?

2.3.1. Process and frictions on the construction and change of

governance

The idea of a metropolis has historically been a process of reconfiguration of the scales of
state action that manifests itself in the functional relationships of the urban territory. In this
sense, they are political processes that are guided by different interests in favor and against

43
new entities or spaces for consultation, scales of government or binding to the decisions of
other levels of government. Ultimately, they are processes that have impacts on the structures
of the State and their effectiveness is relative to the way in which these changes are accepted
or answered. In this sense, the way in which the narratives of metropolitan regions are
configured, their legitimacy, and the ways in which they are answered are important elements
to understand the changes in the forms of metropolitan government.

[…] the notion of ‘rescaling’ emphasizes dynamics of change in the definition of the spatiality of
policy and governance practices, and, in particular:
- The relativization of space, that is, the emergence of factors, mechanisms and practices
‘subverting’ given assumptions on policy spaces
- De-territorialization or the questioning of the fixity of formal-institutional spatial
arrangements as well as their normative, functionalist, or teleological assumption as
‘policy spaces’
- Re-territorialization through the emergence of contingent and experimental ‘action
units’ or ‘policy spaces’ (Gross & Gualini, 2018, p. 9)

The drivers of the metropolization processes, argue Gross and Gualini (2018), are both local
and external. Scale policies are strongly oriented by these processes, as well as their results
that emphasize the role of the metropolis configuration as an object of public policy. As
mentioned by Brenner (2002), criticisms and debates about metropolization are often data as
specific political responses to dynamics such as economic globalization. Bajo este
entendimiento político de estos procesos, los modelos que resultan son respuestas subjetivas
y cargadas hacia una concepción de las dinámicas, del rol del Estado, y el papel de las
aglomeraciones metropolitanas para atenderlas.

[…] contemporary metropolitan regionalist projects […] are extremely heterogeneous, both
institutionally and politically, and are permeated by significant internal conflicts and
contradictions […] are interpreted here as place-specific political responses to the new forms of
sociospatial polarization and uneven geographical development […] under conditions of
postfordist urban restructuring and neoliberal (national and local) state retrenchment. From this
perspective, the current explosion of debates on metropolitan cooperation represents not a
movement towards a putative “new regionalism” but rather a “new politics of scale” in which
local, state-level and federal institutions and actors, as well as local social movements, are
struggling to adjust to diverse restructuring processes that are unsettling inherited patterns of
territorial and scalar organization […] (Brenner, 2002, p. 3)

The resistance and the mobilization of actors and resources in favor of one or the other vision,
as well as the continuous process of discussion and the instance of configuration affect the
variables described by Mariona Tomàs (2015). The levels of legitimacy and political

44
resources required to modify a constitutionally conceived institution are not the same to do
so in the face of a local initiative. The nature that is usually associated with metropolitan
areas due to the flexibility that is required to attend to what is considered to be their functions
in matters such as their competences, resources, or binding decisions make them on post-
constitutional levels.

It is in these processes of change where the narratives that support the selected models are
built and the notions of legitimacy are used from the defense of selective normative values.
The role of democracy, economic competitiveness, equitable redistribution of resources, or
the sustainability and efficiency of government, are all values that have been used to justify
different positions vis-à-vis metropolitan models of government. Regarding to this tensions
and processes of change it is relevant to observe where they have place, who is interested on
promote each narrative and model, and what are the expected results. Considering these
elements gives meaning to the practical explanations regarding the selection, scope and
operation of each model, accounting for its success or failure from specific contingencies and
not only at the abstract and theoretical levels where the paradigms are configured. The
phronetic approach, presented by Galland and Harrison (2020), allows this through the
understanding of interests, processes, and changes, as metropolization is a political process
that responds to various interests seeking to influence the reproduction of local and global
power relations.

In the realm of planning research, a phronetic approach entails deliberation about (and
questioning of) how power and values work and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest
how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other (more progressive)
consequences. Flyvbjerg (2004) quoted by Galland & Harrison (2020, p. 8).

2.3.2. The framework, the research variables, and its

operationalization

Through the journey made within this chapter, some of the issues that problematize the
relationship between, on the one hand, theoretical, conceptual bodies and paradigms in the
analysis of the metropolitan debate and, on the other hand, its implementation with models
and contingent tensions, were presented. in the processes of change in practical cases. The
identified concepts allowed to build a narrative about the metropolization processes that
served to introduce the themes, inspired on the ones defined by Galland and Harrison (2020)

45
(institutions, policies, imaginary, and forms of planning) and the analytical dimensions
(objectives, means, actors, and nature of relationships) from the thesis, under the
understanding of its possibility to use it to explain the paradigmatic theoretical approaches
and the empirical cases on the next chapter.

First, the discussion about what a metropolitan phenomenon is, or what metropolitan
governance means and what it translates into, as well as the institutional changes and the
mechanisms with which they are carried out and some of the problems they face allowed to
frame the different proposals translated into the four major paradigms and periods
identified (reform school, public choice, new regionalism, and post new-regionalism). These
were characterized using the themes and dimensions presented, allowing the identification
of their foundational assumptions and their relationship with practical proposals that were
developed and adopted in models that can be classified according to a series of criteria
defined by Tomàs (2015, 2017) into 4 types (Metropolitan government, metropolitan
agencies, vertical coordination, horizontal cooperation). Additionally, the political nature of
the metropolization processes was argued, highlighting the importance of identifying certain
elements in the proposals for change, their nature, actors, and interests involved. The starting
assumption is that these elements manifest themselves prominently in the discussions and
debates in the face of change, as well as in their search for the construction of legitimacy and
their positions on issues such as democratic participation or the allocation of resources and
competences.

Models are a useful point of contact between abstract paradigms and everyday institutional
practices on the metropolitan issue, so their analytical use is necessary to identify gaps and
bridges between them. The use of themes and dimensions, as well as elements that for each
paradigm and model explain higher or lower levels of metropolitan government capacity, or
the identification of narratives and tensions in the face of proposals for change are useful
analytical categories in all levels, allowing comparison between ideas and implementation.
The explanations to the results vary from case to case, but its application to the case studies
allows to extract valuable lessons in each item that feed the current debates.

As it was mentioned in the introduction, one of the assumptions of the thesis is that the
capacities of metropolitan governance are self-explanatory of their ends (purposes) and their

46
means, as well as in the presence of different actors (and their interests), and the ways of
relationship with each other. Each paradigm uses assumptions that relate elements such as,
for example, greater flexibility of institutional arrangements with better results in terms of
economic competitiveness. The models collect these assumptions and, in some way, make
them operative in other elements of these arrangements such as competences, resources,
position in the face of administrative fragmentation, or the role of the State and other sectors
of civil and business society. The same happens in the case studies that will be presented in
the next chapter: there are narratives that are adopted in order to implement metropolization
processes in Barcelona, Montreal, and Bogotá that collect these logics with different results
that deserve to be contrasted in the themes and dimensions proposed in this thesis.

Figure 3. Variables and assumptions in the four metropolitan governance paradigms.

Source: Own elaboration based on multiple authors as Tomàs (2015, 2017, 2020), Brenner (2004) and
Savitch and Vogel (2009)

As it was established in the introduction, the present work aims to analyze contemporary
processes and forms of construction of metropolitan governance, contrasting them with the
theoretical paradigms in which they are supported through case studies. The contrasting will
be done using the thematics, describing its dimensions, considering the questions posed by
Gross and Gualini about “ (1) The nature and role of the state and of state agency; (2) the
nature and role of economic interests and actors in the framework of public-private relations;
and (3) the nature of ‘scalar projects’” (Gross & Gualini, 2018, pp. 16-20), and the phronetic
questions described by Galland and Harrison about how power and values work and with
what consequences to whom. (2020, p. 8), attending the political nature of the process of
current rescalation of the state actions and the configuration of the metropolis as a policy
object.

47
In summary, the thesis considers the existence of three types of phenomena involved in the
construction of narratives within the metropolitan debate: one theoretical (the paradigms),
another transition between theory and practice (models), and a practice that is reflected in the
study cases. The analysis of its components is carried out in 4 themes that are described in 4
dimensions for each one, and through the construction of characterizations and causal
relationships between these elements. In the following section, the methodology that uses the
elements described here as result of the development of this chapter is described in detail.
The use of the other elements is articulated on this conceptual body that allows us to identify
more analyzable elements in the following subsection on the methodology to be followed in
the analysis of the case studies and their subsequent discussion.

48
 2.4. Methodology
The use of case studies allows theoretical assumptions to be contrasted with empirical
elements of their application (or omission). In this case, in addition, the contrast between
cases, from their differences and similarities, turns the case studies into elements full of
valuable information for the ongoing academic discussion on metropolitan governance. Not
all cities are created equal, as are their challenges, resources, standards, and traditions. This
makes it necessary to carry out processes that analyze the similarities and differences in the
design and implementation of operational governance models within the framework of the
discussion of scale policies, and the revitalization of discourses on the configuration of
metropolitan entities in a highly globalized world where big cities are still forming in
countries of the developing world. The lessons learned in terms of mechanisms, tools,
processes and other elements in the configuration of institutions, policies, imagery and
planning positions, are elements that will have greater value in the next stage for the global
mobilization of knowledge in these matters.

The case studies are mainly qualitative exercises in this thesis. The purpose of characterizing
gaps between theoretical bodies and specific cases is developed by analyzing the problems
considering their political dimension as predominant. The use of indicators is useful to
identify and characterize the forms and types of functional relationships in the metropolitan
territory, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of projects, programs, and implemented
policies. However, it is insufficient to understand why certain policies were developed and
not others, or why these are the topics that are considered problematic within a metropolitan
scale in each case. To achieve an effective characterization, it is necessary to go to empirical
sources such as official documents, secondary sources such as news, papers and analyzes
carried out on the cases, and interviews with actors involved in these processes.

The objective of the case studies is to characterize the metropolization processes of the three
cities based on their respective institutional paths in search of effective forms of governance.
As mentioned in the introduction, the cases are developed in two steps:

1. Presentation of relevant contextual and contingent elements, such as the general

information of the city (physical, social, economic, political, and configuration of the
territorial system).

49
 2. Characterization of the specific metropolization process using the trends and paths
that have been followed in the 4 defined themes, in the 4 dimensions.

Figure 4. Analytic elements, thematic, and dimensions.

Source: Own elaboration. 2020.

Subsequently, the analysis will be developed through key questions regarding the reasons
behind these specific power configurations, considering the premise of the political nature of
these processes. The nature of the role of the State, as well as the involvement of other actors
and under what forms, or the use of scalar projects, will serve to demonstrate these tensions
on the issues. The evaluation from each topic will allow us to understand how power and
values have worked with their respective consequences.

Purposes Means Actors Relationships

Institutions
Policy and ideas
Spatial
imaginaries
Planning
Table 5. Metropolitan governance analysis matrix
Source: Own elaboration using the themes defined by Galland and Harrison (2020)
The expected results from the study cases is the identification of limitations and potential use
of tools in a complex issue as the metropolitan governance for a city with a metropolitan
tradition and under a highly autonomous government, but with difficulties regarding the
representativity of its own plurality (Montreal), another one with a more recent developments
and as symbol fighting against a central organ (Barcelona), both in developed countries, and
a third one that has deal with the metropolitan issues using coordination tools under the
permanent political dialogue (Bogotá).

50
 3. CASES
Shaping metropolitan development agendas is an exercise that is at the center of global
political discussions. In the next 20 years, humanity will build as much urbanized land as it
has done in its entire history. (Gómez & Lanfranchi, 2017) The constant evolution of these
urbanization processes in metropolitan environments produces a dilemma with the paradigms
and their implementation. The new narratives of metropolization, collaborative governance,
or co-creation in the metropolitan space only make sense when applied in specific cases that
allow the contrast of positions, processes, results, and, in general, experiences. For this
reason, exists a need to decompose and describe the narratives to produce incremental
knowledge on the topic.

This section seeks to produce a characterization clear enough to allow comparisons between
cases and to abstract elements to consider within the discussions in the coming processes of
metropolization and re-metropolization. For this, the “official” positions of the governance
models in the cases of Bogotá (Colombia), Barcelona (Catalonia-Spain), and Montreal
(Quebec-Canada) are analyzed within the themes and dimensions defined in the previous
chapter. The analysis of these variables from a look at the norms and institutions within which
they are inscribed, as well as the trajectories they have followed and the challenges they face
in each case, are elements that will be relevant for the theoretical feedback of the paradigms
and the consideration of increasingly complex realities.

The chapter is divided into three sections, one for each case. Each section is composed by
the following two subsections:

- The first one introduces each case study with its general characteristics (name,
location, population, extension, system of government). In this section there is a
subsection regarding the regulatory framework, such as the rules and conditions for
the configuration and function of a metropolitan area. Moreover, it includes the
historical metropolitan trajectory of each city.
- The second contains the identification of the four themes in each case and the
characterization of its four dimensions. This exercise also seeks to make explicit the
interests and configurations of power in dispute, understanding that it is the basis on

51
 which narratives and forms of contention are built in each case and expressed in the
political process.

The following chapter contains the discussion and comparison of the information resulting
from this exercise, seeking to make reflections on each one of the themes and to show
potential edges in the problems addressed.

52
 3.1. First Case: Bogotá and the metropolitan chimera

Figure 5. Bogotá urban footprint expansion 1997-2016.

Source: Bogotá Planning Secretary (2018, p. 8).

Bogotá is a center city of political and financial power in Latin America, serving as a bridge
between Europe, North and South America, while being isolated from the coasts and much

53
of the country by its poor infrastructure. In the last decades it has become a city with a more
global character, competitive at a regional level, and increasingly attractive to foreign capital.
In this context, the city has been searching for ways to articulate with its metropolitan and
regional environment, where it has encountered shocks at all levels of territorial government
in sectors as varied as housing, planning of land uses, transportation, or integration. social
and attention to displacement, which has closed the possibility of creating large entities such
as those of the reform paradigm (although with a history of merging municipalities under the
dictatorship) and by force has adhered to spaces of metropolitan coordination in an
environment lacking confidence. Currently, the city is part of the first created administrative
region in the country (from 2014) in a very large scale. For its metropolitan environment,
however, a change has been made to the country's political constitution that promises to
change this scenario in 2020. The chapter develops these premises.

3.1.1. General issues

Bogotá is the Capital City of the Republic of Colombia. It has a stable climate throughout
the year, which ranges between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius, with high levels of precipitation.
(Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2020) The city is located in the center of the country, about 1,000
kilometers from the coasts, and has a population of 8 million inhabitants, which amount to
10 million in what has been statistically defined its metropolitan area, conformed with other
20 municipalities (Bogotá Secretary of Planning, 2018, p. 25). The average age in the city is
31 years and it is currently in a demographic transition marked by a process of reduction of
minors and increase of older adults.

The physical structure of the city is defined by a savannah that is located at the foot of a chain
of mountains on the eastern side and is crossed by the Bogotá River that separates the
jurisdiction of the city and the other municipalities in the west. The urban extension is 43,560
hectares in an urban continuum (34.612 in Bogotá) and 13.810 in a dispersed area (1.420 in
Bogotá) (Bogotá Secretary of Planning, 2018, p. 10), of which 50% are considered the result
of processes of self-construction and informal occupation of the territory (Martín, 2017). The
growth of the city was vertiginous throughout the 20th century, but thanks to the merger of
municipalities carried out in 1953 under dictatorship, it remained within the jurisdictional

54
limits of Bogotá. Currently, the growth of the city is taking place in neighboring
municipalities in the form of an oil slick (Córtes Díaz, 2005).

In economic terms, the city's GDP of US$ 105.000 million is greater than that of countries
such as Ecuador or Uruguay (Portafolio, 2019). The city concentrates 17% of the population,
which is responsible for 25% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (DANE, 2020). The
city tends to transform its productive structure towards specialization in the provision of
services, where the state's social services and the banking sectors have a significant weight
(DANE, 2020). Currently, the city groups 85% of the metropolitan population and produces
96% of the GDP of the statistical metropolitan area, the largest budget in the country,
producing unbalanced relations with the municipalities and the neighboring departments
(DANE, 2020).

In social terms, the city is marked by high indices of inequality and inequity and, although it
has advanced towards a much higher degree of satisfaction of basic needs compared to the
rest of the country, the demand for basic social services remains high. While 14.8% of the
population in Colombia has Basic Needs Unsatisfied, in Bogotá this figure drops to 3.36%
(DANE, 2020). However, a relevant portion of the population (40%) is at risk of falling into
poverty as they are highly dependent on state services or informal economic arrangements.
(ILO, 2019)

Bogotá has multiple metropolitan phenomena identified in different documents that aimed to
contribute to diagnose the needs from the metropolis. (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2015, p.
53) and has been summarized in six topics:

- Competitiveness and economic efficiency

- Environmental sustainability
- Urban dynamics
- Public services
- Mobility and transportation
- Social development and security (Bogotá Secretary of Planning, 2019, p. 21)

Nevertheless, there is not any institution aiming to develop a coordinated and coherent
agenda to solve them or to define the criteria to explain the interdependence relationships

55
that should establish what is a metropolitan phenomenon and how it can be handled. These
topics are presented using different metrics and arguments that must deal with political and
economic interests within the normative framework.

- Normative framework: Territorial system and city government

The Colombian territorial system identifies up to five levels of territorial entities, of which
three currently exist (local, departmental, and national) while two are intended to be created
(Provinces that group local authorities and Regions for Departments). In this scheme, Bogotá
has a special classification as a Municipality with departmental attributes and it was named
as a Special District. Even if merged in the Department of Cundinamarca, the City
government is independent. This issue can produce a complex relationship between the two
entities as it has been documented (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2015).

There is no formal metropolitan authority, so the management of metropolitan phenomena

involves coordination between the District, the Municipalities, the Department of
Cundinamarca (where the Municipalities neighboring Bogotá are embedded) and other
entities at different levels, as Ministries and the Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca
(Environmental Authority that works at the departmental scale but also involves Bogotá). As
a result of this configuration, relationships can oscillate between coordination and
competition, with abrupt changes depending on the ideological currents or the interests at
stake concerning each theme.

Faced with the continuous blockade of the central government for the creation of regional
governments in Colombia, in 2001 two key PPPs were created to coordinate regional
planning tasks: the Bogotá-Cundinamarca Regional Planning Table (MPR) and the Regional
Competitiveness Council (CRC). The functions of the two agencies overlapped at times,
although the initial intention was to have a public leadership association that would be in
charge of territorial planning and regional planning, the MPR, and another, the CRC, of
private leadership and focused on regional economic development issues. In the absence of
a regional government, both organizations soon became the main protagonists of regional
governance and planning in the Colombian metropolis. (Montero, 2015, p. 14)

This type of initiative marks a recent milestone in the change of position regarding relations
between the District and the metropolitan environment, co-opted by private actors in the face
of legislative obstacles. However, these organisms were limited in scope and vanished in
time as soon as they appeared. The District has defined a territorial integration strategy

56
consisting of four different scales. The first scale is local, where the urban, the metropolitan
and the rural edge are found (two-thirds of the city's territory is rural land, mainly classified
as natural protected areas). The second is the sub-regional scale including the department of
Cundinamarca. The third scale is the regional one, it was created in 2014, the Central Region
(RAPE-RC) linked to five Departments to attend the regional problems in five axes. The
fourth scale is that of national integration, where it has partnered with cities across the
country to promote a common agenda. (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2014, págs. 9-11)

How metropolitan affairs are treated, in this context, consists of the use of dialogue and one-
on-one negotiation oriented to specific themes such as mobility. The District has an Office
for Regional Integration to create bridges and coordinate actions with other actors in the
Region. In this scenario, different projects have been proposed to create a metropolitan
government. However, the projects failed due to the unbalanced nature of power between
Bogotá and the other actors involved. To allow its creation special requirements (such as
modifying the Constitution 1) would have been done. A special case that requires particular
attention is the related with the plan for the recovery of the Bogota River, which has been the
result of a judicial process and that puts pressures on different actors and planned a timeline
with different milestones to be accomplished, forcing the dialogue and the development of
the required actions for this purpose.

