City-Regions

There is a long lineage in neighbourhood research that has underpinned sustained academic and policy interest in the UK centred on understanding how spatial ‘clusters’ of neighbourhood-based deprivation might be destabilised. This has seen the privileging of composite indices in the analysis of deprivation which have been criticised for fostering a common perception that deprived neighbourhoods are homogeneous in terms of their compositions and underlying structures. Such indices have also been criticised for being ineffective at capturing temporal change, providing only static snapshots of deprivation at particular points in time. This paper focuses on patterns of deprived neighbourhood change in the Greater Manchester city-region between 2001 and 2007. It develops a typology of neighbourhood change that is triangulated with three complementary typologies capturing the socioeconomic and demographic compositions of deprived neighbourhoods; the functional roles played by deprived neighbourhoods in redistributing population through migration; and the spatial contexts in which deprived neighbourhoods are located. The analysis reveals that an over reliance on static indices to measure deprivation has long-served to conceal complexities in the way that deprived neighbourhoods change, owing to their variable structures and contexts. It illustrates the danger that lies in treating all deprived neighbourhoods in the same way.

This proposal comparatively analyzes social housing programs introduced by welfare states of France, Italy, Greece and Turkey as the Mediterranean countries participated in the Marshall Plan and performed large-scale housing in planned industrial city-regions. It suggests an interdisciplinary portrayal of their schemata in housing production in terms of policy, program and project to trace their translation of urban, architectural and societal narrative of existenzminimum especially when bottom-up initiatives reclaim social housing against current housing crisis.

Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves are commonly used in water resources projects and hydrological analyses. One of the most important requirements for creating IDF curves is the actual distribution of rainfall intensity during the period of rainfall, but usually short-duration rainfall records are rare in arid regions while daily rainfall data are available. Hydrologists can generate short-duration rainfall data from daily rainfall data through using the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) standard synthetic rainfall distributions. The main purpose of this paper is to show the procedure to be followed in developing the IDF curves using the daily rainfall data recorded at the Hurghada weather station. Frequency analysis of the observed rainfall records was performed using HyfranPlus software. The gamma distribution is the most widely accepted probability distribution in this research.

In light of the recent ‘tourism-phobia’, there is a need to better understand how tourism could be transformed through new business and social models. Attempts have been made, for example, to identify which experimental tourism models would align with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nonetheless, research remains scant and the policy paradigm slightly out of date. With the pervasive proliferation of tourism services provided by big tech multinationals such as AirBnB and Uber and the rapid algorithmic disruption of the so-called “sharing economy” paradigm, several European cities and regions are seeking to mitigate the negative side-effects caused by “platform capitalism” in their neighborhoods and local communities. These side-effects include gentrification, privatization of public space, inherent conflicts between visitors/tourists and residents/locals, environmental damage, and precarious working conditions, among others. Thus, this paper explores why tourism in Europe requires new business and social models to neutralise this algorithmic disruption and modify the extractivist neoliberal logic in tourism to develop new, transformative, techno-political, bottom-up, and networked strategies stemming from the city-regional realm. Against the backdrop of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU that has recently taken effect on 25 May 2018, this paper argues that a new, transformative, tourism paradigm could emerge from the European political left. The push of the city-regional resurgence beyond established nation-states could enable grassroots and institutional tourism initiatives to take the lead and coordinate a political response to achieve further sustainable, equitable, and, ultimately, democratic technological sovereignty in diverse localities through Europe. In conclusion, this paper posits city-regional, bottom-up, and networked dynamics characterised by the GDPR as an opportunity to establish a new techno-political paradigm in tourism by overcoming data and algorithmic extractivist practices.

To cite this publication:
Calzada, I. (2020), Seeing Tourism Transformations in Europe through Algorithmic, Techno-Political and City-Regional Lenses, In Transforming Tourism: Regional Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon. Edited by the Coppieters and Ezkerraberri Foundations. 2020/01. Chapter 6. pp 74-89. Brussels: Centre Maurits Coppieters CMC. ISBN: 978-90-826321-0-1. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.33522.45769/1.