Nowadays, the recently elected government of the city (2020-2024) is betting heavily on the
configuration of a regional scale of institutions.

In 2024 Bogotá will have formed and institutionalized the Bogotá-Region and will have begun
to execute through this development plan a new social, environmental and intergenerational
contract that will allow it not only to meet the Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs in 2030
but also to be a global example in reconciliation, collective action, sustainable development,
and social and productive inclusion to guarantee equal opportunities for freedom,
particularly for women and youth, with a gender, differential, territorial and citizen culture
focus. (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2020)
Bogotá has sought to establish itself as a Metropolitan Area since the 1970s, with different
points in which it has been closer to achieving it than in others. The city, apart from being
the capital of Colombia, was also in the department of Cundinamarca until 1991, when it was

1A project to modify the Constitution was approved in June 2020. Currently, there is a political coordination
between the new Major of the City and the Governor of Cundinamarca.

57
configured as a capital district with an autonomous and special regime that gave its powers
as a department and municipality at the same time. This produced a rupture in the relationship
with the department and the municipalities in which the metropolis was de facto functionally
constituting. Some of the problems pointed out for the configuration of this entity are in the
loss of autonomy of the municipalities in competences that they have traditionally performed,
such as the provision of domiciliary public services, the role of traffic authority, tax
management, or the determination of land uses. A separate case is urban environmental
management, which in laws such as 99 2 or 1625 3 defined the possibility for the metropolitan
areas to become Environmental Authorities for the Urban environment and, in this way,
access to an environmental charge that is charged on property taxes and constitute one of the
main sources of financing for the metropolitan areas in the country. Nevertheless, this
resources and competences are taken from other entities created in 1993: for Bogotá it is the
Regional Autonomous Coorporation of Cundinamarca (CAR).

With the creation of the CAR in 1993, new relationship schemes were configured in
environmental management. The entity has been conceived as a mechanism for the
redistribution of resources from the city to the region, and as a confrontational political space
to which the problems of competition between department and city. The configuration of the
metropolitan area as environmental authority pose several problems related with the variants
in the definition of functional limits between urban and rural (from what point is one or other
authority), the definition of the relationships between both authorities, the finance of both
entities, and the impacts on the redistribution factor of the CAR.

Currently, the environmental authority and control structure for Bogotá are currently
distributed between the District Environment Secretariat (SDA), an organic part of the city
administration, and the CAR. The SDA is dedicated to urban environmental management in
processes related to water management, visual and air pollution, waste disposal and sanctions
for polluting practices (SDA, 2020). While this entity is an integral part of the city
government, CAR is a regional body with a more convoluted governance scheme in which

2 By which the Ministry of the Environment is created, the Public Sector in charge of the management and conservation of the environment
and renewable natural resources is reorganized, the National Environmental System, SINA is organized, and other provisions are
dictated.
3 By which Organic Law 128 of 1994 is repealed and the Regime for Metropolitan Areas is issued. This law explicitly demands

the expedition from a special law for Bogotá case.

58
the District is one of many participants. The problems it deals with are different in scale and,
sometimes, in the functions performed. It becomes an interlocutor in matters of
environmental policy for the city, with which it must develop processes for concerting local
public policies.

CAR 4

The CAR is a public entity with jurisdiction over Bogotá, most of the municipalities of
Cundinamarca and a couple of Boyacá, reaching an extension of 19,209 square kilometers in
which 10'789.139 people live. Its origin dates to the ’70s and its current structure correspond
to the functions set in 1993. (Ministerio de Ambiente, vivienda y desarrollo territorial, 2003)

The entity groups 104 municipalities, two departments (Cundinamarca and Boyacá) and the
Capital District. Its creation was legally established by the Congress of the Republic of
Colombia and the definition of its statutes was given through a resolution of the Ministry of
Environment and Sustainable Development. Its general configuration is given between a
Directorate and Administration. Management is in the hands of the Corporate Assembly,
which is made up of all the legal representatives of the territorial entities that make up its
jurisdiction: (1) The Governors from Cundinamarca and Boyacá Departments, (2) Bogotá’s
Mayor, and (3) Mayors from other municipalities in its jurisdiction.

The structure of a Board of Directors is defined, which oversees the administration of the
CAR:

4
The basic regulations to understand the origin and operation of the CAR, as well as its role within the National
Environmental System (SINA for its name in Spanish), is contained in Law 99 of 1993 and in Resolution 0703
of 2002 of the Ministry of the environment, which provides its statutes.

59
 Figure 6. CAR Directors Board.
Source: Own elaboration based on official decree. 2020.

The CAR fulfills mainly environmental functions, of which the following stand out:

a. Execute national environmental policies defined by the National level, and the
regional ones entrusted by law in its jurisdiction.

b. Exercise the function of the highest environmental authority in their

jurisdiction, per under the criteria and guidelines set by the Ministry of the
Environment.

c. Participate in the planning and territorial ordering processes so that the

environmental factor is considered.

60
For these reasons, the CAR does constitute an Environmental Authority for the territory that
is under its jurisdiction. In exercise of this authority, it designs and executes part of the
environmental policy for the territory, as well as oversees and controls the forms of local
development defined by municipalities, Bogotá, and the departments. The following is the
CAR's financial structure:

Income sources Capital sources

Tax $ 293.354.353.500 External credit $ 315.000.000.000
Non-tax $ 18.497.087.735 Internal credit $ 90.000.000.000
Others $ 5.534.754.300 Others $ 37.569.153.165
Total capital
Total Incomes $ 317.386.195.535 resources $ 442.569.153.165
Transfers to incomes Special funds (FIAB)
Core municipality $ 219.594.000.000
Other
Total funds $ 265.535.720.000,00
municipalities $ 73.760.353.500
Total transferred $ 293.354.353.500
Table 6. CAR financial structure
Source: Own elaboration based on the budget approved for the 2018 validity of the Regional Autonomous
Corporation of Cundinamarca. CAR Agreement 04 of 2018. Available online. (CAR, 2018)

It is an entity highly dependent on the transfer of resources, especially on the surcharge of

the property tax: about 75% of the corporation's transfer resources correspond to money from
the Capital District for taxes. Additionally, it is worth mentioning the following information
about its origin:

[...] It is a public corporate entity, created by Law 3 of 1961 and modified by Laws 62 of
1984 and 99 of 1993, endowed with legal personality, administrative and financial autonomy,
own and independent patrimony of the entities that constitute it, commissioned by the law to
administer, within the area of its jurisdiction, the environment, and renewable natural
resources and promote its sustainable development, in accordance with the legal provisions
and the policies of the Ministry of the Environment." (Article 3rd from its statutes) (CAR,
2003)

Traditionally, the dispute over the powers and resources of the CAR against a hypothetical
Metropolitan Area has been one of the barriers imposed for its creation. The weight that the
department and the municipalities have in the decision-making of this entity are inverses
compared to what they would have in a typical MA, where the District would have more
weight. Recently, with the approval of the legislative act of the metropolitan region in June
2020, any impact on the finances of the CAR is ruled out and issues such as the exercise of

61
powers of environmental authority or of any kind are left in the air to be resolved to through
a new Organic Law, whose project would begin its legislative process in 2021.

3.1.2. The political rationale and its boundaries in metropolitan

Bogota

The coexistence between the mentioned institutions, with their respective reasons to trust or
not in the process, translate into positions that are constantly in the shadow of a hypothetical
metropolitan government entity.

- The municipalities, having the antecedent of the annexation of six municipalities by

presidential decree in 1954 (source), fear for the loss of their autonomy to exercise
their own powers, which could result in the local welfare being sacrificed by the
region’s interests.
- The department could lose power in a territory of relevant influence from which most
of its resources come and where most of its population lives. Furthermore, it would
lose power indirectly due to its position within the CAR decision-making framework.
- The CAR, which presents how a resource redistribution space could lose
competencies and a great source of income (the environmental surcharge on the
property tax).
- The District would lose autonomy in decision making and should also assign
resources to the new entity.
- The national government would face a situation in which it configures a political
institution "too powerful" to be governed from outside. Bogotá's urban primacy
would have an additional weight in this scenario.
- The RAPE, configured in 2014 in a much larger geographical area to reduce territorial
gaps and boost the development of the region, could face loss of meaning and a
meeting in its functions with a new entity.

The identified benefits tend to improve redistribution conditions, guarantee more orderly
urban growth, have better tools to face negative externalities of urbanization such as informal
housing, urban pollution, commutation flows and the transportation system, or development
of large projects for the region. Considering these general objectives, together with the

62
exceptions just presented, it has been sought to work during the last decades in the creation
of a metropolitan entity that overcomes these problems through consensus between the
parties. In some moments, agreements have been reached between the District and
municipalities which the national government, other municipalities, the CAR, or the
department have opposed due to the effects implied by their interests. The current project has
resolved several of these limitations, such as:

- It establishes that there will be no effect on the resources received by the CAR,
although it leaves open the incidence that a new entity would have in terms of
environmental authority.
- Includes the department within the de facto Metropolitan Region governance scheme
as a central agent, so its power would not be affected.
- Eliminates any possibility of annexation of municipalities. This guarantees certain
security in the interests of local politicians but reduces institutional flexibility to face
spatial phenomena.
- It gives it the character of an administrative entity that cannot become a territorial
entity or configure an electoral constituency.

The entity has complete freedom to be developed on the definition of the metropolitan issues
over which it will have competence, as well as the tools to work on them. One of the
discussions that took place was the need to create an institution, such as the metropolitan
region, to address the aforementioned problems. Entities such as the government or the CAR
promoted the configuration of a system of thematic agencies that developed projects related
to each of the sectors. The traditional position of the District was to promote the configuration
of a highly binding metropolitan entity in its decisions. In the meantime, spaces typical of a
soft institutional model such as the Territorial Integration Committee (CIT) were established.

These scenarios are also the expression of governance schemes with limited participation of
actors. The private sector has repeatedly organized with multiple spokespersons (the Bogotá
Chamber of Commerce, or the urban promotion entity ProBogotá Región). Civil society,
however, has remained on the sidelines focusing on other spaces for participation. The
presence of public actors is predominant. Although citizen representation was consecrated
for this scenario since the country's political constitution through popular consultations, this

63
has become a rule that has obstructed the different initiatives. The actors involved denounce
that the participation thresholds are very high and that the “technical” nature that they
attribute to the process is distorted with political campaigns that pervert the objectives of the
process. The dilemma of citizen participation remains in effect for the upcoming bill. It is
necessary to review the role that citizens will have in the governance and decision-making
scheme of the metropolitan region, as well as its role of citizen control. It is not only a matter
of endorsing certain strategic decisions, but of reviewing forms of collaboration and
management with citizens.

The forms of relationship, in this sense, have traditionally been horizontal, with the exception
of those actions that configure determinants of superior hierarchy (national projects, elements
of the national environmental system, soils with a high agricultural vocation, etc.).
Negotiation has been constant after the annexation of municipalities in 1954. The
decentralization and devolution of powers started in 1986 (source) has strengthened the
possibilities of self-determination of the municipalities in the region, which are quite different
from each other, by size and capacity. . Two of the changes in relation to relationships that
are worth highlighting are, first, guaranteeing the autonomy of the municipalities from one
level and, second, eliminating the notion of a core municipality. Both conditions tend to
produce, a priori, increasingly horizontal relationships between the administration. However,
Bogotá has a special statute for its administration and, together with the department, they
were conceived in the legislative creation of the metropolitan region, which puts them in a
position of control.

The management of public policies and ideas has been conceived on the existence of specific
externalities through negotiations to develop projects and make agreements. Bogotá has had
a central role as it is the traditional nucleus in the management and negotiation of externalities
with the different municipalities. The city has a marked urban primacy situation in the region,
as well as a level of institutional development that overwhelms that of the other
municipalities. However, the absence of a stable regional institution or of arrangements that
guarantee State policies in various matters makes those that are implemented highly volatile
in the face of changes in the levels of government. Policies are normally developed by
territorial entities and implemented by local public or mixed economy companies and public-

64
private execution contracts. The legislative act reflects this volatility and it is expected that
the entity will be able to give continuity to different lines of policy on issues such as
transportation, tax harmonization, land use, or infrastructure projects in the region,
apparently leaving out the urban environmental issues. The entity is expected to act in two
ways in the public policy cycle: first, as an authority that imposes rules and monitors
compliance, and, second, through project management.

The construction of spatial imagery in the Bogotá metropolitan region has revealed
disagreements between different groups. Montero (2015) exposes how the metropolitan
governance of the Bogotá savanna was co-opted by the business community at the beginning
of the century, with experiences such as the MPR and CRC, which established a vision of
metropolization from competitiveness and the provision of services to guarantee participation
of the city on the global agenda. The State, due to this process, becomes an intermediary
agent that must seek to develop the metropolitan region as a global competitor to attract
companies and capital. Some social movements accuse having been marginalized from the
process and a potential lack of participation (see annex), as well as that the document
incorporates an imposed vision that follows the logic of the waves of capitalism against the
interests of local development.

The planning tools have historically been the joint management of projects and the
configuration of concertation and coordination scenarios over border areas. The construction
of non-binding agreements or dialogue scenarios have been constant. The actors involved
have had horizontal relationships and mainly decision-makers have been public agents.
However, over the years, dependency relationships have been built that allow the Bogotá
government to have a greater impact on the decision-making of the neighbors through public
companies in the provision of services such as the provision of water (the Bogotá's aqueduct
company sells water to municipal companies, and guaranteeing access to water is a
precondition to urbanization processes, for example), waste management, or collective public
transport. The legislative act aims to change this type of relationship and the nature of the
actors involved. However, it is still in doubt what the tools to do it will be and what type of
instruments it will be translated into. It is not clear if the existing tools will be applied to

65
other metropolitan entities in the country or some new ones will be developed in the Organic
Law, nor the type of role or form of planning will follow the current metropolization process.

BOGOTÁ CURRENT MODEL

Purposes Means Actors Relationships
Institutions There is a soft governance Currently, there are no Mainly local public actors Completely horizontal
model where coordination functioning metropolitan (municipalities and district) relationships although
results through negotiation institutions. Non-binding and the department of within a limited range of
processes between coordination spaces have Cundinamarca. actors (almost exclusively
municipalities and in Public been established, such as public and public-private
Private Associations. the Territorial Integration Secondary are the national partnerships). In many cases
Occasionally, public actors Committee and the government (ministries), the the result is the absence of
from other levels intercede development of Macro business community, civil relationships or institutional
through projects of Agreements where specific organizations, and NGOs. coordination spaces, and in
"departmental" or "national" projects are negotiated 1 to CIT is an institutional many others they are 1 to 1
interest. 1. alternative for opening non- exclusively.
The CIT is an institutional binding spaces and without
The CIT is an institutional alternative for the opening its own resources or powers. The CIT has served to
alternative for the opening of non-binding spaces and configure relationships
of non-binding spaces and without its own resources or between several parties at
without its own resources or powers. the same time with still
powers. limited results. Opening of
non-binding spaces and
without its own resources or
powers.
Policy and Coordinate projects and Elaboration of agreements Sectoral public actors at Mainly horizontal
ideas programs in a sectorially and configuration of different levels relationships. However, the
integrated way in constantly negotiation spaces with (municipalities, district, execution of projects and
redefined thematic lines. different degrees of department, nation) such as the exercise of
The most traditional are institutionality. Joint secretariats and public competencies of other
transportation, development of projects. companies. Recently sectoral entities produce
infrastructure, aqueduct, companies in public-private vertical relationships that
and (by court ruling partnerships. Always in a force local actors to engage.
included) environmental sectoral logic of the
protection. administration.
Spatial Currently, the metropolitan The clash of interests and It is an entity that must be Local autonomy faces a
imaginaries space has varied visions in the face of configured between difficult reconciliation with
deontological visions. metropolization generates municipalities and district. the idea of a metropolitan
Consensus exercises are discourses that compete to The other levels of understanding of space. The
constantly guided by the become hegemonic. Its government (department relationships are horizontal,
competitiveness agenda main instruments are the and nation), such as private but the decisions that are
against strategic projects. strategies of construction of actors, are subsidiaries in sought are usually intended
metropolitan identity and the previous discussion in to be of a higher hierarchy,
the development of flagship the different visions of the with "vertical" impacts on
projects. metropolitan space. the local task.
Planning Planning is local and The only metropolitan The only planning La planeación en cascada
coexists with a cascade planning mechanisms are in instruments adopted are como principio presupone la
system that defines top- front of strategic projects municipal in nature, with coexistencia de relaciones
ranking determinants and the development of different stages of public verticales (determinantes,
(environmental and works of supra-municipal consultation (non-binding) planes y normas de superior
infrastructure impacts, for interest (departmental or and consultation on jerarquía, entre otros). Sin
example) in the definition national roads, for environmental matters. embargo, en las relaciones
of land uses and planning example). These elements de interdependencia
and management tools. become determining factors The Territorial Integration metropolitana gran parte de
for local decision-making Committee exists for las decisiones son tomadas
regarding land uses, for coordination in territorial en escenarios de
example. ordering (Non-binding). cooperación y coordinación
no-vinculantes. En muchos
casos, brilla la ausencia de
ejercicios de coordinación
reales.
Table 7. Bogotá current metropolitan political process structure.
Source: Own elaboration. 2020.

66

Purposes
Institutions The aim is to configure a
supra-municipal
administrative institution
capable of coordinating the
provision of metropolitan
services and the
development of large
projects. It should also serve
as an articulator with other
levels of government and
have a broad governance
structure.
Policy and The discussion on the topics
ideas that will shape the
metropolitan events and the
mechanisms for their
management will remain
open. However, it will be
based on functional
conurbation logic that goes
beyond the physical
conurbation.
The possibility of
developing a function as an
environmental authority
remains in the air.
Spatial The metropolitan
imaginaries environment is a territorial
unit that must be
technocratically
administered. The
metropolis is defined by a
functional conurbation
rather than a physical one.
Planning A metropolitan vision must
be coordinated to guide and
demand the articulation of
land use plans.
Table 8. Bogotá proposed metropolitan political process structure.
Source: Own elaboration. 2020.
BOGOTÁ PROPOSED MODEL
Means
An entity capable of
executing projects and
designing strategic lines of
government for the
execution of resources in
matters important to "the
region" has been proposed
as a unit superior to its
parts.
Lacking defined purposes at
this time, your tools remain
in the air. The biggest
novelty is the reduction of
resources and, potentially,
of skills to develop. It is
considered that its role will
be exercised through
specific projects and as a
formulator of public policy
guidelines that will serve as
a guide for local
administrations, and even as
an authority.
The Organic Law is the
main instrument at the
moment to define tools in
the construction of spatial
imagery.
Strategic planning
instruments and scenarios of
voluntary agreement
between municipal land use
plans and metropolitan-level
strategic visions and
projects.
67
Actors
The integration is mainly
considered of public entities
in the administration of the
future metropolitan region:
Municipalities, Department
(Cundinamarca), and the
Capital District.
Ministries of the national
government, private actors,
and civil organizations
would have a voice without
vote in the affairs of the
metropolitan region.
The role and forms of
citizen participation are
discussed.
The Metropolitan Region
will be a technical
institution that will
coordinate different policy
sectors in which it may even
be an authority (transport,
environment, security,
housing, etc.).
It was created by the
legislative branch of the
national government that
gave a role to an
intermediate government
entity (the department)
within the government
scheme.
It is an administrative entity
and therefore must "move
away" from political
discussions. The
metropolization of the
region is a matter of State
and not of Government.
Political representation of
citizens is not essential and,
on the contrary, it can be a
barrier against technical
interests.
Cascade planning
presupposes the prevalence
of superior interests
(metropolitan or regional)
that should guide local
decisions (Planning Plans).
The inclusion of actors in
the process has yet to be
defined within the future
Organic Law.
Relationships
An institutional governance
structure based on the will
and autonomy of the
municipalities that
(horizontally) dictate the
main operating guidelines
of the Metropolitan Region
and become a hierarchical
relationship.
This point must be
developed in the future
organic law.
The articulation will
continue to be between the
new entity and the sectoral
bodies of the territorial
entities.
The special entity regime
proposed in the constitution
requires developing the
ways of relating in defining
a common vision for the
metropolitan region.
Multiple political groups
and citizens accuse the lack
of participation scenarios so
far.
A hierarchical relationship
is configured in the
definition of the
metropolitan task and
municipal decision-making.
However, the preservation
of municipal autonomy,
which has been one of the
flags of the project,
proposes low levels of
binding and the requirement
for negotiation and
collaborative forms of
planning.
 3.2. Second Case: Barcelona Metropolitan Tradition

Beyond Legitimation

Figure 7. Barcelona metropolitan region divided in crowns with density and surface extension.
Source: Miralles-Guasch & Tulla Pujol (2012)

Barcelona is a center of economic, political and social power in Mediterranean Europe, which
has begun its process of metropolitan articulation since the end of the 19th century, with the
end of the expansion of Cerdá. Traditionally it has been one of the two largest urban centers
in Spain, together with Madrid. At the end of Francoism, the first metropolitan institution for
Barcelona was created: the Barcelona Metropolitan Municipal Entity, which was governed
by the Barcelona Metropolitan Corporation. From this moment on, the door was opened to
discuss the metropolitan problem in different settings and contexts with political forces of
different scales. In 2010, the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) was created that has
collected these experiences in a context of economic crisis in which issues such as
socioeconomic segregation and income gaps have grown in the city in a sustained manner,
while the city increases its global projection. These differences between the local and the

68
global, such as the attention given to decision-making in the city, and the intention to build
an institution that at the same time acts and thinks locally and globally as a meeting point to
resolve their own problems. The case presents the structure and challenges for the AMB.

3.2.1. General issues

Barcelona is a European Metropolis, located on the Mediterranean coast. The Barcelona

Metropolitan Area (AMB) is a territorial entity that encompasses 36 municipalities and
covers 637 square kilometers. It has a population of 3,239,337 inhabitants as of 2017. Its
nucleus is Barcelona with 1,600,000 inhabitants. (AMB, 2017) It is located in the Generalitat
de Catalunya, Autonomous Province of Spain, over the mouth of the Llobregat river on the
Mediterranean coast.

The metropolitan area covers a physical extension of 3.700 square kilometers, which are
distributed in different occupancy intensities, varying between high and low urban density
areas and metropolitan green areas. Within the urban space is located the center of Barcelona,
defined by the old city and the city derived from the Ensanche proposed by Idelfonso Cerdá
in the mid-19th century to attend to the demographic growth that was coming. The beach has
become an urban landmark, as well as the mountains located on the north side, and the
Llobregat river valley through which the urban fabric extends. The Garraf, Collserola and
Sierra de Marina massifs constitute elements of environmental importance that are not
managed directly by the AMB but define the green area of the metropolis.

In economic matters, the AMB represents 50.9% of the GDP of Catalonia, which was 250
million euros in 2019 (AMB, 2020), and in turn, represented 19.8% of Spanish GDP (La
Vanguardia, 2019). This GDP is made up of high participation in the services sector
(personal, banking, tourism, and social), with Industrial activity in the second line. The city
is a tourist port that, during 2019, was visited for more than 10 million people. (AMB, 2020)

The social situation in Barcelona and its metropolitan environment has been strongly
impacted by the 2008 economic crisis and its repercussions, mainly in conditions of
inequality (El País, 2018). Proof of this is the variation in the percentage of the population
that is at risk of poverty, which went from 16.8% to 20%). (Colell, 2019) 48% of immigrants
are in poverty, and the minor and elderly groups also have a higher incidence (28% and 25%

69
respectively) (EuropaPress, 2018). Although in recent years there has been an economic
recovery in Spain and Barcelona, and that the quality of life remains high as it is a European
capital city, with good conditions in the provision of public services and low levels of crime
(El Plural, 2017), It faces situations where income inequality makes stable market access
difficult and where a large part of the population remains at risk of poverty.

The growth of the city since the Middle Ages began to see significant changes between 1850
and 1900 when the population doubled (from 250,000 to 500,000 inhabitants) and the suburbs
that today make up the neighborhoods of the historic center of the city were annexed, ending
in 1921. (Subirats & Tomàs, La gobernanza metropolitana de Barcelona, 2007, p. 110)
Industrial development attracts even more people to Barcelona, reaching the million
inhabitants in 1930 and its maximum of almost 2 million in 1979, closing the first ring of
urban growth. As of this moment, the number of inhabitants of Barcelona will be reduced,
but there is an increase in the metropolitan environment, as part of policies to deconcentrate
population and activities. With the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona changes its face towards the
world and its economy adapts to this new version, transforming itself towards the provision
of services as a global city.

- Normative framework: Territorial system and city government

General framework

The AMB is an entity that groups Municipalities and was created through an Autonomous
Law of the Generalitat of Catalunya in 2010, based on the Autonomous Statute of Catalunya.
It works with a central entity that is the Metropolitan Area Council, made up of mayors
elected from the member municipalities. The mayor of Barcelona is the president and
decisions are made by a simple majority. The Law, also, establishes that there will be a
governing board and a special accounts commission, granting the power to the Metropolitan
Council to create any other complementary body. This institution can be considered the heir
to the CMB that operated between 1974 and 1987, which had legitimacy problems due to its
history as an institution of the Franco dictatorship without mechanisms for citizen
participation.

The AMB performs functions in the following topics:

70
 1. Territory Urbanistic planning
Metropolitan infrastructures
Public space/Urbanism
2. Mobility and Mobility infrastructures
transport Public transportation service
Information and mobility studies
3. Environment and Water
sustainability Basic Sanitation
Waste management
4. Housing Housing promotion
Heritage management
5. Economic Employment
development Industry
"Barcelona" Brand Promotion Program
Economy promotion
6. Social cohesion Cohesion programs
Support to municipalities
Unlike CMM (the next case), the AMB is constituted as an authority from its functions in
terms of (1) transport and mobility and (2) territory. In both cases, it is in charge of approving
plans and providing support to urban management processes through the metropolitan urban
development and planning plans, as well as the Metropolitan Urban Mobility Plan, of which
it is also co-manager. In others, it is configured as a service provider (water, sanitation, waste
management, among others), but not as an authority which is the case for the environmental-
related areas. The following is the AMB's financial structure:

Income sources Capital resources

Direct taxes 103.870.863,04 € Territory and management 302.105.880,53 €
Rates, prices y others 171.535.825,60 € Presidency - €
Current transfers 359.749.332,48 € Transportation and mobility 144.422.481,98 €
Revenues from assets 38.331.089,31 € Environment 237.683.177,40 €
Capital transfers 11.159.429,48 € Strategic planning - €
Transparency agency - €
Total 684.646.539,91 € Social and economic development 435.000,00 €
International cooperation - €
Table 9. AMB resources structure
Source: Own elaboration based on the approved budget for the 2018 validity of the Barcelona Metropolitan
Area. Online resource. Taken from the attached sheets. (AMB, 2018)

As can be seen, the AMB has the ability to collect taxes directly, and the amount it receives
for fees, prices and other services that can be traded with consumers is an important element
in its income structure. However, most of its income is still derived from current transfers

71
made by its members, the municipalities, and the Generalitat de Catalunya mediated by its
agencies.

Its basic regulations are founded on Laws 7 of 1987 and 31 of 2010, which are in charge of
establishing its organic structure and are those that give rise to its existence. It is also worth
noting that its existence stems from the exercise of Catalan autonomy and shares functions
with the Generalitat de Catalunya in the management of the housing system for the
municipalities of the Barcelona region.

Catalunya and the municipalities

The recognized attempts in the search for greater independence in politics and resources of
Catalunya against Spain have not stopped having an impact on the management of
metropolitan issues. (Valenzuela, 2019) The existence of the metropolitan area passes
directly through a Law of the Autonomous Community of Catalunya, as well as the powers
that it performs depend on others previously transferred from the Spanish State to the
Autonomous Community. In this sense, it is worth mentioning that the forms of management
of the Catalan territory in matters such as water and solid waste management, carried out
gradually since the 1978 constitution, through royal decrees in 1985, 2006 (statute of
autonomy of Catalunya), 2007, 2008 and 2009. (Generalitat de Catalunya, 2020)

Based on these milestones, a series of strategic relationships have been established between
the AMB and the Government of the Generalitat through vertical relationships, as well as
with the municipalities that comprise it. The metropolitan area exercises the powers entrusted
by law, while the Generalitat, through Agencies in the field of water resources and solid
waste, acts as the authority, in charge of regulating and monitoring the proper behavior of
the entity, as well as to transfer resources obtained through administrative and tax channels
that must be destined to the provision of public services. For their part, the municipalities are
responsible for the promotion of sustainability and local environmental management plans.
The AMB has a role as a bridge and coordinator in these matters. These relationships are
framed in the Statute of Autonomy of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the same Law 31 with
which the AMB was created in 2010, which makes the entity support for the development of
programs and projects.

72
 3.2.2. The autonomy as the source of metropolitan coordination

The provision of services and the configuration of public-private governance schemes are
elements that work well in Barcelona. Topics have been defined that required a government
from the metropolitan level, which was gradually established from the end of the Falangist
dictatorship until reaching a stage where the Generalitat de Catalunya had enough tools at its
disposal to guarantee the autonomous government of its territory. Within these provisions,
and with few restrictions, the powers required for the operation of the AMB were established
and attributed in permanent contact with municipalities and private actors to guarantee the
operation of the schemes for the provision of public basic sanitation services. Nevertheless:

- This type of agreement shows the undemocratic nature of the AMB. Starting from the
configuration and establishment of the entity and its antecedents (from the Spanish
State in the 70s, or with the will of the different municipal governments and the
Generalitat more recently to configure the entity), it is found that they have not been
developed processes or mechanisms of direct participation of the population in
metropolitan matters.
- There is a gap between the "technical" definitions of the area and the metropolitan
events, and the political-administrative units designed to address these problems. The
Metropolitan Region of Barcelona is made up of 164 municipalities, of which only
36 are part of the Metropolitan Area (mainly the first crown).
- The exercise of functions and powers of the AMB is limited by fiscal and
administrative margins that force the coordinated development of overlapping
functions with other levels of government (Generalitat, counties, municipalities) and
entities (transportation agency, for example), which ends up reducing the margin of
action and the weight of the entity.

The institutional design of the AMB has the purpose set forth within the Law to respond

[…] to the desire to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the administrations that act
in the metropolitan territory, guaranteeing the provision of quality public services, through
the configuration of a close administration capable of increasing citizen involvement and
participation in a reality of continuity urban, demographic density and economic and social
characteristics that make it necessary. (Comunidad Autónoma de Cataluña, 2010)

73
For this, the Law grants it a series of competences, functions, and instruments that allow it
to carry out the necessary actions for its achievement in each of the issues in which it works,
which were also established by the Law. In this scenario, even though the antecedents of
metropolitan organization were considered from the merger of the different existing agencies,
the result in terms of objectives and means was completely hierarchical. The promulgation
of a Law of the Generalitat that was agreed with the actors involved and endorsed in the
powers of the statute of autonomy of Catalonia that defines the search for ways to make
participation real, ended up imposing the ends and the means seeking to fit the existing
institutional and territorial framework. The relations with the municipalities in the
configuration of instruments such as the Urbanism Plans (director and ordinance) are an
example of the type of relations that are sustained. The Law establishes that municipalities
can participate in the processes through the constitution of (a) technical commissions for the
analysis of the determinations that affect them, and (b) participation, made up of mayors or
councilors and members of the Metropolitan Council. (Comunidad Autónoma de Cataluña,
2010)

This brief reflection on the forms of configuration of the AMB institution shows the still
limited perception of participation and the approach to a model of metropolitan government
except for indirect forms of participation. (Tomàs, 2019) Institutional fragility is also
associated with the absence of exclusive functions for the entity and the lack of
correspondence between the metropolitan region and the political-administrative borders
defined by law. In this way, Barcelona en Comù has worked on in recent years encountering
resistance to change within the institution to allow work schemes that bring the institution
and its objectives closer to working with the community and the private sector in a new
governance model that allows producing higher levels of local well-being, on the one hand,
and use the territorial planning platform represented by the strategic plans for 2030 to
integrate Barcelona with the region from the institution in view of the post-Covid future in
what they call a “Europe of cities”. (Farré, 2020)

The management of public policies and ideas about the metropolitan has encountered a high
politicization of the scene due to the forms of indirect representation on which it is based, but
not from the subjects that are developed in it. The institution has historically been linked to

74
a technical profile, unknown to citizens and without a shared vision. “The lack of a shared
vision and the lack of metropolitan involvement are undoubtedly the result of both cyclical
and structural factors, linked to institutional hardware and software.” (Tomàs, Le
gouvernement du changement? L'approche de Barcelona en Comú de la gouvernance
métropolitaine, 2019, p. 53) In the current mandate it is “[…] a clear increase in the number
of projects and public policies […] Yet these new tools are weak. […] this mandate did not
imply any additional effort neither in metropolitan leadership nor in the consolidation of a
metropolitan narrative.” (Tomàs, Le gouvernement du changement? L'approche de
Barcelona en Comú de la gouvernance métropolitaine, 2019, p. 53) In this sense, the public
policy objectives have already been defined and are little or no contested and, even when
they have been, the impacts have been reduced due to the lack of flexibility in terms of
competences and resources. Decision-making structures supported by legal schemes and
without direct forms of representation or accountability of citizens, which are not connected
with the institution or with what it does, allow this resistance to change to be reinforced after
having lived with formal and informal agreements for more than forty years between
politicians and technical experts.

The imaginary conceived within the political dispute over the metropolitan area is that of an
institution with a technical profile, even though the existence of multiple scales in permanent
dialogue and reconfiguration has been mentioned, such as those of the Region (160
municipalities) and the Metropolitan Area (36) of Barcelona. The proposed change to the
scale means several things such as that the understanding of what is metropolitan is changing,
as well as the problems and forms of relationship with the neighboring territory. However,
within the current structure, there are still a series of assumptions that are worth highlighting,
such as the need for spatial continuity in the metropolitan territory or the absolute primacy
of Barcelona in the metropolitan council and in decision-making. (Comunidad Autónoma de
Cataluña, 2010) However, the configuration of a metropolitan entity counts discursively in
two ways: first, to guarantee the competitiveness of the city-region in the face of future
challenges and, second, to allow the efficient and equitable provision of metropolitan
services. This imaginary justifies the structural absence of forms of participation of civil
society or direct forms of representation within the estates of metropolitan government,
where the actors are the municipalities under the umbrella of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

75
Even with the change in discourse since the election of Barcelona en Comù, there have not
yet been structural changes in the narrative of metropolization, nor in its forms of
participation and definition of public policies.

The forms of strategic planning of the AMB are presented as platforms for debate and
reflection on metropolitan issues. This means that, on the one hand, the measures taken are
usually indicative and the result of consensus. On the other hand, there are the authority
functions that are collected as operational activities inherited from specific agencies in
matters of transport, environment, sanitation, and housing, or the programming of projects
and programs on the identified topics, being part of internal processes limited. The
strategic planning instruments available to the AMB depend on consensus building and are
mainly indicative. The role of planning is oriented to the government of the metropolitan city
through the presentation of results rather than the construction of legitimacy.

Metropolitan planning is strategic and generally non-binding. The existence of plans is

presented as a space for discussion and consensus building rather than as the setting in which
the entity's management is configured. The actors involved normally are the AMB and the
municipalities, the metropolitan service companies, and the Generalitat. Discussions are
currently taking place on the forms of citizen participation in the metropolitan planning
processes and on bringing the political definition of the metropolis closer to the "functional"
one, which is broader and includes more municipalities. Each metropolitan coordination
scenario has specific forms of relationships. On transportation issues, for example, the
metropolitan transportation agency (253 municipalities) has a greater degree of binding in its
decisions. The metropolitan government, likewise, works with decision-making processes
with the participation of the council of indirectly elected representatives. Finally, the strategic
planning exercise that is becoming a broader scenario, has the main function of being a
platform for discussion of metropolitan issues, with horizontal and ineffective relationships.

Purposes
Institutions The metropolitan
coordination depends on the
configuration of
metropolitan entities, public
enterprises, and authorities
for the service provision.
The planning and
coordination is multiscalar
BARCELONA
Means
Three institutional means
are identified:
- Configuration as authority
on several topics
(transportation, waste
management, water
provision).
Actors Relationships
The configuration of the In principle, there is a form
entity has a background of hierarchical relationship
starting from the Spanish with a Metropolitan Area
national state in the 70s. that is chaired by the Mayor
Lately it became part of a of Barcelona and operates
process regarding the companies that follow a
autonomy From the model defined in this
Generalitat de Catalonya institution. However, there

76
 and institutional framework - Project development on and Barcelona during the are also processes of
should adapt to this reality. the metropolitan issues following decades arriving devolution of competence to
defined by its statutes. to the configuration of the the municipalities and of
- Strategic planning as a current Metropolitan Area more horizontal forms of
tool to produce consensus institution (with relationship that require
beyond the metropolitan Barcelona+36 permanent negotiation to
area. municipalities). From these allow decision-making.
central institutions appears
Although it can collect taxes several operative actors as
directly, its fiscal margin is public and private service
narrow as it has strong enterprises.
municipalities and a region
in its management Right now the discussions
competing for resources. follow to include 2 actors in
a more structural way: 1.
The community
participation on a regular
basis. 2. The 124 remaining
municipalities from the
Barcelona Metropolitan
Region.
Policy and The objectives of the AMB The AMB has limited The definition of what is In policy management it has
ideas are related to six public sources of resources that metropolitan rests with the two roles that are highly
policy issues: (1) territory, depend on the laws of the Generalitat. Local dependent on indirect forms
(2) mobility and Generalitat and on the governments (municipalities of participation through the
transportation, (3) resources of transfers and and city of Barcelona) are metropolitan council:
environment and fees charged on public the axes in development and
sustainability, (4) housing, aqueduct and sewerage implementation, with quotas 1. Making binding decisions
(5) economic development, services. in the metropolitan council as an authority.
and (6) social cohesion. according to their 2. Consensus management
It does not have completely population. Participation is to plan and implement.
This are related to its autonomous powers, but limited and indirect in the
current scale (36 rather shares them with public policy cycle.
municipalities). The post- local and regional entities.
metropolitan region Consensus is essential to
composed by more than 120 build and implement plans
municipalities can change and projects.
the perception of the
metropolitan topics.
Spatial Cooperation is essential for The use of the autonomous The actors involved have The statistical approach
imaginaries the management of laws of the Generalitat, as been mainly public, which provided by the Generalitat
metropolitan issues, which well as the antecedents that has legitimized the fact that de Catalunya serves as the
remains primarily a remained from the 70s, and the discussion on the spatial basis for a technocratic
technical issue. The even the Olympic Games imaginary of the metropolis discourse of the
metropolis responds to a have allowed to build a is administered at this level metropolitan area, what
historical process that began strong vision of without direct mechanisms defines it, and what should
in the 1970s, which is Metropolitan Barcelona that of participation or election be done with it,
currently in the process of was rounded off in the of representatives. In this disregarding forms of direct
being redefined towards an configuration of the AMB scenario, public actors and participation.
idea of a city-region, where in 2010. service companies have
the metropolitan exists over been central. However, this The discussion is currently
a much larger space. Currently, strategic plans has gone against processes opening in two fields: 1. the
Metropolitan relations go and the configuration of of post-metropolization and direct participation of
beyond the conurbation and agreements are used as a a strong structuring of citizens in the governance
the most intensive dynamics first approach to change the participation in the of metropolitan affairs and
of Barcelona. notion of the metropolitan government of the city of 2. the horizontal debate with
scale and the functional Barcelona with the municipalities in a much
relationships that determine Barcelona en Comú plan. broader area.
it.