Dalam konteks  globalisasi, governans pembangunan wilayah-bandar raya berdepan dengan pelbagai cabaran yang semakin kompleks. Peranan pihak berkuasa tempatan (PBT) sebagai institusi governans sentiasa dikaitkan dengan pelbagai karenah birokrasi dalam penyediaan perkhidmatan yang tidak efisien yang menimbulkan masalah kepada stakeholders. Isu ini menjadi persoalan penyelidikan utama dalam kajian ini. Ketidakefisienan governans bandar boleh menjejaskan  daya saing  sesebuah wilayah-bandar raya. Penghasilan buku ini bertujuan membentuk satu pemahaman yang jelas mengenai peranan governans pembangunan wilayah-bandar raya di peringkat PBT dari aspek keefisienan governans bandar (KGB). Buku ini juga mengkaji hubungkait KGB dengan peningkatan daya persaingan ekonomi (DPE)  di wilayah-bandar raya. Berdasarkan kes wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur, buku ini juga mengenalpasti PBT yang mempunyai kedudukan governans pembangunan wilayah-bandar raya yang paling baik. Buku ini berdasarkan kepada kerangka teoritikal governans pembangunan wilayah-bandar raya untuk menilai hubungkait dengan DPE. Analisis yang dijalankan berdasarkan persepsi stakeholders wilayah-bandar raya Kuala Lumpur mengenai KGB yang diamalkan oleh PBT. PBT sepatutnya lebih memberi tumpuan kepada governans bandar untuk meningkatkan keefisienan dalam memberi perkhidmatan kepada stakeholders. Kekuatan ekonomi sesebuah negara dalam era globalisasi ini sering dikaitkan secara langsung peranan wilayah-bandar raya yang mampu berdaya saing dan seterusnya menjadi sebuah bandar raya global. Kemampuan sesebuah wilayah-bandar raya itu berdaya saing dalam sistem ekonomi global menunjukkan bahawa kemapanan sesebuah negara itu dari segi ekonomi, sosial dan alam sekitar. Ini secara tidak langsung dapat menarik pelabur asing melabur di kawasan bandar. Namun begitu wilayah-bandar raya yang mampu bersaing tidak cukup menjamin kestabilan ekonomi dan kesejahteraan negara tapi peranan governans bandar yang efisien boleh menjadi menentukan faktor utama kemasukan pelaburan langsung asing ke negara kita. Peranan wilayah-bandar raya juga penting dalam menentukan kejayaan pembangunan sesebuah wilayah-bandar raya.

In the context of globalization, urban governance is increasingly faced with complex challenges. The Local Authority (LA) as the governance institution is ensconced in bureaucracy is not spared from the issues of inefficiency in dealing with stakeholders. This issue became the main research question to be addressed in this thesis. Inefficient urban governance can affect the economic competitiveness in the city-region. This thesis investigates the extent how elements of efficient urban governance (EUG) can contribute to the enhancement of economic competitiveness in city-region (ECCR) and which of these elements can affect ECCR? This study aims to develop a clear understanding of the role of EUG at LA level, and its relationship with the ECCR. In the case of Kuala Lumpur city-region, the study also investigates which LA has achieved the best position in EUG. The theoretical framework of the KGB in city-region has been used to investigate the relationship between EUG and ECCR. The studies focus mainly to the stakeholders of Kuala Lumpur city-region on their perception in the implementation of EUG by LA. This involved 6 main LAs such as DBKL, MBPJ, MBSA, MPSJ, MPK and MPSp with 315 respondents representing various stakeholders. One of the findings in inferential data analysis shows that 10 elements of EUG contributed 89.6 percent to the enhancement of ECCR. This multiple regression analysis also shows the significant relationship between EUG with economic competitiveness in Kuala Lumpur city-region. However, only five elements are the best predictors to the ECCR such as administration and the effectiveness of LA services, public feedback, a strategic vision, transparency and equality. Meanwhile, analysis of the indicators measuring EUG in LAs show that MBPJ achieved the highest score of 0.75 compared with five other LAs. Generally the results indicate that LA no longer plays the role of a government body that provides services and infrastructure only. In fact the results suggest that LA should focus on urban governance to enhance efficiency in providing services to stakeholders.

This book presents an exploratory account of the origins and dynamics of cities. The author recounts how the essential foundations of the urbanization process reside in two interrelated forces. These are the tendency for many different kinds of human activity to gather together to form functional complexes on the landscape, and the multifaceted intra-urban space-sorting crosscurrents set in motion by this primary urge. From these basic points of departure, the city in all its fullness emerges as a reflexive moment in social and economic development. The argument of the book is pursued both in theoretical and in empirical terms, devoting attention to the changing character of urbanization in the capitalist era. A point of particular emphasis concerns the peculiar patterns of resurgent urbanization that are making their historical and geographical appearance in the currently emerging phase of cognitive-cultural capitalism and that are now rapidly diffusing across the globe.

I seek to provide an overview of the historical and geographical emergence of city-regions and to reflect on some of the debates that have arisen in regard to the theoretical status of these phenomena. I briefly describe the growth and spread of city-regions in the world since the mid-1950s and I consider how contemporary capitalism and globalization have fostered the development of this distinctive urban form. The internal organization of city-regions is then examined, with special reference to four generic outcomes, namely (a) aestheticized land-use intensification, (b) gentrification, (c) social polarization and informality, and (d) postsuburban landscapes. Issues of governance and policy are scrutinized and basic dilemmas of political coordination in city-regions are described. The argument ends with an evaluative review of certain critiques of the city-region idea in the current academic literature.