77
Planning The forms of strategic
planning of the AMB are
presented as platforms for
debate and reflection on
metropolitan issues. This
means that, on the one hand,
the measures taken are
usually indicative and the
result of consensus. On the
other hand, there are the
authority functions that are
collected as operational
activities inherited from
specific agencies in matters
of transport, environment,
sanitation, and housing, or
the programming of projects
and programs on the
identified topics, being part
of internal processes
limited.
Table 10. Barcelona metropolitan political process structure.
Source: Own elaboration. 2020.
The strategic planning The actors in the planning Each metropolitan
instruments available to the exercise are the 36 coordination scenario has
AMB depend on consensus municipalities, the specific forms of
building and are mainly metropolitan service relationships. On
indicative. The role of companies, and the transportation issues, for
planning is oriented to the Generalitat. example, the metropolitan
government of the transportation agency (253
metropolitan city through Discussions are currently municipalities) has a greater
the presentation of results taking place on the forms of degree of binding in its
rather than the construction citizen participation in the decisions. The metropolitan
of legitimacy. metropolitan planning government, likewise,
processes and on bringing works with decision-making
Metropolitan planning is the political definition of the processes with the
strategic and generally non- metropolis closer to the participation of the council
binding. The existence of "functional" one, which is of indirectly elected
plans is presented as a space broader and includes more representatives. Finally, the
for discussion and municipalities. strategic planning exercise
consensus building rather that is becoming a broader
than as the setting in which scenario, has the main
the entity's management is function of being a platform
configured. for discussion of
metropolitan issues, with
more horizontal and less
effective relationships.
78
 3.3. Third Case: Montréal open metropolis

Figure 8. Urbanization in Relation to the Downtown Core.

Source: PMAD. (CMM, 2011, p. 57)

Montreal is the biggest and, economically, the most important city in Quebec, Canada. The
main language is French, but more than half of its population is bilingual (56%). Its urban
area was 113,000 hectares in 2013, with an annual growth rate of 1.1% between 2000 and
2013. (NYU, 2020) It also has a wide presence of territories dedicated to agriculture and
forests. The traditional city grew up on the island of Montreal, which is surrounded by the
Saint Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. The city has a hostile climatic situation
during winter, which is why it has a series of tunnels in which its population is protected and
is an active part of urban life in Montreal, with more than 32 kilometers. (Montreal
Underground City, 2020). Urban relations of interdependence quickly overflowed the island's

79
territory, which has led to the fact that for almost a century alternatives have been sought to
address this phenomenon, including the configuration of metropolitan government
institutions, agencies for specific issues (transportation), or the merger of municipalities
(amalgamation). At the beginning of the millennium, the reconfiguration of the scales of
territorial government in the State of Quebec was proposed through a Law that created the
Metropolitan Community of Montréal (CMM) and reinforced the urban autonomy of the
Urban Community of the Villa de Montréal (CUM). However, both entities have encountered
resistance from different segments of the population and from local authorities to develop
their projects. This section presents the case, its challenges and the solutions applied,
analyzing its scope and limitations.

3.3.1. General issues

Montreal is an important scientific, cultural, and intellectual center, known for its dynamic
manufacturing, services, telecommunications, aerospace, computer, and pharmaceuticals.
Agriculture and biotechnology are the main economic sectors of the South Shore of the St.
Lawrence River, while recreation, tourism, and forestry are among the major activities of the
North Shore (CMM, 2020). The GDP of the city of Montreal, in 2017, was close to 173
million Canadian dollars, while that of the entire State of Quebec amounted to almost 385
million. (Institut de la Statistique - Quebec, 2020) Meanwhile, the GDP from the CMM was
222 million in the same year. In 2018, It also concentrates 2,19 million of jobs (51% from
Quebec) (CMM, 2020)

The CMM agglomerates 48% of the population of Quebec, with a density of 1,036
inhabitants per square kilometer. Almost one in four residents were born outside of Canada.
(CMM, 2020) The cultural and language tensions typical of the State of Quebec have
manifested themselves in the configuration of metropolitan entities. This diversity is
probably the biggest problem in the metropolitan territory. This has direct consequences in
the forms of government and the execution of plans and programs. (Paré & Frohn, 2004, p.
92; Collin, Dagenais, & Poitras, 2003, pág. 18) Only 56% of the population speaks the two
official languages of the State (French and English). (CMM, 2020)

Since the beginning of the 20th century, there are antecedents of mergers and annexations
(1883, 1918, 2001, 2006) and the creation of metropolitan government structures (1919,
80
1959, 1969, and 2001). Naturally, the scales, sectors, and forms of intervention in each case
have been varied. However, in its totality there are elements mainly of the reform school and
old regionalism, with a brief period in the mid-1990s that included perspectives of the new
regionalism that were quickly shelved (Tomàs, 2010, p. 137). During the 2010s, horizontal
negotiation elements began to be included, which will be deepened in the second part of this
section. Meanwhile, the growth of the city followed a pattern of suburbanization influenced
by the massification of the car.

Today, CMM faces numerous challenges in consolidating and exercising its governance.
Some of these are reflected in territorial planning and the forms of participation and
contestation with other territories in the definition of objectives, tools, and decision-making
on urban growth. Some of them are:

o The promotion of sustainable forms of transport from the proposal of

Transport Oriented Development (TOD) and its use as a tool for negotiation
with the municipalities and its development regime. (CMM, 2011, pp. 94-
110)
o The commodification of decision-making derived from horizontal negotiation
relationships between municipalities and the CMM in the PMAD, including
the instrumentalization of citizen participation in the Metropolitan Agora.
o The management of the relationship between biodiversity, rural activities, and
the urban environment through the management of land uses. (CMM, 2011,
pág. 36; Dupras et al., 2015, p. 371)
o The development of projects such as the green and blue belts of the region
with a mainly private property regime and with few fiscal resources. (Dupras
et al., 2015, p. 371)
o The construction of governance and legitimacy of the entity from its
conception of indirect participation and with the wide diversity existing in the
territory of its jurisdiction. (Paré & Frohn, 2004, p. 91)

81
 - Normative framework: Territorial system and city government

General framework

Canada is a country with a federal government, made up of 10 states and 3 special territories.
Each State has the competences and jurisdiction to develop policies and regulations regarding
local and metropolitan governments. This process is documented below in two sections: The
first response to the nature of the Montréal agglomeration and the second to the history of
CMM itself. Throughout this scheme, two things are worth mentioning. First, the conditions
of the municipalities respond mainly to the provision of services, rather than to local
representation. This is an additional obstacle. Second, the mixed nature of the new entities
that are born as a result of the merger of municipalities and their grouping into a regional
entity with a different perception of the metropolitan adventure.

A. Communauté Urbaine de Montreal (CUM) and the Conseil d’agglomération

The treatment of urban issues in Montreal and the mix has more than 100 years of attempts
to achieve an efficient organization of problems that go beyond the administrative borders of
the municipalities. (Douay, 2010, p. 53) In this section are presented the most recent
developments at the urban level. The federal government, the State of Quebec, and the
Canadian municipalities have identify the need to make the provision of services more
efficient and, since the mid-1970s, they have presented themselves structuring and
controlling plans in this regard.

When a major police strike (municipal jurisdiction) broke out in October 1969, the provincial
government was faced with a major political crisis. This is why, in January 1970, it replaced
the Corporation of Metropolitan Montreal with the Montreal Urban Community (CUM)
covering the entire island of Montreal. Consequently, the reference model ceased to be North
American and became European. We are trying more precisely to reproduce the urban
communities with which France endowed certain agglomerations in the provinces in 1967.
In fact, beyond lexical mimicry, the powers of the CUM are much less important than those
of the French urban communities. (Douay, 2010, p. 53)

In the mid-1990s, an organizational transition occurred through a political organization, such

as the CUM, which began to transfer powers in the field of transport. On this axis, a
metropolitan body dedicated exclusively to the management of the transport system was set
up, attending to one of the major urban problems. However, due to the context of multiple
municipal divisions of the State of Quebec (1,306 municipalities in 2000, where 85% had

82
less than 5,000 inhabitants), alternatives were sought to strengthen metropolitan governance
mechanisms. (Douay, 2010, p. 55) In 1999, The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the
Metropolis (MAMM) elaborated a public policy organized in three axes:

- Modernization of the metropolitan municipal apparatus: Adopt new ways of providing public
services of metropolitan interest on this scale.
- Implement a metropolitan public authority: It implied the departure of municipal
responsibilities towards the metropolitan level from a political function.
- Reorganization of the governmental apparatus: Adapt the institutional framework (MAMM,
1999, p. 3)

In this context, a new form of organization was proposed on three level: The creation of a
metropolitan instance of two large cities through the merger of municipalities, and districts
within these new cities.

The configuration of County Municipalities, which group together several municipalities is

one of these responses. However, at the beginning of the 2000s, a series of "amalgamations"
was requested, the constant ones consisting of the merger of municipalities, having some
condition of representation in locally elected councils. (Rivard, Tomás, & Collin, 2004, p.
30) The amalgamation of the Great City of Montreal was carried out in 2002 and, in 2004,
15 of 22 municipalities voted to leave the agglomeration, recovering a certain degree of
autonomy, 7 voted to stay and 5 did not vote at all. (Smith & Spicer, 2018, p. 932; Harris,
2013) However, stay within the Urban Community of the Villa de Montreal, within the
quality is organized for the provision of local-scale government services.

Faced with the different evaluations carried out on the amalgamation in Montreal, it was
found that it only went through a scenario of popular endorsement after carrying out the
process (Lafortune & Collin, 2011, pág. 401). For the municipalities that left, there were
higher costs of belonging to the agglomeration than those that remained within it. It is valid
to highlight the configuration of "autonomic" discourses as part of the political scenario in
which the de-amalgamation of the city of Montreal was carried out, and that the
municipalities that were mainly opposed were made up of mostly Anglophone suburb spaces,
strengthening the identity role of the population in political decision-making. (Paré & Frohn,
2004, p. 96)

The challenges are new but the question of metropolitan management is old […] The idea that
the island of Montreal should represent one city was put forth as early as 1910. The project

83
 reached its goal in the early 2000s – before being reversed by the de-merger of 2006, during
which the municipalities regained their autonomy. Thus, while there were always people who
aimed for the ideal of one single, large municipality, there were also always those who opposed
such an amalgamation. At a more theoretical level, this debate is played out between two schools
of thought: the metropolitan reform movement and public choice theory. After years of debate, it
has become more and more doubtful whether either of these schools could actually serve as a
reference framework for the study of metropolitan regions. These two camps are not in a position
to respond to new issues, such as the internationalization and polycentric form of large cities and
environmental protection. (Lafortune & Collin, 2011, pág. 401)

B. Communauté Metropolitaine de Montreal (CMM)

The Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) is a territorial entity that agglomerates 82

municipalities and covers 4,360 square kilometers. It has a population of 3'950,000
inhabitants as of 2017. Its nucleus is the agglomeration of Montreal with 1'950,000
inhabitants. It was created in 2000 and started working on January 1st of 2001. It is an entity
that groups Municipalities, which are also grouped into Regional County Municipalities
(MRC) and the CUM. These entities fulfill the basic functions of any municipal entity, while
the CMM deals with issues in a broader territorial spectrum. “the mandate given to the CMM
is much more political, it is not a service cooperative like the CUM, but a body of strategic
planning, coordination and funding whose action covers many metropolitan issues” (Douay,
2010, p. 59). The entity was created through a Law of the National Assembly of Quebec and
works with a central entity that is the CMM Council, which is made up of 28 members elected
from member municipalities by different mechanisms. The Mayor of Montreal is always the
President, and decisions are made by a simple majority. The Executive Committee, made up
of 8 people and chaired by the same President of the Council, is released from the Council.
In operational matters, there are the CMM commissions that deal with the topics that are
entrusted to them by the Council and of which the following currently exist:

a. Environment
b. Transport
c. Social housing
d. Territorial planning
e. Economic development, metropolitan facilities, and finance
f. Agricultural consultation committee.

84
Each commission has 8 members of the Council, except for the Agricultural Consultation
Committee (10). Additionally, there must be an administrative structure to carry out the
operation of the entity's plans. The law defines that there will be a director, a secretary, and
a treasurer while the rest of the plant can be modified by the Council. Currently, it has
directions for (1) economic development, (2) environment, (3) planning, (4) transportation,
and (5) development policies and interventions. (Quebec National Assembly, 1999)

CMM has functions in five themes

a. Territory planning,
b. Economic development,
c. Environment,
d. Transport,
e. Social housing,
f. Metropolitan facilities

None of these functions leads to the CMM being constituted as an authority, on the contrary,
the Law establishes that the CMM can serve as an intermediary for the capture and transfer
of resources to the metropolitan transport authority. Its functions are limited to the planning,
structuring, and management of projects in its lines of action, articulating with actors at
different levels. For example, CMM is one of the executors of Social Housing projects of the
Ministry of Housing. (CMM, 2019, pág. 19)

CMM's financial income structure is based on 65.8% in the installments. The rest correspond
to transfers and debt services. The Montréal agglomeration contributes 53.4% of the quotas-
shares. Its main expenses are in social housing (37.4%); Promotion, prospecting, agreement
and metropolitan development funds (23.7%); and metropolitan facilities (19.8%). The other
expenses are air sanitation (2.4%), community administration and services (13.3%), and debt
services (3.5%). (CMM, 2019, pág. 52)

As an explanatory element, it is worth mentioning that the Quotas-Parties are defined

according to the budgetary needs of the entities and with an exercise derived from the
calculation of the Unified Property Wealth and the Fiscal Potential of the municipalities. Its
basic regulations are outlined in Chapitre C-37.01 which is the normative act by which the

85
entity was created in 2001. It is a norm of the State of Quebec issued by the National
Assembly.

Governance, for CMM, is developed through cooperation to address metropolitan

phenomena in the search for justice and territorial equity, as well as competitiveness and
productivity. For all this, an institutional framework is required that allows and regulates how
this metropolitan governance will be carried out. With this paradigmatic vision of governance
through cooperation and based on a legal framework that supports its creation, transferring
representation and participation to a process that must be endorsed continuously. How it is
articulated with metropolitan issues is proof of this, with the development of global agendas
and representative groups of citizens and civil society as frequent interlocutors in the
definition, implementation, and monitoring of plans and projects.

Amid increasing urbanization, metropolitan cooperation may help to address issues

extending over local boundaries in several strategic areas with a view to ensuring the
competitiveness, attractiveness and social inclusion and cohesion of the entire metropolitan
area, in keeping with sustainable development principles.
Metropolitan governance requires a clear legal and institutional framework, based on
principles of democracy, respect for local autonomy and subsidiarity. This framework must
be provided with appropriate funding, which involves coordination mechanisms and sectorial
policies (infrastructure, economic development, environmental, social and cultural policies).
Cooperation at the metropolitan level should be based on the representation of all citizens
and stakeholders, despite their different mobilization, resources and engagement
capabilities.
This framework and cooperation would facilitate land use planning including the
construction and operation of public transit, reduce disparities in public service provision,
help manage urban growth, facilitate land-use coordination with transportation projects and
protect and enhance natural assets. (CMM, 2015, p. 7. The bold is own)

The CMM is conceived from governance based on the articulation of actors for the
management of territorial problems. The distant premises of an omnipresent and technically
strengthened institution to deal with metropolitan phenomena, or permanent negotiation with
small municipal entities and actors from different levels and sectors, are abandoned towards
a midpoint where the metropolitan institution acts as a third actor who facilitates these
processes. The planning function becomes an exercise in providing a strategic and a flexible
route from which a window of general objectives opens up with impacts ranging from the
configuration of a specific project agency to ineffective recommendations to the

86
municipalities. (Douay, 2010, p. 65; Roy-Baillargeon, 2017, p. 56) The lack of clarity on its
position regarding different topics can be read as the result of different limitations on its
competences, resources, and that it can be seen as a light institution with low governance
levels.

3.3.2. Urban planning and collaboration as tools to enhance the

metropolitan governance

The different relationships between the scales of government built have produced difficulties
in the efficient and effective management of the principles with which the CMM was created.
Due to this, gaps are generated that affect the performance of institutions and projects due to
gradual integration and, at times, delayed in the construction of an institutionality and a
governance network robust enough to develop transcendental public policy objectives for the
Metropolitan region. The relationship between means (resources) and ends (goals and
purposes) of the different scales must be permanently debated, constantly opening spaces for
renegotiation.

In practice, we are witnessing rather a strategy of small steps embedded in a concept of

metropolitan democracy that relies exclusively on the local municipal elites and the fiscal
potential, rather than on a representation of the population in general. In this context, the
CMM has not introduced any innovation that goes in the direction of a transition from
government to governance. The inability to put in place a substantial program to share the
growth of the tax base is the most eloquent testimony to this. Several elements explain this
gap between the expectations of the beginning and reality: 1) a (re)empowerment of the
power of municipal institutions over territorial public policies which feeds and reinforces
institutional fragmentation; 2) unfavorable and non-continuous government action; 3) a City
of Montreal dislocated following the strengthening of the boroughs concomitant with the
2006 demergers. (Collin, 2012, p. X)

The metropolitan issues go through the configuration of the debate scene and the CMM
discourse towards spaces beyond the urban nucleus and put the discussion on the regional
characteristics of a wide and complex territory. In this configuration, surrounded by different
scales and types of organizations, it is where the objectives and resources must still be defined
for the metropolitan area. Although progress has been made with the contribution of the
public in co-creation sessions, there is still a wide margin to develop competencies that allow
it to be an effective entity in those missions entrusted to it.

87
The development of projects and the configuration of spaces for co-creation are elements that
serve to consolidate and embed a metropolitan institutionality that is capable of overcoming
the sociocultural discussion agendas of its existence (concerning ethnic, linguistic and of the
CMM territory). The use of plans, as general and strategic as they are, becomes an instrument
of negotiation between institutions for the recognition of an agenda and the programming of
resources. This double symbolic and democratic dimension has allowed CMM to embed
itself in the institutional apparatus even with limited resources for its goals. This is the case
for environment protection (general and articulated with municipalities and their land-use
regimes) and the green ceinture (a project with few resources, depending on the goodwill
from municipalities as well and the efficiency of negotiation mechanisms). Remains in the
air the question regarding the sufficiency about its competences and the metropolitan
phenomena.

CMM, as an institution, was designed following the principles of the new and old
regionalism. Throughout its history it has faced the demands of the municipalities that
actively fight for its interests and feel reflected in the postulates of the public choice school.
Recently, the use of negotiation mechanisms and the opening of spaces such as “Metropolitan
Agora” have allowed a transition towards collaborative spaces where actors of different types
are present. In this way, the institution is building its own governance while legitimizing
itself from territorial planning exercises with a dose of intra-scale and inter-municipal
participation and negotiation. However, the institution preserves from its own structure the
limitations in terms of sources of resources and an institutional design that can only be
partially adapted to horizontal relationships to the extent that it can do planning (or its other
resources in making decision) something negotiable with the municipalities. The opening of
the process has allowed traditionally dissatisfied actors to enter the scene and has become a
platform for dialogue, converting, at least initially, its role into becoming an institution with
high levels of governance.

Regarding public policies, it can be highlighted that, although the CMM has an identified
and defined work agenda from the Law with which it was created, it has been able to
articulate and mobilize projects that have allowed it to become visible on specific topics, as
is the Development Oriented to Sustainable Transport (TOD). Even with its functions and

88
competencies distributed in matters of environmental promotion, housing, economic
development, and others, the TOD approach that was translated into specific determinations
on the densities and land uses of the municipalities within the PMAD became its symbol of
fight, making metropolitan decisions local affairs. However, during the PMAD negotiation
processes, ambiguous results were produced in this regard: in order to respect municipal
autonomy to define the ways in which they organize their growth and the desired life model
in their own function (and not that of the metropolis) , the occupancy rates and densities that
allowed the development of the TOD approach of the plan were made more flexible. As
consideration, monetary incentives were designed to be granted to municipalities that adapt
to these measures. This example allows us to observe the complicated management faced by
the CMM with functions that are not exclusive to its level and that require permanent
negotiation to become operational. The actors involved, then, are related to each sector of
work and vary in scales (municipalities, state government, federation, public service
companies, existing authorities such as transportation, etc.), as well as the types of
relationships.

Spatial imaginaries are a hot topic in public discussion about what it means to be a
metropolitan in Montreal. Among the elements that are discussed are the disagreements
between members of the CMM according to their mainly urban or rural character, as well as
their growth intentions and the occupation model of the territory of each municipality. There
is also a cultural disagreement related to representation within territorial entities from the
language, which led to actions such as the separation of municipalities after the amalgamation
at the beginning of the millennium. In this sense, the existence of the metropolitan continues
to be an incomplete task with ambiguous discourses built both from the center (urban, diverse
and seeking densification) and the periphery (rural and in the process of dispersed
urbanization). The actors who interpret these narratives are the municipalities themselves and
the interest groups (English-speaking, for example), which results in supports of municipal
autonomy in the face of a “hegemonic” entity that is justified in the search for greater
efficiency in redistribution and in achieving results that make Montreal a competitive space
at a global level. For the moment, the configuration of territorial planning as a negotiation
space has allowed the coexistence of both principles at least discursively, to the extent that

89
the entity has adapted in its role as catalyst and mediator between municipalities and executor
of metropolitan projects.

Territorial planning has become a way to build and strengthen metropolitan governance for
CMM. The permanent participation of municipalities and citizens, as well as dialogue and
negotiation processes have become a way to build consensus that will result in decision-
making that, although it is far removed from the technical pretensions of the CMM, you will
have higher acceptance and few additional agreements to get the plan going. In turn, as Roy-
Baillargeon argues, this relationship is two-way, since having a greater capacity for
governance will allow the development of more accurate planning in the future.

[…] planning the territory of metropolitan regions from a more strategic and collaborative
perspective than a global rational one can pave the way for the establishment of more
cooperative and decentralized territorial governance […] reciprocally, the intensification of
these dynamics of territorial governance observable in the framework of recent territorial
planning exercises of metropolitan regions can facilitate their realization in a more
harmonious, unifying, and consensual perspective. By putting their very first PMAD on the
metropolitan agenda and submitting it to public debate and making it an object of
merchant(is)age between elected officials, the political and technical elites of Greater
Montreal have brought about an unprecedented compromise between urban and suburban
decision-makers hitherto in conflict. In doing so, they laid the foundations for a capacity for
territorial governance that had struggled for decades to emerge. They have thus made
territorial planning an instrument of territorial governance. Reciprocally, by opening up the
network of actors called upon to influence decision-making and by relying on the mobilization
of citizens and civil society in the region that they aroused and nurtured within the framework
of the hearings on the PMAD, the CMM's elected officials and administrators built the
capacity for territorial planning that the institution had still not succeeded in establishing
and legitimizing in the eyes of the provincial government, local decision-makers and civil
society in Greater Montreal after ten years of stormy and threatened existence. In return,
they have made territorial governance an instrument for territorial planning. (Roy-
Baillargeon, 2017, pp. 59-60)

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 MONTRÉAL
Purposes Means Actors Relationships
Institutions The institution is a form of Institutional settings vary The entity was created The relationships
metropolitan government by little in their structure from directly by a Law of the established within the
fields of action responding traditional plans, programs, State of Quebec and is made structure of CMM are
to the needs of the new and projects. The up of the territorial entities, vertical. In some cases top-
regionalism in terms of management of resources which are the main source down and in others bottom-
territorial competitiveness through quota-shares of financing. The up but always vertical.
from the metropolitan scale guarantees resources, even association with other actors However, within the search
(it could even be called if they are few, for the is secondary, but the entity for necessary agreements to
post-metropolitan). The fulfillment of its mission. has opened up to form inter- guarantee territorial
entity acts in four fields inRecently, it is worth scalar agreements and with coordination, in recent years
such a way as to promote highlighting the use of the civil society organizations the entity has built spaces
the competitiveness of the entity as a dialogue and the citizenry itself. for horizontal relations with
region. platform for the search for municipalities and other
metropolitan consensus relevant entities within
within the framework of decision-making.
territorial planning, which
could be considered a
traditional tool.
Policy and The current version of The main tools are the The actors involved are led Relations regarding the
ideas metropolitanization in elaboration of plans and the by those who make up the implementation of public
Montreal responds to execution of projects. The CMM. Territorial entities of policies is especially
problems that must be emphasis that the CMM has other scales, sectoral horizontal. The themes of
solved to guarantee its given to integral spaces of institutions, citizens and the CMM require
competitiveness. Among action such as the TOD civil companies are articulation and
these are the distribution of approach included in the dialogical actors in this coordination that, as the
services, the adequate plans and negotiation sense strongly involved in entity verified, cannot
management of land uses processes with the the execution of legitimately occur with
with a sustainable municipalities allows it to metropolitan public unilateral decisions.
development model, or the control even the policies.
regional coordination of implementation of projects
collective transport. None is in an almost autonomous
the exclusive competence of way, increasing the margin
the entity that must of application of policies by
articulate with other scales entities metropolitan.
and sectors to develop its
agenda.
Spatial The metropolitan The debates around the The actors of the different The actors and existing
imaginaries configuration responds to configuration of the narratives can be classified institutions have a proposal
the need to create a metropolitan have mainly into three: close to mainly vertical
competitive territory taken place in official - Metropolis: they are in relationships, where the
addressing the distribution spaces or in response to favor of an entity capable of institution is a technical
of resources and services in government acts. The regulating land uses body that seeks the best for
a strategic way. However, construction of these throughout the region from the city, despite local costs.
this may go against local narratives goes through the a technical basis to The response of the affected
autonomy, so there is a convocation of the public guarantee organized growth. municipalities and those
counter-narrative that and the construction of Here are the central cities, who demand greater
defends the primacy of identities that endorse one levels of other levels of representation is that local
negotiation and local or the other. government, and entities in costs cannot be ignored and
development, modifying the favor of a control of require decision-making
notion of the metropolitan The use of territorial suburbanization. power and the search for
towards a space of planning instruments and - Local autonomy: Local consensus as a condition for
coordination between peers, scenarios currently aims to entities must be able to action, configuring
close to the idea of the build a metropolitan identity make their own decisions horizontal relationships.
school of public choice. by making the decision- regarding their growth.
making and work issues of Here are the municipalities The entity has moved closer
the entity visible. and those who are in favor between scales to an
of suburbanization. approach of horizontal
- Representation: Non- discussion and hierarchical
French-speaking decision-making but made
municipalities and those more flexible by the
who consider that their construction of general
interests are not reflected in consensus.
the current structures of
metropolitan representation.

91
Planning Planning exercises have
become a tool for the
development of territorial
governance and vice versa
(Roy, 2017). In this first
stage, it is shown how
planning is a space for
negotiation. The experience
of the Montreal PMAD
shows how priority was
given to the practice of
metropolitan planning,
validating it with the
participation of multiple
actors rather than "one
plan".
Table 11. Montreal metropolitan political process structure.
With the use of
collaborative governance
instruments, the territorial
planning exercises in
Montreal have opened up in
the definition of objectives
and tools. However, there
are still limitations
associated with regulatory
rigidity in the competencies
and resources of
organizations, which makes
it difficult to implement
agreements that go hand in
hand with this new
approach.
Source: Own elaboration
92
The superimposition of a
plan made it necessary to
carry out concertation
exercises that opened new
spaces for negotiation
between authorities and for
listening to citizens. This
breaks one of the
hierarchical planning
principles with which the
entity had been conceived
towards a horizontal
planning model with
cascading impacts that must
be coupled by each CRM.
The main actors continue to
be the territorial and
sectoral entities, but a space
for citizen discussion of
metropolization opens up,
although it has a limited
scope.
The relationships are
conceived as tending
towards horizontality, which
is not yet fully realized. The
proposed institutional setup
resulted in hierarchical
relationships, mainly top-
down. However, with the
modifications to planning
practices, there are currently
horizontal relationships
between scales and sectors
in negotiation processes and
an instrumentalization of
citizen participation in the
Agoras with little impact on
decisions.
 4. DISCUSSION
The influence of political processes on metropolization manifests itself in divergent ways in
elements that range from the construction of different narratives about the scale of the
problems to the exercise of specific functions by institutions built for specific purposes. The
cases presented in the previous chapter have a wide range of differences in the definition of
the metropolitan, always in democratic environments, where there are different levels of
decentralization and autonomy of local governments and dependence on decision-making
from other levels of government in the form of legislation or involvement in territorial
policies. Differences in power structures, physical and socioeconomic environments, define
the ways in which power is exercised in each case. This chapter collects and contrasts the
main findings on the forms of metropolitan governance and their relationship with political
processes, seeking to identify relevant elements for future discussions on the role and forms
of (re)construction of the metropolitan and regional scale in contrast to the models and
paradigms.

The chapter is organized into four sections, one for each thematic analyzed (institutions,
public policies, spatial imaginaries, and forms of planning). In each section, the findings of
the three cases are contrasted and weighted in the four dimensions observed (objectives,
means, actors, and types of relationships). This exercise is carried out by applying a critical
look at the limits of governance models and evidencing potential lessons learned from each
case for the others, as well as identifying the elements that may hinder the transfer of
knowledge to emerging metropolises. The identification of trends in metropolitan politics
and in the ways in which governance (re)construction processes are taking place in large
cities are important to explain the new forms of metropolization and to design instruments
more akin to these realities in the upcoming years.

93
 4.1. Metropolitan Institutions

Institutional development in the three cases studied has been substantially different. Although
all of them went through a reform phase with the merger of municipalities, understanding the
premise that a single urban form requires a single administration to be efficient in its planning
and provision of services. In all cases, too, the political-administrative borders were once
again exceeded by the expansion of the urban phenomenon and the interdependence
relationships between various territories, although not in the same way, and this is a relevant
point. Although in all cases there is an economic and demographic primacy of the urban
nucleus over the rest of the metropolitan territory, in the case of Bogotá it is much more
severe. This is manifested in the forms of occupation, finding a much higher density in
Bogotá than in Barcelona and Montreal. This also has to do with the elements that were
considered within the definition of metropolitan phenomena in each case. For example, the
Metropolitan Community of Montreal puts at the center of the discussion the agricultural
vocation of its territory as an asset to be defended from the planning of land uses, as well as
the different types of suburbanization present, including a wider territory from its conception.

Bogotá Barcelona Montreal

Total inhabitants 9.949.000 3.291.654 4.099.000
Municipalities 21 36 82
Nucleus population 7.980.000 1.636.762 1750000
Rest population 1.969.000 1.654.892 2.349.000
Extension (Km2) 635 636 4360
Density (inhabitants/km2) 15.680 5.176 940
Table 12. General facts about the cases.
Source: Own elaboration. Based on several sources. (Bogotá Secretary of Planning, 2018; CMM, 2020;
Torrà, 2018)

These elements, added to the institutional nature of the territorial entities and the scope of the
proposed structures for metropolitan governance, have defined the institutional
characteristics. In Bogotá, the outstanding weight of the city compared to the rest of the
territory in social, economic, and demographic matters, have generated division in the face
of the construction of a common project. The clash of two complementary, but so different,
realities has led to the construction of opposing interests at times and the loss of confidence.
Additionally, the double scale of government that the Capital District fulfills also implies a
double integration process: on the one hand, there are the municipalities, and, on the other
94
hand, there is the department of Cundinamarca. The lack of metropolitan coordination
mechanisms in the history of the city, with little precedent before the beginning of the 20th
century apart from the merger of the municipalities under dictatorship in 1954, imposes
difficulties in the legitimation of a scale of metropolitan government, although recognizes
the need for articulation and it is one of the main difficulties that the process is currently
facing: the design of a legitimate institution in the face of existing institutions and citizens.

In Barcelona, the tradition of metropolitan coordination has been responsible for facilitating
the existence of the entity that was re-created only 10 years ago. However, the environment
covered by the administrative body only recognizes a part of the metropolitan region and, in
this case, greater difficulties have been encountered in coordinating with the other
municipalities outside the organization. Additionally, it is necessary to mention the nature of
indirect democracy contained within the selection structure of the members of the governing
bodies of the AMB. The orientation towards the provision of services and the development
of competitive conditions have allowed the consolidation of a legitimate institutional model,
even when it remains in search of forms of direct participation and the development of new
functions, and there is an open question about local autonomy.

In Montreal, the use of territorial planning tools has the specific function of legitimizing with
municipalities and citizens the proposals and decisions that are made from an institution
created by means of a law that also implied the disappearance of municipalities and a
reduction in local autonomy. The diversity of interests and pressure groups within the
territory of the CMM has made it a space for permanent discussion seeking to reconcile a
model of occupation of the territory and open a dialogue to negotiation with the territories
and citizens. However, in many cases due to the great distances between the interests of one
and the other, these spaces have become a form of instrumentalization of participation and
discussion within a bureaucratic process for the consolidation and legitimation of a
metropolitan city project.

In general, the institutional trajectory of each of these cities reinforces the hypothesis that
there is not necessarily a process of convergence towards specific forms or models of
metropolitan governance. (Tomàs, 2020) On the other hand, each of the cities has presented
ad hoc approaches according to whether they have made decisions on strong or soft

95
integration, always within a political framework of discussion that has reinforced or hindered
the transition to new institutional arrangements. Institutional innovation processes generate
resistance and conflict. Now, added to this, the existence of greater imbalances between the
nucleus and the rest (Bogotá), the imposition of a political-administrative scale from the Law
(Barcelona), or the lack of a sense of representation (Montréal) are elements that reinforce
the resistance to change in institutions even when there is consensus on inefficiencies and the
need to modify current arrangements. Although the definition of objectives can be shared,
the means to achieve them, the representation of actors and the forms of relationship remain
under discussion. The rest of this first section highlights in two reflections how these debates
occur and what elements of the political process should be considered when proposing these
exercises.

Institutional transition: Objectives definition and the legitimacy tools

The definition of normative objectives is usually similar in all three cases. The reference to
local values plays a transcendental role in the justification of new institutions, close to the
paradigms of the old and new regionalism, which nevertheless faces resistance to their
introduction due to competition for functions and resources. Meanwhile, the steps taken in
the direction of new networks of actors and forms of governance have become a frequently
observable phenomenon, at least from the narrative approach. Among the types of co-
creation exercises, participatory governments, and the production of innovative projects,
there are still limitations that must be overcome in terms of their impact and scalability. This
is also because changes in government structures tend to be slowly adapted, in turn requiring
gross institutional changes, even within value systems.

The existence of constant tension between innovation and preservation within organizations
is widely recognized in innovation studies. Literature highlights how established
organizations tend to defend their status quo and how innovation must fight their way up to
emerge. The reasons for this conservative attitude have been explored and connected to many
internal and external factors, which all turn into a general lack of incentive to abandon a
certain present for an uncertain future, generating a quite common situation in which
business, as usual, tends to overcome innovation. In this frame, innovation and change are
often regarded as a last chance that most organizations embrace only when the established
practices do not work anymore. (Deserti & Rizzo, 2015, p. 90)

The breakdown between purposes and means of the status quo requires non-traditional forms
of legitimation. The use of spaces such as territorial planning and the establishment of

96
horizontal relationships between new institutions and their members can facilitate the
construction of agreements (Montreal case and recently Barcelona), however, they still run
the risk of falling into the instrumentalization of participation and the renunciation of the
substantive matters of its reason for being. The relationship with other scales and the forms
of construction of the purposes and means somehow depends on the citizenry. The challenge,
then, resides in the ways to guarantee the processes of participation and validation as a
requirement for the construction of legitimate institutions. Additionally, elements such as
territorial imbalances, the search for autonomy, or the existence of institutions strongly
affected by the processes of change are additional obstacles that will surely play within the
legitimation of the new institutional arrangements.

It is necessary to look for new ways to introduce and legitimize scale changes in government
structures, including a strongly present political debate about institutional design as a
prerequisite to allowing co-creation processes and metropolitan networked governance. In
turn, these processes play a role in legitimizing the new measures. The development of joint
projects, support in civil society and private actors as a source of legitimacy facilitates
institutional change and introduces it in ways that strengthen the metropolitan discourse
arguing in favor of efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of public services to
citizenship from the preference of coordinated metropolitan actions. Klaus Kunzmann
identifies in his agenda for creative governance in city regions the need to allow flexible
functional boundaries based on the capability to understand the dynamism of the cities. The
question that arises here is how can this point be reached? What kind of rules and institutions
are required for this flexibility? How would it deal with the multiple interests?