Il contributo torna a osservare un territorio molto praticato dalle scienze economiche e sociali, in quanto caso emblematico e di successo di sviluppo distrettuale, concentrando però l'attenzione sulle trasformazioni avvenute nelle sue forme insediative, negli oggetti urbani, negli usi e nelle pratiche che interessano il territorio. Il testo, pertanto, ricostruisce una storia spaziale del distretto ceramico di Sassuolo che consente di ragionare sulle trasformazioni locali del rapporto produzione-territorio-società, mettendo in evidenza – soprattutto nei tre racconti 'al passato' – come, di fronte ai cambiamenti socio-economici, l'urbanistica abbia di volta in volta legittimato, indirizzato, ostacolato, accompagnato o sostenuto i processi di urbanizzazione e industrializzazione diffusa, dando risposte alle differenti esigenze di imprese e popolazioni. Il racconto 'al presente' descrivere e interpreta i molteplici e contraddittori fenomeni di trasformazione in corso, di depotenziamento ma anche di qualificazione del territorio. A partire dal 'resoconto' dei processi in atto, infine, si propone un'ipotesi di scenario evolutivo per il futuro di questo territorio – ma anche di molti altri contesti dell'industrializzazione diffusa – e si esplicitano alcune azioni concrete, e oggi non più rimandabili, che lavorano sull'esistente, sul capitale fisso sociale, sui depositi materiali che si sono stratificati sul territorio – e che sono l'oggetto del lavoro di indagine fotografica presentato sinteticamente nel contributo – immaginando la natura, le caratteristiche e l'agenda di una nuova 'città-distretto'.

Drawing upon research conducted in the North East of England, this paper examines how two city regions are developing their role within the ‘re-scaling’ of economic development following the Sub-national Review in 2007. After identifying the key drivers shaping the new architecture of sub-national governance, the paper also considers the variation in sub-regional responses in Tyne and Wear and Tees Valley and assesses the particular contribution that city-regional approaches can make to sub-national economic development.  The paper argues that despite being part of the same English region - and sharing a common city region status - what is striking about the comparison is the marked differences in their respective approaches to governance. The paper argues that such variation, while partly reflecting spatial differentiation, also reflects differences that are firmly rooted in previous historical phases of sub-national development and in the distinctive local political cultures of the two areas. In highlighting the problems of interventions at this level, including fragmentation, lack of accountability, the tensions of multi-level economic governance and the lack of fit between economic and social regeneration, the paper concludes by considering the likelihood of further changes in sub-national governance and the policy options for a new UK central government.

There are changing dynamics among political regionalisation processes and the rescaling of nation-states in Europe. However, updated and timely research remains scant, ambiguous, and unable to meet the challenges of data-driven societies and uneven borders. Nations’ physical boundaries matter as much as political borders in their pervasive and growing algorithmic, stateless, liquid, and metropolitan citizenship patterns. This paper explores these new ‘connectographies’ from a regional science perspective, introducing the term ‘Algorithmic Nations’ as a city-regional and techno-political conceptual assemblage. A case-study is presented of the small stateless city-regionalised European nation of the Basque Country through its analytical and transitional lens, locally known as ‘Euskal Hiria’ (Basque City-Region in Basque language). This paper questions whether the Basque Country could evolve by (a) modifying its governmental logics and (b) merging its three separate devolved administrations (c) while enabling their direct interactions with citizens (d) through blockchain technologies as the small state of Estonia is implementing and employing cutting-edge algorithmic governance frameworks. In doing so, this paper suggests how four drivers—metropolitanisation, devolution, the right to decide, and blockchain—may be respectively invigorating four dynamics—geoeconomics, geopolitics, geodemocratics, and geotechnologics—in this transition towards the ‘Algorithmic Nations’. Ultimately, this paper concludes with an ‘Algorithmic Nations’ research and policy agenda decalogue of how these geotechnological changes might determine the future position of small stateless city-regionalised nations in the EU.

To obtain the full article in open access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681376.2018.1507754.

To cite this article: Calzada, I. (2018), Algorithmic Nations: Seeing Like a City-Regional and Techno-Political Conceptual Assemblage. Regional Studies, Regional Science 5(1): 267-289. DOI: 10.1080/21681376.2018.1507754.