The metropolitan trap and the struggle for the political rescaling

As an answer to these questions about the type and scale of institution that guarantees this
flexibility, another equally problematic issue appears: The definition of a scale from which
metropolitan problems are resolved. The discussion of assigning competencies between one
level and another is ascribed to value systems, usually explained by the different schools of
thought of metropolitan governance. (Tomàs, 2012, p. 555) Each school argue what should
be public policy objectives, creating a preference towards a level of government that is
considered better than the others for its achievement. In the words of Mariona Tomàs, this

97
constitutes the metropolitan trap: ‘the metropolitan trap means that not only researchers but
also political, social and economic actors associate ‘the good’ with a specific conception of
the metropolitan scale’. (Tomàs, 2012, p. 554)

Processes of political rescaling are embedded with a structural tension between actors and
institutions struggling to define, according to their interests, the “best” territorial scale for
dealing with contemporary social issues. (Boudreau et al., 2006)

These problems respond to the challenge presented by Christian Léfevre on the configuration
of the metropolitan scale as a scenario for political practice. (Lefèvre, 2010, p. 625) The
translation of citizen rights and duties in the metropolitan city has been historically
assimilated with technocratic discourses that have sought to subtract or remove the purely
political condition of the metropolitan phenomenon (Tomàs, 2019, p. 72). The discussion on
how to carry out the provision of rights in an urban environment has found different supports
in the global agenda, where the right to a healthy environment and sustainable urban
development are central elements.

In all three cases it is found that these discussions about the scale, the issues, and the
institutional forms are only partially open to participatory processes. In Bogotá, the
structuring of the Organic Law for the Metropolitan Region of Bogotá is defining
mechanisms for the participation of actors and citizens, with little clarity on how the results
of this exercise will be incorporated. In Barcelona, participation through indirect elections of
representatives, despite changes in favor of opening up metropolitan decision-making. In
Montreal, the Metropolitan Agora is a global example of spaces to include citizens and
negotiate agreements, without neglecting the limited scope of citizen proposals in the plan,
as well as the commercialization of the plan as a tool to increase the degree of governance of
an institution that had little visibility. In no case is the scale of the institutions or their work
discussed, which reinforces the idea of metropolitan planning as a post-political space where
participation and alternative forms of governance serve as a mechanism to erase boundaries
between responsibilities, avoid dissent, and put “technical” principles first with the mark of
good governance arrangements.

[…] a number of aspects of contemporary planning practice are deeply troubling,

particularly from a democracy perspective. The primary cause of worry is that an
exaggerated and uncritical infatuation with ideas of partnership governance and
‘participatory’ consensus-building risks leading to a situation in which planning
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 procedures merely function to window-dress democratically deeply deficient
governance processes. (Metzger, 2017)
The political factor, ironically, is evident in the technical or “post-political” mask that is
assigned to the metropolization process. It is decided to take for granted some of the structural
discussions assuming the presence of a greater good that supports decision-making, an
indisputable truth associated with the objectives of public policy. Examples of problems
associated with the lack of integration are used, such as delays in the times of each
municipality to coordinate a common project or the lack of scenarios, to support the need for
organizations with broad functions and capacities to solve these problems. However, the
renunciation of these discussions also affects the ways in which the existence of an institution
or metropolitan coordination scenario is made visible and legitimate before the public. In the
air are, among others, some important findings:

- On the form and decision-making: The weight of the core territories is not the same
in all cases in front of other territorial units. In terms of demographics, in Bogotá it is
almost 80% while in Barcelona it is 50%. This has impacts on financing, decision-
making, and in general on the design of institutions and coordination arrangements.
The form matters a lot in the construction of metropolitan institutions.
- Metropolitan decisions and institutional structure: The form is not the only thing that
matters. In the case of Bogotá, there is greater resistance to an institutional agreement
than in the other cases. The double level of the Capital District (as department and
municipality) has implied a double level of articulation that has allowed the
construction of spaces of resistance and of blocking negotiations in many cases. In
the cases of Montreal and Barcelona, the determinations taken from "above" in the
form of laws did not allow the configuration of counterweights against the proposed
figures apart from the isolated resistance of municipalities for particular and little
shared reasons (with the exception of the dismalgamation in Montreal in 2004).
- Institutional legitimacy: In all three cases there are gaps between the manifestation of
citizen interests and their participation and the institutional design of metropolitan
decision-making. Only in the case of Montréal was there a form of endorsement of
metropolitan decision-making and it was associated with the consolidation of the
Town of Montreal and not of the metropolitan level with the CMM. The metropolitan

99
 scale, in all three cases, is in a legal phase where the forms of participation are limited
and almost exclusively supported by constitutional scaffolds. This produces a gap
between its legal and constitutional supports and the legitimacy of its work among
the citizens.

It is necessary to seek the construction of consensus based on the identification of a

metropolitan framework, but this is only a first step based on the construction of a mental
structure that seeks to present itself as an unequivocal tool to manage the dynamics of urban
growth and urbanization. The discourse given from economic efficiency and effectiveness
and in the provision of services go hand in hand with competitiveness and the search for
equity and reduction of segregation. However, the metropolization relations that give
meaning to the urban form and to this discourse are a highly variable phenomenon that is
difficult to control. Public tools to deal with it must be flexible and capable of adapting while
avoiding the spontaneous proliferation of actions with unexpected consequences such as
negative externalities for the environment. This is still an open discussion.

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 4.2. Public policy and ideas

Institutions are what they do. In this case, it is worth highlighting the way in which the
different conceptions of the metropolitan -developed in the next section 4.3.- are
instrumentalized in the definition of public policy areas. In all the cases, it has been discussed
what the function of the metropolitan entities should be, from the provision of household
public services (such as aqueduct or the collection and disposal of waste) to economic
promotion and environmental protection. The tasks of coordination between municipalities
and institutions are oriented in this way towards these ends and the tools that are provided
also do so within this framework.

The case of Barcelona illustrates a continuous conception of urban space and its function as
an articulator for the provision of services in environmental matters, sanitation, and transport.
Additionally, it is in charge of articulating housing policies and has economic promotion axes
to favor the competitiveness of the AMB. In the CMM, the functions are less associated with
spatiality, even when they build a land use plan. The entity is more a space for territorial
articulation and promotion than for the provision of services, whose functions are assigned
to the municipalities (MRC) and to special agencies (such as transportation). In the case of
Bogotá, up to now, the coordination processes have been ambiguous, but they have
transcended the spatial dynamic towards the functional one from the definition of what is
metropolitan. Based on notions such as the "city-region", the RAPE was designed as an
administrative entity that seeks to develop projects and coordinate public policies in a
territory much broader than the metropolitan one, based on the existence of functional
interdependence relations on issues such as food security (also present in the CMM),
protection of ecosystems, economic activities such as tourism, among others. The ongoing
discussion on the Metropolitan Region of Bogotá puts the accent once again on the design of
an institution based on functional relationships, apart from spatial ones, leaving the question
of how they could be defined the phenomena that will configure metropolitan events for the
new entity (not for the RAPE level) and what variables they will have to avoid overlapping
with those of the existing entities (as the CAR).

These interpretations of what shapes metropolitan events in each region determine the ways
in which existing institutions act and the instruments with which they will do so. Next, it

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delves into two elements that should be considered within the construction of metropolitan
action fields. The first is about narratives and the second, closer to the functions of the
institutions, is related to the distribution of competences and their impact on the definition of
instruments.

The narratives about what is metropolitan: beyond urban and rural categories

The change in the definition of narratives produces modifications in the structures of public
discourses that seek to legitimize the competences that a government structure must exercise,
as well as the means that it would have to do so. Within the different narratives of what is
metropolitan there is a great difference between whether it is defined by the spatial
phenomenon (conurbation, infrastructures, and shared environmental issues) or by a
functional phenomenon (which would include the spatial one). The ways in which
agglomerations are related to the territory are captured in these definitions of what is
metropolitan and in some cases take it beyond the traditional dichotomy between urban and
rural, allowing the existence of metropolitan rural spaces, as in the case of Montreal, or of
strategic metropolitan natural areas, such as Barcelona and potentially Bogotá. This type of
deterrence, again, breaks with the hierarchical structures between the center and the periphery
in the metropolis, establishing new objects of public policy to be included.

If there is no longer a clear difference between what is urban and what is not, competencies
and dialogue between institutions can also be blurred, making institutional adaptation
capacities, new forms of governance of social phenomena a requirement again, and from a
functional rule system to these needs. In Bogotá, in environmental matters, this type of
discussion directly impacts the definition of competencies and access to resources, becoming
one of the traditional blocks for the configuration of a metropolitan government, without the
discussion being oriented to the efficiency in the management of the identified environmental
problems or the environmental justice between territories without adapting in any case to the
borders of the problems.

What should be the competencies of cities? How do we manage urban areas and institutional
arrangements when the boundaries of management and politics do not (always) match?
(Subirats, 2017, p. 87)

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 The rural, in Roy’s reading, does not simply constitute the “not-urban” but is a “constitutive
outside” of the urban that is in constant negotiation with the processes of urbanization in the
Global South. (Ghosh, 2017, p. 2)

Recognizing the discussion between narratives about the metropolitan phenomena and the
metropolitan scale elements has allowed the configuration of new public policy agendas
where elements such as ‘the right to the city’ have become ‘the right to the metropolitan city’.
(Tomàs, 2019, p. 70) Thus, it is defined which problems must be solved through the
identification of goals, projects, and tools. However, the right to the city is exercised by
citizens rather than institutions, presenting the transition towards forms of collaborative
governance as a precondition for the configuration of these public policy processes (Roberts
& Abbott, 2017, p. 124). The exercise of power in the definition of problems changes in its
nature and in the way it develops from vertical and hierarchical to horizontal and cooperative
relationships. (Montero, 2015, p. 7)

This is the second element that comes into consideration in the definition of the narratives,
which becomes evident in the definition of the models and paradigms on the metropolitan
government. The participation of actors and the types of relationships have been evolving
towards increasingly horizontal scenarios between central institutions and municipalities,
which preserve their autonomy in the new paradigms, and where forms of articulation
between citizens and private actors have been added to guarantee the implementation of
comprehensive public policies. The use of design instruments has become a first step to
guarantee these types of integration, but the debate remains open regarding possible losses
of responsibility in schemes with powers and functions assigned in a blurry way with actors
of dissimilar nature.

Additionally, some specific characteristics of the contexts of the global south increase the
complexity on which the definitions of public policy must be built. The informal occupation
of the territory and the provision of low-income housing are usually topics that are
approached from the metropolitan perspective, but that within the institutional mechanisms
and tools require some that allow the construction of local institutions that traditionally serve
as interlocutors of these spaces. peripherals. The expulsion of population groups from the
traditional centers of the metropolitan city, without adequate articulation, does not end in
forms of suburbanization or the configuration of new centers that attract them, but rather

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opens the door to forms of slumification with undesired impacts on precarious
neighborhoods. According to the level of consolidation of these spaces, metropolitan areas
must be aware of how a territorial public policy at this level can and should consider these
phenomena, as well as the provision of a voice to their representatives to build a sustainable
metropolis model.

Competences and functions: the distribution of the policy tools

However, power structures and the nature of institutions are still relevant in the definition of
the public policy objectives and tools in some hierarchical way. For example, on the three
cases the use of legislation and even a constitutional level of statements are used as supports
for the definition of the functions and role from the new institutions, and this remains a top-
down instrument supported on “technical reasons”. The way competencies are assigned and
developed continues to be an exercise of power, which until now has mixed results to
negotiate responses to metropolitan phenomena. The configuration of fragile agreements and
weak institutions has resulted in limited impacts, which weaken confidence in these
institutions. (Snyder et al., 2016, p. 126) The legitimacy of the decision-making process is
questioned, as well as the very existence of institutions in the absence of agreements that
allow an effective response to the problems that the institutions claim to address, which ends
up requiring understandings from the institutions that cover the complexity of the phenomena
and the required responses. Collaboration becomes a requirement for building legitimacy,
but it is only one of the parts. Questions about competencies and resources remain in the air
with no clear answers or tools. Collaboration and cooperation can be mechanisms that
contribute in this regard, but they must contribute to effective results in regulatory matters to
create a clear and functional framework for action, dealing with a mixture of hierarchical and
horizontal relationships. This is mostly relevant for the current agenda, where multiple levels
of stakeholders and interests are linked.

The power structures remain evident in the decision-making processes and forms. There are
discussions on redistribution processes that would endorse broader governance structures in
which dissimilar entities would balance their contributions as well as the perceived benefits.
The persecution of methods between governments and citizens continues to be an ad hoc,
contextual, and contingent exercise, resulting in governance schemes with different

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manifestations and challenges. Each mega region is more than a global node that must face
the configuration of local spaces with divergent identities. The implementation of vertical
measures and agendas from horizontal collaborative processes in the territory requires
adaptation processes and permanent consensus building.

In this scenario of complex power relations, the answers are varied. The configuration of
independent agencies, unitary metropolitan government mechanisms, or sectoral authorities
are strong forms of governance compared to soft structures for the search for 1 to 1
agreements much closer to the model of the public choice school, until reaching scenarios of
collaboration with private actors and citizens in general in a completely horizontal way. The
exercise has made it possible to observe the difficulties in terms of governance of
metropolitan public policies even when there are strong institutions. The ways in which they
are implemented should vary and resources of multiple dimensions should be used to develop
appropriate policies. The development of governance from projects is a form of direct
intervention that is exercised in the three cases, the opening of spaces for collaboration does
not happen in the same way, much less a wide use of norms and their articulation to achieve
desired results . As argued in the section on forms of planning, there are multiple resources
of this type that can allow more effective forms of intermediation to improve governance
conditions in metropolitan settings.

The increasingly present “beyond-the-state” forms of government have a “jano-faced”

nature, also in metropolitan settings. (Swyngedouw, Governance Innovation and the Citizen:
The Janus Face of Governance-beyond-the-State, 2005) It is not the only existing answer and
it has negative elements when it comes to designing public policies and distributing
responsibilities among the actors involved. Even the institutional framework between scales
is not an element exempt from this negative facet of distribution of competences and
responsibilities. So, the forms of participation and the nature of the relationships is an element
that must be strongly considered for the design of public policies. What type of participation
is required on a metropolitan scale? Is it directly included in the institutional governance
structure or is it functionally articulated according to the public policies developed by the
institutions? Are you looking for volunteers to carry out flat activities or actors who dialogue

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horizontally with the institutions? All these questions must be addressed and answered in the
organic levels of metropolitan arrangements.

[…] steering a metropolis is a political and institutional practice that has to be carried out using
participatory processes, has to be iterative and reflective, has to be informed by both technical
and cultural knowledge, and has to balance inclusion, efficiency, and sustainability. (Gómez &
Lanfranchi, 2017, p. 425)

The model from Bogotá is still being debated on how involve the different actors in the
decision-making and in the institutional design. The recently approved legislative act raised
strong opposition from members and citizens of local territorial entities (see annex), who
allude to an imposition in decision-making that, due to the same distrust existing in the
institutions and the lack of control mechanisms, it can be used in favor of particular interests.
The members of the municipal councils of opposition political parties also denounce a lack
of guarantees in the institutional design regarding the forms of participation to decide whether
or not to annex the new entity, even without having discussed the competences that it would
have in public policy matter. In the cases of Montreal and Barcelona there is less resistance
to the institutions, although in both cases there have been processes of "return to local
control." In Montreal, the dismalgamation of municipalities and dissidence in matters of
density (which has allowed the operationalization of public policies and gross functions for
the institution) are proof of this. In Barcelona, the re-municipalization of the aqueduct
functions (which dates back to a long time before the AMB) also shows the cracks in the
governance of the entities in each public policy under its leadership.

Algunos de los interrogantes abiertos en materia de políticas públicas metropolitanas son:

- Conceptual:
o About the definition of local and metropolitan services and policy areas and
elements (which elements are metropolitan in public policy matters? how are
going to be articulated? Who is going to be responsible from what?)
o The configuration of concepts itself to implement policies and explain
relationships between metropolitan government. There is an evolving
phenomenon in the metropolitan government and its relationship with
elements that require theories and concepts to allow explanations about the

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 roles and relations of the different scales and features. (Knox & Lang, The
new metropolis: Rethinking metropolis, 2009, pág. 799)
- Practical and tools:
o The acknowledgment from the difficulties regarding the development of
control or implementation measures under certain conditions (as informality
or civil resistance), makes relevant the creativity to define the tools to face
these problems. For example, the informal settlements and the city sprawl are
hardly solved from an old regionalism or public choice model. The institutions
and the arrangements defined must be creative on the definition of rules,
scenarios of discussion, tools, and mechanisms (How can the metropolitan
management be developed? By whom? under which criteria?)
o The distribution of competences, resources, and responsibilities should
translate this creativity of the tools. Knowing how to recognize which
problems can best be handled from a local or metropolitan perspective is an
important part, or which ones should be addressed by public-private agencies
or civil actors. Institutional flexibility becomes a virtue that must be
guaranteed from the constitutionality and the statutes that organize it, as well
as the margin for decision-making even when they affect strong interests.
(How to give flexibility to the institutions for their adaptation? How to
guarantee stable agreements even with opposing actors within the process?)

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 4.3. Spatial imaginaries
There is no simple or single definition of what a metropolitan region is, nor a threshold by which
a region—however, defined—becomes a metropolitan region. Like all spatial concepts,
metropolitan regions are imagined and constructed across space and time, with different actors
having their own imaginations of what metropolitan regions are and are for. Metropolitan spatial
imaginaries are not static, natural or uncontested. Rather they are dynamic, constantly evolving
and always contested. And often, some actors recognise one metropolitan spatial imaginary while
others an entirely different one. (Harrison, Fedeli, & Feiertag, Imagining the Evolving
Spatialityof Metropolitan Regions, 2020, p. 135)

The spatial imaginaries in the three cases are substantially different. This is manifested in the
way in which they understand the relationships of interdependence with territories that have
completely different forms of occupation. The idea of configuring a metropolis, or what
constitutes the metropolitan territory, is often misleading. Presented as the “natural” scale of
a world of global cities, it has become a recognized urban marketing element that, in turn
and reciprocally, has driven the preponderance of urban planning and policies on this scale.
Spatial imaginaries have been built with this logic, producing results, in terms of scale or
objects of public policy, as diverse as those presented in the case studies.

The change in transportation and communication technologies are elements that have
challenged the definition of cities and urban spaces on which a whole narrative had been built
that contrasted it with “the rest” that were rural spaces, with lower densities and partially
disconnected of urban life. The foundations of city planning focused on this phenomenon
with characteristics that allowed it to be easily identified and served to define a narrative that
acted as a justification framework for certain types of "urban" interventions. Neil Brenner
brings to the table the discussion of the urbanization process and its scope, as part of a concept
charged with the reproduction of power relations in space, beyond its apparent neutrality,
which has been perpetuated through hegemonic devices of knowledge. (Brenner, The
hinterland, urbanised?, 2016, p. 122) The emerging difficulties in the definition of the urban
and the discussion of its role as hegemonic narrative, as well as the role of disciplines such
as urban planning and city management, bring new perspectives in two central subjects of
this thesis. First, in the objectives and the need to have metropolitan institutions and in what
ways they could work. Second, in the redefinition of the urban-rural dichotomy and the new
relationships between the city and its suburbs, creating new difficulties for the design of tools
and rules that serve metropolitan management.

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 The urban-age metanarrative has come to serve as a framework not only of interpretation
but of justification, for a huge assortment of spatial interventions what geographer Terry
McGee has classically labelled ‘city dominance’ (Brenner, The hinterland, urbanised?, 2016,
p. 121)

The power discussion in the ‘metropolis’ concept

The existing perceptions in each case about the metropolitan define diverse transitions
towards “hard” or “soft” institutional forms that are the result of processes of interaction
between different forces. The renunciation of the local within the discourse of the global is
an increasingly devalued element. In all cases, the need to open spaces for constant and
structural participation with citizen and private organizations to build new meanings about
what it means to be metropolitan has become evident. Relations of interdependence challenge
first-hand the prescribed formulas with a central urban nucleus that, although it exists, is not
the only power force within any of the cases analyzed in this thesis. However, the counter-
hegemonic forms of struggle against the idea of metropolization are mostly weak and above
all, they remain local. Some of the narrative resources used by the promoters of a need for
strong relations-institutions in all three cases are the notion of "chaos" and "order", "center"
-or "nucleus" - and "periphery" or "rest". Institutional solutions have demonstrated varied
ways of assuming the associated challenges in each case, as discussed in the following
paragraphs.

In Barcelona, supported by the cooperative inheritance between municipalities of the 70s, the
model has been in charge of building an institution that is in charge of dealing with the
problems of the extended urban “core” of Barcelona over 36 physically continuous
municipalities. Even though the existence of strong relations with the broad territory of the
Metropolitan Region of Barcelona has been recognized, it is precisely in the jurisdiction of
the AMB where the physical relations are more evident and the predominance of the
municipality of Barcelona is clearer (more than 50% of the population is in Barcelona,
compared to 33% in the case of the RMB). The discourse of metropolitan Barcelona has
reached a point where its own ambiguity between the political institution and the statistical
technique is recognized, with two different perceptions of which territory is. Therefore, the
power relations that the city can sustain in each of these scenarios are different and only

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recently have rapprochements been found with a metropolitan region historically denied by
the institutions, but functionally integrated into the urban dynamics of greater Barcelona.

Barcelona, however, has not demonstrated the difficulties in building a vision of what its
metropolis is or what an entity of this type should do. With few forms of participation, the
city has built an international brand starting with the 1992 Olympic Games, where the
metropolitan project was consolidated. His job is to guarantee the provision of services (in a
broad sense) and to work for the economic promotion of the city. This has allowed them to
renounce those power relations with other urban centers and plan the metropolitan city from
a technocratic perspective.

In Montreal, the openness to dialogue with other actors has been greater through the use of
spaces for territorial planning. However, the perception that the CMM covers such a wide
spatial scope indicates a different way of understanding the metropolitan territory. On the
one hand, the inclusion of agricultural land uses, forms of suburban occupation, and the
protection of environmental assets of the territory, included within its strategic mission,
indicate a relationship that transcends the unidirectionality of how the urban affects the rural
towards a bidirectional view that includes how the rural affects and determines the
metropolitan relations. The negotiation capacity of this vision, where the periphery also has
power within the discourse on the Montreal metropolitan imaginary, explains several of the
results obtained by the entity. The negotiation through the Land Management Plan of the
buildable indices through the use of TOD tools confront visions about the metropolitan city
model and local development (the accusation of a “right” to suburbanization of the less dense
CRMs ) and the proposal of a “sustainable” metropolitan model associated with high
densities and less suburbanization, which for the peripheral municipalities meant the
perpetuation of an unbalanced relationship with the central city. An additional note on
Montreal must be faced with multiculturalism and its inclusion within the Canadian
government at all scales, without excepting the metropolitan one.

In the case of Bogotá, the encounter between opposing positions and interests in the
construction of spatial imaginaries is evident. The formation of a city "parallel" to Bogotá
has been proposed, with which the city can negotiate as an alternative to the high volatility
existing between city governments, municipalities, and departments. (El Nuevo Siglo, 2018)

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A relevant case to demonstrate the tensions between existing metropolitan-local imaginaries
and the resistance to forms of coordinated institutions occurs with the aqueduct service. The
Aqueduct and Sewerage Company of Bogotá (EAAB), owned mostly by the city of Bogotá,
has a monopoly in possession for the distribution of the aqueduct service, with ownership of
the region's water sources, which They are not in the jurisdiction of Bogotá. For this reason,
it sells the service to local companies in the municipalities of the region and provides it
directly to a small number. The imposition of the metropolitan government is born at this
point: there is a requirement to guarantee the availability of water to provide the service prior
to the development of new urban spaces, which requires negotiation with the EAAB that
represents the interests of Bogotá in a commercial space, This makes it possible to limit the
forms of expansion of the municipalities that are associated with the notion of the "best
regional urban model" that the city has, associated with the densification of centers. This
situation confronted various actors involved, where the Capital District was called a
government using "the empire of the water."

This type of conflict shows several elements that influence the construction of metropolitan
spatial imaginaries. First, the absence of institutions that coordinate and impose decisions
does not mean that there are no soft means of coercion, and in this case, Bogotá uses water
resources to condition metropolitan growth according to its interests. Second, local
autonomy, being restricted, leads to proposals that may seem unreal, such as building another
big city or an association of municipalities that ignores the existence of the district as a
nucleus (even creating its own aqueduct company). Both proposals have positions that seem
opposite on the forms of growth of the city (suburban or dense), the preponderance of
resources (land as a requirement for expansion or human capital as the engine of
development), and the degree of articulation required (comprehensive and binding for Bogotá
and sectorized with high levels of local control of decisions for the municipalities and the
department).

The imaginaries in all cases respond to political agendas and processes, which end up
impacting the public perception of the territory and of the institutions. In all cases, there is a
preponderance of local identity, associated with being part of the city or the periphery, which
is fought by those who raise the flags of the new metropolitan reality through the exposure

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of problems associated with the lack of articulation, on one hand, and the risks of imposing
decisions from the center to the periphery for the development of local interests on the other.

Representation of the scale and metropolitan identity

One of the most complicated issues in the construction of imaginaries is the representation
and acceptance of actors and interests that are not traditional. Spatial imaginaries play a
central role in the construction of identities that, in turn, serve as support for institutional
designs and public policies, as has already been outlined.

As well as social constructions, spatial imaginaries fulfil a representational role— thus

contributing both to identity building and sensemaking for ordinary people and the
production of interpretations by experts. More than that, spatial imaginaries have a
performative/normative role. Not only do spatial imaginaries provide collective
representations/ accounts of how the relationship between people–spaces–places work, they
have often produced visions on how the future should work or should be. (Fedeli, Feiertag, &
Harrison, 2020, p. 174)

This process is complex and is directly related to changes in social facts. Converting citizens
of a small municipality into part of the “being metropolitan” is a long-term task that implies
the conception of a desired metropolitan scenario and a shared vision. In the cases where
greater institutional consolidation has been achieved (Barcelona and Montreal), the
transmission of a message of a metropolitan identity has been more direct than in the case of
Bogotá, where institutional efforts have fallen into diffuse processes over time and without a
literal translation that transcends the exposition of metropolitan phenomena. The
incorporation of the “right to the metropolitan city” is a simple conceptual way to explain the
relationship between citizen-place that leads to the idea of “being metropolitan”.

The impact of new forms of conceptualization of the spatial imaginaries of the metropolis is
still limited. The way in which the problems of what is metropolitan are presented and treated
continue to correspond in all cases to a version of a formal city that grows beyond its borders
and requires a traditional institutional treatment: A functional unit must be equal to a
administrative unit to guarantee greater efficiency and equity in the provision of services and,
as a result, a more competitive form of production within the world of global cities. These
visions are usually insufficient to understand the local dynamics, how it was presented
through the case studies. Only political processes through traditional channels (voting and

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inter-municipal relations) condition the institutional configuration in such a way that they are
capable of turning it into entities that operate exclusively for bureaucratic interests.

[…] from the institutional point of view, metropolitan imaginaries are being questioned but
remain largely mainstream: in particular, the academic debate is stressing the need to go
beyond not only a methodological cityism, but also beyond metropolitanism. (Fedeli,
Feiertag, & Harrison, 2020, p. 188)

This is relevant because the future of cities around the world is linked to finding new ways
of understanding the metropolitan territory from increasingly local processes, capable of
adapting to the realities of the territory. We need to be able to adapt the idea of what is
metropolitan with the “new” inputs from every context. In the case of Bogotá, a city of the
global south, there are still multiple elements of its metropolitan condition that are not
comprehensively addressed within the imaginary and visions of the metropolis. The
management of water sources, the existence of criminal organizations that move between the
borders of the city, the phenomena of violence associated with displacement and the
condition of new urbanity of those who suffer it, and in general the informal occupation of
the territory that produces slums, which are elements that require further discussion.

Postcolonial studies (Parnell and Robinson 2013; Roy 2009), as well, invite to move beyond
the idea that metropolitan imaginaries can be adapted to describe and deal with Southern
urbanity and urbanism. Nevertheless, what we end up with are mainly institutional reforms
based on metropolitan-dependent spatial imaginaries (if not city dependent). This is
particularly true when reforms are promoted at the national level; despite in some cases at
the national level, there has been an effort to reflect on how space–society relationship has
changed, and this reflection is far from impacting on metropolitan reforms which are often
spatially blind. (Fedeli, Feiertag, & Harrison, 2020, p. 188)

Apart from recognizing these “non-traditional” ideas, it is necessary to look for ways that are
not traditional either to incorporate them from the problematization. Incorporating civil
society actors and, furthermore, allowing them to participate in the co-design processes of
institutions and public policies, taking advantage of their knowledge, is a complex task that
must begin with the construction of spatial imaginaries of the metropolitan scale that are
sufficiently broad to that they feel recognized to themselves and their problems within these
new narratives. Only in this way does the scale acquire a real meaning for citizens within the
multiple legitimation processes through which any institutional arrangement that is reached
can pass. The metropolitan scale, in this way, will also respond to the different territorialities
of those who inhabit and build it. There is no exclusive way of “being metropolitan” and,

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especially in places where the State's capacity for negotiation and control is more limited, the
imaginary that surrounds this idea must be constructed in such a way as to allow its
governance that, in the end, must stop being metropolitan to become “post”-metropolitan.

We need to find new expressions of political participation by different citizen actor groups that
may challenge the post-political urban condition and produce new inclusive, equal and kinder
urban imaginaries. (Legacy, Metzger, Steele, & Gualini, 2019, p. 275)

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 4.4. Forms of Planning
The theoretical and practical evolution to which the planning discipline has undergone during
its history is expressed in the discussion of metropolitan areas, becoming evident in the cases
presented. Decision-making with a technocratic base close to the school of reform (in Bogotá
with the merger of municipalities in 1954, in Barcelona with the multiple mergers of
municipalities until the 1970s, also in Montréal) became an object of permanent discussion
due to the impositions on municipalities (public choice) and later towards the discourses of
competitiveness and globalization in the 90s and so far this century, which integrated several
actors and changed the roles and types of agency in the decision-making processes.

The role of different actors with a stake in metropolitan planning has significantly changed
over the course of the past few decades. Resulting from various geopolitical, national and
local imperatives, the capacity of actors to influence the setting of metropolitan agendas has
gradually shifted to a more complex interplay of power between emerging actor networks at
various scales. This transition has considerably weakened the former ‘steering’ role of actors
with a formal mandate in metropolitan planning and led to new contractual practices that
oftentimes circumvent orthodox metropolitan planning processes. In contexts of constant
metropolitan reforms and metropolitan governance accretion, the increasing involvement of
new actor constellations holding the latent capacity to shape the ‘planning’ of metropolitan
regions underscores the relevance of addressing agency. (Zafer Sahin, Galland, & Tewdwr-
Jones, 2020)

For this reason, a precision must be made about the role of planning in the construction of
the imaginary and the tools of metropolitan governance. The opening of multiple forms and
methods of association and response are reconfiguring the practice of planning at all its
scales, even when a scenario has been built where the forms of participation have become
“post-political” and instrumental. The recognition of the finiteness of public and technocratic
reason has been renewed on the metropolitan scale with the use of new technologies to
characterize problems and solutions, leading to discourses with sophisticated languages
where the role of citizenship has become that of validate through limited participation
processes in the subjects they can deal with and in their own agency. There are also those
who advocate a different use of new tools at the service of planning, opening the scene to
new forms of participation and the confrontation of elite ideas with other popular ones, even
without great observable results in this matter.

[…] it is also evident that spatial planning processes and arenas are those under which
spatial imaginaries are still largely produced, both at the national or local level. Static maps

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 produced in planning processes are still numerous. Nevertheless, many of them are hardly
able to depict the complexity of a post-Euclidean geography. […] At the same time, the
production of spatial imaginaries, is grounded in a field of expertise—spatial planning—
which is traditionally based on a pre-defined understanding of territoriality. In this respect,
we may argue that being the production of spatial imaginaries mainly grounded on such kind
of context, traditional understanding of spatial planning and the legal and normative
framework under which spatial planning works could hinder rather than enhance a post-
metropolitan vision. (Fedeli, Feiertag, & Harrison, 2020, p. 188)

In this last discussion section, two reflections are presented that involve the forms of planning
at the metropolitan scale, both from a procedural and substantive perspective. The first
reflection is on the scope of the constant theorization of the planning practice in the face of
an equivocal phenomenon and the metropolitan revolution. The second presents a reflection
about planning tools in a metropolitan and post-metropolitan context, discussing their scope
from the observations of the case studies. Finally, some of the proposals on the scope and the
new proposals for participation in the metropolitan planning processes are presented.

The myth of periodization and the metropolitan revolution

Within the different existing theoretical explanations, such as Brenner's (2002) and other neo-
Marxist authors and other academics such as Savitch and Vogel (2009), the idea of
periodization has been explanatory of the metropolitan processes and the reasoning followed
by the authors of the different schools in different periods of history. However, as Tomàs
argues (2020, pp. 26-30), in many cases this process is not linear and does not follow the
same times or periods in all metropolitan areas. On the contrary, in each one, different schools
of thought outside their own time may stand in discursive and practical matters. In other
words, although the school of public reform (old regionalism) had its greatest theoretical
developments before the 1960s, it is not surprising that just a couple of years ago Enrique
Peñalosa (mayor of Bogotá) said that the annexation of municipalities was the best alternative
for the future of the city, while celebrating the one that was made in the 1954 (Radio Santafe,
2018).

The evolution of discourses within planning theories and underlying political practice have
shown how ideas and narratives about the metropolitan space can be revalidated beyond the
dominant positions within academia. The negotiation of power can support the preference
for planning models, understanding that the ends and means, the actors and the forms of

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relationship, can be molded according to the existing power relations in the political-
administrative space. It is for this reason, among others, that the AMB has a border over only
36 of the more than 140 municipalities with which there is a relationship of metropolization,
or why the projects of the Metropolitan Region of Bogotá have remained in inaction before
the clash of interests between autonomous territorial actors in their decision-making, leading
to seek the involvement of actors from other branches of public power (legislative and even
judicial) to achieve models of coordination and articulation. One of the most cited forms in
the construction of such narrative is the call to technocracy, including forms of planning,
within decision-making: the metropolitan is for a technical reason that does not require
discussion and, therefore, does not have a political nature. This builds the idea that regulation
and coordination processes are better post-political exercises in which neutral participation
tasks are developed that do not discuss the objectives of these institutions.

The current postpolitical formats of participation offered to citizens circumscribe the input
they have on these processes to such a degree that any real ambition to have an impact
demands that they organise outside and against the managerial processes of state power. In
the search for the political proper, and in the context of actually existing inequality in cities,
there is interest in seeking out ‘egalitarian-emancipatory process[es]’ (Legacy, Metzger,
Steele, & Gualini, 2019, p. 275)

In a post-political scenario, planning fulfills the role of an instrument for the configuration
of visions and tools in line with the political mandates or the predefined objectives on the
work of the metropolitan areas. The forms and discourses of resistance proliferate in this
environment, where the illusion of participation only serves argumentatively to demonstrate
the need to resist outside the margins, demanding greater samples of participation and
involvement. Ultimately, the fixed borders of political participation processes tend to support
resistance to these same institutions from outside.

The permanent construction and use of narratives associated with timeless paradigms, such
as the principles of redistribution or territorial autonomy, should force a revalidation of the
use of ideas in the political arenas when dealing with the creation of a metropolitan scale
from which the exercise is developed. of state power. Territorial planning is a space as well
as an appropriate instrument for these purposes which, however, is not tied to academic
periodizations, which have become part of the dossier of arguments to be used according to
political interests, being observable in each of the case studies.

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In Montreal, the frequently cited example of the use of a territorial planning tool to strengthen
the scope and governance model of the CMM with the Metropolitan Agora serves to illustrate
an avant-garde example of political negotiation between institutions and post-political citizen
participation. (Roy-Baillargeon, 2017) The transition to horizontal relations only occurred
between public institutions, while the long days of citizen dialogue only resulted in doubts
and proposals that ended up being marginally considered within the plan that finally resulted.
While these marathon meetings were passing, the representatives of the municipalities and
CMM created bridges and networks that allowed the negotiation of specific elements within
the determinations of the plan, which weakened the scope of the document but strengthened
its possibilities of acceptance and implementation. The question remains as to what the role
of participation was, if it had substantial or merely procedural impacts, and if it would be
contributing to the configuration of a collaborative and post-metropolitan understanding of
the territory of the CMM.

In the case of Barcelona, as Tomàs has stated (2019), the discourse that was used to create
the AMB is deeply rooted and difficult to modify. It is supported by the notion of cooperation
and technique in the implementation of projects and distribution of services. Its legitimacy,
therefore, does not depend on citizen participation or the forms of election of representatives,
but on the results it obtains. To modify it, it is necessary to have political majorities among
the municipalities involved, in addition to sufficient citizen support to include forms of
development of new metropolitan policies. Aida Colau, Mayor of Barcelona, has made an
effort in this direction that has not yet been enough.

[…] the metropolization of policies and the question of democratic representation at the
metropolitan scale remain an unfulfilled task, because of the institutional configuration (hard
and soft), very difficult to change, and also of the lack of political majority within the
metropolitan institution. The fact that the majority of metropolitan elected officials come from
another party, the PSC, which has always governed metropolitan institutions, adds to the
difficulty of overcoming structural obstacles (lack of exclusive powers, little fiscal autonomy,
indirect election of representatives policies). As observed in the first part of the article,
institutional change is very slow and the creation of a metropolitan narrative occurs, if at all,
over the long term. In this sense, Ada Colau and Barceona en Comú were not institutional
entrepreneurs who forced institutional change, but they helped slightly strengthen the
legitimacy of public actions and representation at the metropolitan level. (Tomàs, 2019, p.
58) The translation is own.

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The recent news about the inclusion of the entire Metropolitan Region of Barcelona and not
only the territory within the AMB shows how the forms of participation and recognized
actors within the institutionality itself are opening up. This is being developed in planning
spaces, giving this scenario, as in the case of Montréal, a role that is focused on building
consensus rather than on the pursuit of objectives. (Farré, 2020) Transactionality becomes a
characteristic of these spaces and of these institutions, with which the scope of participation
and the nature of the relationships between actors remain up in the air.

The case of Bogotá, even with the existing uncertainty because it is an ongoing project with
a wide debate at the time of writing this thesis, is conceiving the design of the institution with
a participation strategy conceived on two bases: geographical and thematic. The first deals
with specific issues of specific territories within those municipalities that will potentially be
part of the new entity. In the second, based on a pre-established agenda, issues of what is
expected to be the new Metropolitan Region are discussed. Function through large calls by
territories or topics in conferences where the comments of the citizens and organizations are
collected. However, how these findings will be addressed and addressed within the final
project is uncertain. In some contexts, it has been chosen to ignore the legitimacy of the
process and has called for alternative forms of manifestation, such as proposing a counter-
project designed from the base with the organizations, giving the one that is in progress the
title of the project of the elites. The planning and paradigmatic discourses here show the role
of the political process.

The use of norms as an emerging alternative and the role of planning

The types of planning necessary, then, come from a range of options that are selected or
rejected according to the scope given to the forms of participation and the different actors
involved. The use of tools such as those of Strategic Planning has become frequent as they
have not finished affecting the traditional mechanisms of territorial planning such as Master
Plans or those of local Territorial Ordering. However, these exercises may be insufficient for
the construction of specific mechanisms capable of planning the metropolitan territory or
building a post-metropolitan vision of cities. When discussing the relationships between
governance and planning in Latin America, Montero mentions the following:

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 One of the advantages of Strategic Planning is the possibility of developing a common
strategy through a participatory decision process that can include different actors. However,
who - and who is not - represented in the PE process is the most notable weakness of this
planning methodology. The lack of representation of certain actors, either directly (not
invited to participate) or indirectly (invited to participate but not familiar with the language
and dynamics of participatory planning) can lead to the reproduction of existing social
hierarchies or to the design of agendas that harm vulnerable or under-represented
populations. (Montero, 2015, p. 11) The translation is own.

The conceptual discussion and the ways of implementing metropolitan government tools
present a constant question regarding the construction of action frameworks and intervention
tools. The forms of governance between territorial entities to attend to metropolitan
phenomena produced spontaneous coordination patterns that are not very binding. The
definition of impactful regulatory objectives, the forms of relationship between metropolitan
actors, require collaboration and coordination in specific management projects and actions.
So far, Strategic Planning or exhaustive planning ruling has not been the answer in this scale
(or probably in any other).

However, as previously mentioned, the lack of results in the management of such phenomena
such as environmental quality has implied a loss of public confidence in public institutions.
Considering the growing role of non-governmental organizations in governance schemes and
in the conceptual and political debate of the definitions of functions, competences and
resources among public institutions, there is a gap in the implementation of metropolitan
plans. One possible answer lies in changing the ways in which planning exercises are
coordinated and carried out on a metropolitan scale. The remaining confusion regarding the
role that institutions of this level should have remains open. Collaboration and
experimentation exercises in metropolitan public policy are part of the solution, but this
requires regulatory frameworks that are simple and clear enough to allow and encourage
them.

In this context, rules and planning should be open but simple exercises. The search for
answers and metropolitan governance must allow dialogue and a change in the relationships
between actors to build a regulatory framework flexible enough to deal with metropolitan
phenomena. Rigid and monolithic borders, for example, close these options for dialogue and
must be discussed. Planning, for its part, must be a practice capable of dialogue and flexibility

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in decision-making processes. The experimentation shall be permanently present in the
planning results as an option, as well as the mobility of actors in a network.

The above emergent trends and dilemmas beg the question of how planning should reinvent
itself to exert more influence on metropolitan growth and development in a reality where the
domain is clearly losing to other drivers of metropolitanisation as well as other policy
sectors. Planning has largely failed to comply with its original hallmarks, partly as a
consequence of the domain’s split into particular activities and partly due to the states’ lack
of ability to innovate, which is coupled with the fragmentation of institutions of change by
sector, space, policy and intervention. (Galland, Harrison, & Tewdwr-Jones, What Is
Metropolitan Planning and Governance for?, 2020)

In the planning spaces, there is a process of restructuring political practices in society through
the reformulation of power relations. (Swyngedouw, 2005, p. 1997) At the same time, there
is a call for the effective development of metropolitan regions. This produces a double
function to the territorial planning exercises: First, as a stage to give voice to new actors in
decision-making. Second, produce results that dialogue directly with its implementation in
the territory without ambiguity. The capture and channeling of the aforementioned forces, as
well as the development of metropolitan public policies only acquires meaning when it
responds to these processes.

The rise of unprecedented external driving forces such as globalisation and financialisation,
alongside their powerful influence to shape metropolitan futures tend to out-trump planning.
Consequently, in contexts of metropolitan governance accretion, the planning domain only
seems to cope with such driving forces through procedural styles that are characteristically
short-termed, siloed and which respond to a spatial fixity in time focused on individual
projects. In doing so, planning increasingly relies more on the adoption of informal tools,
instruments and policies, which altogether seek to align different actors in highly volatile
global and national contexts. These emerging conditions of planning are not exempt from
internal dilemmas: should planning continue to have long-term, bounded and legitimate
plans under the pressure for short-term agility? How should planning cope with the issue of
borrowing policies and ideas from different territorial and sociopolitical realities?
Contrasting with its original condition of permanence as a state institution, the present
requirement for planning to be a mechanism of convenience to align and coordinate between
agencies often means that planning fails to endure. Under these circumstances, there is an
imminent need to revisit basic yet fundamental questions: What should be the purpose of
planning in the metropolitan century? Who is planning for and whose interests should
planning defend? (Tewdwr-Jones & Galland, 2020, p. 209)

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5. CONCLUSIONS: BETWEEN LOCAL AND GLOBAL.

THE METROPOLIS POLITICAL ARENAS

Steering the metropolis includes co(re)creating the metropolis. Joan Subirats argued that co-
creating is a key concept as much is already urbanized with actors in the territory. The
metropolis has to be rebuilt (in line with open source urbanism concept) within the given
built environment and public space. We are not drawing on a blank canvas and metropolises
are perennially incomplete projects, with the power to reinvent themselves. (Gómez &
Lanfranchi, 2017)
The permanent reinvention of the metropolises is a political process with
physical/environmental, economic, and social manifestations. This is increasingly relevant
in a world that is becoming more metropolitan every day. The States are re-scaling its
activities to what they consider the most functional level to achieve their purposes: cities and
metropolis (Brenner, 2002; 2009) that will become the predominant form of government
under its different names (metropolitan city, city-region, or metropolitan region). This
process of re-scalation has been going for a long time with several reasons behind and
elements that strengthen the symbolic capital of metropolis. Currently, the metropolis is the
ideal scenario for public policies that allow improving the competitiveness and international
projection of the cities. However, the re-scaling and the public policies cycles continues to
be presented as technical process in a post-political scenario, where an incontrovertible
sociotechnical logic and general interest must prevail. The thesis has argued that these
assumptions seek to ignore the political nature, which impacts the definition and the pursuit
of democratic objectives, censoring the participation of different actors in the construction of
the metropolitan city to which they are entitled.

For this reason, this process has not been matched by a political and institutional setting that
allows governing the metropolises that comprise it. This requires restructuring the public
administration, the relations between territorial entities and, in general, new and broader
forms of government exercise. The construction of spatial imaginaries is necessaire to
establish on the political agenda the need to re-scale the practices of the State in terms of
public policies and, ultimately, the exercise of power over the relations of territorialization
between State-People-Place, (Brenner, 2009) but also to guarantee certain legitimacy. This
process, on which the configuration of institutional arrangements depends on the

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metropolitan scale, is deeply political and ignorance of this nature results in institutions
limited in their objectives and with little power to implement policies or projects.

The three cases discuss about the paper that participation have in an increasingly broad and
inclusive margin as a form of legitimation, but also the relevance from the type of
relationships between public entities with a different nature, sector, or scale. This is
recognized and discussed on several models and theories that propose different ways to
achieve an institutional setting in a metropolitan scale. However, this is a highly context-
dependent process. The recognition of the political nature within the process may imply
changes in the procedures and the objectives of the institutions, according to how this
recognition is incorporated. The political process is not only for the construction of
consensus, but also to make emerge and conduct conflicts otherwise hidden.

On this point, some principles are required to conduct the political process in a metropolitan
arena. The distinction between several levels of discussion and regulation like the
constitutional, legislative, and daily activities, is a required frame for a multilevel issue as
the metropolization and the state re-scalation of powers. Some points must be clarified about
what are the general conditions for the development of certain kind of institutions, some other
are related with the distribution of competences and functions, others with the bargaining
between entities and the relationships with the citizens. All of these political issues and arenas
must be distinguished and located in the several scales, to be addressed with a toolbox of
“how to deal with the metropolitan complexities” guidelines.

This thesis presents some findings on the relationship between the metropolitan re-scaling
process and the role of political processes in these settings. Using a case study methodology
based on the review of empirical and secondary documentation for the characterization of
four themes (Institutions, public policies, spatial imaginaries, and forms of planning) in four
dimensions (purposes or ends, means to achieve them, involved actors, and forms of
relationship), it has been sought to expose some relevant elements that determine how the
political process affects the forms of metropolization. Next are presented 3 reflections. The
first discuss the importance of the different legitimation forms and sources. The second talks
about the dual role from the political process for the construction of consensus and to conduct

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the conflict and opposition. The third presents a multilevel framework about the spaces of
regulation for the various topics mentioned.

Forms and sources of legitimation

In metropolitan matters there may be several sources of legitimacy. The population can
recognize traditional forms of legitimacy, such as tradition (the case of Barcelona) or the
legal one (present in all three cases). Even political charisma, of course, plays an important
role in the presentation and approval of ideas on this scale. However, there are elements that
differentiate the sources of legitimacy in this case from other more direct processes. The fact
that a metropolitan area normally contains several political-administrative units may imply a
double legitimation process: on the one hand, there are the member institutions, which are
representatives of portions of the territory or public policy sectors, and on the other hand
there are citizens and civil and private organizations. In this scenario, the existence of norms
and laws that legalize the existence of these entities is a fundamental requirement, but not
sufficient to provide legitimacy to the institutions or their decisions, so they can turn out to
be ghosts or institutions with limited relevance to their intentions. At this point it is prudent
to talk about the new forms of governance in the construction of legitimacy.

Montreal case is illustrative in this regard. In its first attempts to approve its Land
Management and Ordering Plan, the CMM faced resistance from the municipalities and the
indifference of the citizens. The fact that they supported their power and legitimacy in the
laws of the State of Quebec and their decisions were defended from supposed technical
benefits led to an open resistance from the member territories. The consensus processes had
not been enough, and the ways in which they had related to the municipalities resulted in just
formal socialization processes without greater impacts from participation. In the end, the
standard was rejected, and the project had to start over. In this context, the CMM created a
space: The metropolitan agora, planned to host the whole participatory process. This space,
even if the results about what was included and its general methodology are discussed (Roy-
Baillargeon, 2017), opened the possibility to negotiate directly, in a horizontal way, between
the municipalities and the entity.

The results obtained are also discussed. Some of the points in which the CMM yielded within
the plan are associated with indices and densities of buildable, with which they sought to stop

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certain types of suburbanization that it considers as undesirable due to the additional costs
involved in the provision of services and that it fought with initiatives of Transportation
Oriented Development (TOD), while the municipalities preferred to maintain their autonomy
to grow and be able to attract new inhabitants. In exchange for removing the binding nature
of the plan's decisions on this matter, tax incentives were integrated for those who decided to
join TOD projects. There have been reports recently on strong suburbanization trends.
(Shingler, 2020) The Metropolitan Agora model has been celebrated for its capacity to
negotiate horizontally between entity-municipalities, ensuring a greater degree of
governance.

The construction of governance has required the CMM to give up an advantageous but
ineffective vertical relationship to impose its decisions, to accept horizontal relationships of
negotiation of interests. Territorial planning processes and public policy cycles are the
bargaining chip in this new reality, where recognition stems from the procedure rather than
the objectives. Citizen participation, for its part, remains as a background object for the
validation of the Metropolitan Agora as a space to speak and discuss decisions about the
CMM but without effective methods of participation beyond opening microphones for hours.

The processes of building legitimacy cannot be underestimated in any case. Metropolitan

coordination cannot be disguised behind a supposed consensus technical and a-political that
ignores the mechanisms of citizen participation. The existence of political consensus is
required and, still in the air, citizen dialogues that transcend their own duration and impact
the design and formulation of public policies. The different sources of legitimacy, then,
depend on their own legality and the possibility of building consensus with the different
actors involved in metropolization processes. There is a long way to go.

The political process as a consensus builder… or not?

The two faces of Jano are a classic reference when it comes to talking about political
processes. In matters of planning, institutional design, public policies, or spatial imaginaries,
there are both sides that, especially in a government phenomenon such as the metropolitan
one, require innovative ways to build consensus within political processes. Consensus, in the
current governance scenarios, has become a prerequisite to guarantee the sustainability of
decisions over time and is one of the resources for the construction of governance networks.

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However, the political process can also lead to conflict or hide it. As an example, in the case
of Bogotá it is observable how the proposal for the construction of a Metropolitan Region
ends up coming from the structures of the legislative branch and is itself a proposal promoted
by the Green Party. The denunciation of lack of participation, doubts about the forms of
institutional and citizen control, criticism from other movements, and even from members of
the party itself are buried in the face of the imposition of parliamentary majorities. In its local
de-escalation, for example, ruptures have appeared even within the movements that promoted
constitutional reform in Congress. The results seem confusing: Local politics seems to be
disconnected from the national one on an issue of an intermediate scale such as the
metropolitan one. The Bogotá metropolization project is considered a national objective for
reasons of competitiveness and efficiency in the provision of services which was assumed by
the Congress of the Republic directly, in view of the legislative difficulties established in the
constitution, as well as the related to the local coordination processes.

Getting the votes for the approval of the project involved a debate with other regions and
congressmen from all over the country but left little space for presentations from the
community that remained in conflict. The representatives sought to dialogue with the entities
with greater technical capacity (the capital district and, although it was not contemplated in
the antecedents to be part of said scheme, the department of Cundinamarca) and to build
consensus with them. However, the region's social movements did not have a greater
participation in the design of the reform and, on the contrary, when they found out, they felt
“fear” derived from the country's historical institutional mistrust.

Participation processes are ongoing at this time. There is an events agenda according to two
criteria: first, the territorial scope (go to all the municipalities “potentially” involved to
discuss a draft Organic Law that does not exist formally) and, second, a thematic agenda
where they put some of the problems most frequently cited. The sessions consist of the
registration of interested citizens with two-minute speeches that end up being included in
reports from the institutions involved. It is not observed that there is a methodology for
capturing citizen ideas that, in many cases, are outside the scope of the meetings or refer to
issues that are not associated with the discussion of an Organic Law since people are not
aware of it. so much of what is happening and there is no proposal (which is supposed to be

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built with this process) on which to present ideas or discussions. There is a risk that it is the
only scenario for participation and that they will use it to “comply” with the requirements to
process the aforementioned bill.

The Colombian case shows the use of the political process to build consensus between
parties, but also to dismiss it. The construction of narratives of a new metropolis is not formed
in the territorialities and the exclusion of specific local problems can be left out of the
proposals. Disguising as “metropolitan participation” a scenario deaf to local conflict is an
example of how the political process can hide what it is not interested in building consensus
with and produce a model much more limited to the contextual issues.

The constitution and the post-constitutional development of metropolitanization

Planning problems can be classified at different analytical and methodological levels.

(Moroni, 2019) The management of metropolitan problems is no exception. The definitions
contained in the constitutions of each country give way or restrict the conditions within which
a metropolitan area can be configured. In the Colombian case, for example, it was explicitly
stated that Bogotá will require a special scheme for its metropolitan organization due to its
nature as a Capital District. In the cases of Canada and Spain, the federal constitutions are
limited to giving power to the States (autonomous province-Generalitat in the Spanish case)
to regulate these scenarios. Next, what is found is that governments have issued organic laws
(except in the case of Bogotá) from which metropolitan institutions have been created.

Subsequently, there are a series of administrative decisions of different levels that coexist
within the constitutional and legal frameworks from which the rules of operation of these
institutions are established among themselves and with other territorial levels. Ultimately,
they are the development of constitutional and legal determinations and are usually consigned
in statutes and other forms of administrative acts. Even with constitutional constraints and
the absence of specific legal frameworks, in all cases relationships with other territorial
entities have been developed based on rules of inter-administrative relations.

Finally, the scope and effectiveness of the decisions made at the different levels can be
observed within citizens' behaviors. The results of decision-making on metropolitan elements
can be observed in changes in behavior in matters such as transportation, forms of land

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occupation, or access to public services. It is an example in which it is possible to observe
how the different levels of State intervention and evaluate their legitimacy in each case.

In this context, there are multiple ambiguities in the way in which the attention to
metropolitan problems is attended to and organized at the different analytical levels
mentioned. The constitutional conditioning, however general in most cases, has been specific
enough in the case of Bogotá so that it cannot access the resources with which the other
metropolitan areas subsist in order not to affect other institutions. situational and specific,
such as the Department of Cundinamarca and the Regional Autonomous Environmental
Corporation of Cundinamarca (CAR). In addition, it defines two first-hand actors to form
part of said organization, these types of decisions being relevant to be taken and developed
on a legal or even later scale. For their part, the problems associated with the legitimacy of
metropolitan areas are usually related to the forms of citizen participation and inter-
institutional relations. The disagreements of constitutional principles such as local autonomy
and the relevance of adding an additional scale of government do not usually have a clear
scaffolding on the types of decisions that each one makes and, on the contrary, are resolved
on the fly. The changes in decision-making procedures in Montréal are an example of this,
from a hierarchical and binding structure, but inoperative, a horizontal and non-binding
process has been passed that is supported by local territories in territorial planning processes
that enable the construction metropolitan governance and legitimacy.

Local territorial autonomy is a flag of government ever closer to local social structures on
which the broader forms of governance function. Even with incomplete processes of
political-administrative decentralization and devolution of resources, local autonomy cannot
be underestimated in the search for a general, superior and univocal interest for a
metropolitan agglomeration. In the search for political consensus between traditional parties,
consensus building with citizens and civil organizations is often neglected. Metropolitan
projects have local effects that cannot be neglected in a democratic republic. The construction
of imaginary and metropolitan institutions tends to develop more context-specific needs that
must be understood as part of the raison d'être of technical and political narratives in different
spheres, starting with the local one.

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he implementation of public policies is not resolved at the metropolitan scale. The existence
of relationships that go further, also called post-metropolitan ones, is an increasingly insistent
phenomenon that demands more complex solutions. Participation and the broader forms of
governance should not be reduced to expanding the technical capacities of the State to co-
opt participation, but in designing simple and effective rules that are adapted at each level to
the problems that are relevant to them. What should be the role of a constitution in relation
to metropolitan areas? Should an organic law define which are the actors involved and the
issues that it will work on or only delineate the linking process and the operating conditions
to define what is metropolitan? How will a metropolitan entity relate to local entities? How
should citizens be linked at different times in metropolitan decision-making?

Final reflection

Metropolitical is a wordplay that mixes the metropolitan and the political (quite obvious), in
order to discuss the aspiration to be technical institutions with which usually are presented.
The thesis exposed from different points how the needs of our cities increasingly require
institutions that are capable of addressing the complex problems of urban growth, including
metropolization, but a call is made to understand the political nature of these processes. The
structuring of entities to build highways and airports or provide public services is not a
process that should come exclusively from the central government. Local communities and
their requirements cannot remain in the shadows or disguised as neutral participatory
processes with a minimum of 100 interventions in several days without anyone understanding
the reason for these interventions or what is being discussed. Metropolitan institutional
arrangements should remain open to dialogue at all levels, relationships should not be limited
exclusively to lateral transactions or hierarchical imposition processes, and governance
should not remain between territorial entities and public and private companies. Assertive
and effective decision-making depends on being open enough, political enough, to allow the
technique to be discussed, that institutional arbitrariness is not disguised as neutrality.

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