Calzada, I. (2016), HerriSmarTIK: Basque Smart City-Regional Strategy in the H2020 European Context / La Estrategia Vasca de Territorio Inteligente en el Contexto Europeo Horizonte 2020: De la Agenda Digital Municipal a la Gobernanza de la Ciudad-Región Vasca Inteligente – HERRISMARTIK commissioned by EUDEL (Basque Municipalities’ Association), LKS Consultancy and the Basque Regional Government, Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Information Society Department. Zumaia: Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making. ISBN: 978-84-946385-1-0. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10932.76161

El objetivo del artículo es desarrollar los principios teórico-metodológicos de la perspectiva de económica política sobre el estudio de las grandes ciudades a través de la creación de nuevas geografías -nuevas escalas de estudio-: la ciudad-región global, y su actuación (rol) en el sistema económico internacional. Se tiene como premisa, que este tipo de ciudades juegan (y jugarán) un rol destacado en la economía del siglo XXI debido a que han desarrollado nuevas estrategias a escala global para la producción de bienes y servicios así como para generar un constante flujo de recursos financieros y humanos.

This paper outlines the lessons learnt through the multidisciplinary ‘Science-to-Action’ approach to formulating, mainstreaming and implementing the Low Carbon Society Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia 2025 (LCSBP-IM2025). Iskandar Malaysia (IM) is a rapidly developing urban-region in southern Peninsular Malaysia that was institutionalised in 2006 with a view to spurring Malaysia’s economic growth up to 2025. In pursuing rapid economic growth to become a developed, high income nation by 2020, Malaysia is conscious of its global responsibility in environmental protection and global climate change mitigation; hence the country’s commitment to reducing its carbon emission intensity of GDP by up to 40% by 2020 based on the 2005 level. Being a premier economic region in Malaysia, IM seeks to develop a low carbon society (LCS) and lead the way to cutting its carbon emission intensity by up to 58% by 2025 based on the 2005 level through the implementation of the LCSBP-IM2025.

The LCSBP-IM2025 is the outcome of an internationally funded joint research under the SATREPS program that brings together Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Kyoto University, Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Okayama University and the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA), in a unique ‘academia-policymaker’ partnership, towards crafting a LCS pathway to guide and sustainably manage the projected rapid development in IM up to 2025. To that end, led by UTM, a multidisciplinary research team that comprises the above research institutions and IRDA has been set up. A methodology has been developed to formulate IM’s future LCS scenarios; propose LCS Actions to achieve the LCS scenarios; quantify the GHG emission reduction potential of the proposed LCS Actions; and continuously engage local stakeholders in a series of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs).

The project has been a great success from its official commencement in July 2011, which saw the LCSBP-IM2025 being launched at UNFCCC’s COP 18 in Doha in November 2012 and officially endorsed by the Malaysian Prime Minister in December the same year. In November 2013, the Iskandar Malaysia Actions for a Low Carbon Future was launched, outlining 10 priority projects selected from the LCSBP-IM2025’s 281 programs for implementation in IM in 2013-2015; the projects are now at various stages of implementation, yielding real impacts on IM’s progression towards it LCS goal.

The project offers valuable lessons especially in advancing scientific research on LCS into policymaking and, importantly, into real actions (hence Science-to-Action). These include the importance of having strong highest-level government support; aligning LCS Actions to higher-level development priorities; taking policymakers on-board the research team; continuously actively engaging local communities and stakeholders through FGDs; and overcoming science-policy and disciplinary gaps that emerged. What is clearly evidenced by the LCSBP-IM2025's success is that developing countries, with good synergy between highly committed local research institutions and policymakers, subject to adequate international funding and technological assistance from developed nations, are capable of crafting and putting in place implementable LCS policies that eventually contribute to mitigating global climate change through real cuts in GHG emissions while still achieving a desired level of economic growth.

Russian urban planning and government are undergoing a metropolitan turn. The Russian central government is seeking to spatially rebalance the Russian economy by creating new economic centres and introducing metropolitan-level urban planning and government for selected core cities and adjacent municipalities. From the urban planning perspective, metropolisation aims to promote better coordination within functional urban areas. Using the current debates in urban planning and economic geography, this paper examines the origins, content, and economic implications of this state-led metropolisation. It concludes that although some material conditions for metropolisation are present, cities may not be able to fulfil the vision of new ‘economic engines’ because of deeply embedded structural problems in the Russian economy and the current weakness of metropolitan governments.

ABSTRACT:
What this paper is trying to highlight is how City-Regions are being actively constructed (Harrison, 2012), where they are being mobilised in support of, or in opposition to, particular territorial development models and strategies.
Hence, this paper contributes to debates about the meaning and the understanding of the dynamics of actively constructed term of the “City-Region”, by proposing an Analytical Systemic Framework after reviewing the literature of the main key authors. The Analytical Systemic Framework called “The Future of the City-Regions”
(FCR) consists of 5-Systems: URBS (Urban System), CYBER (Relational System), CIVITAS (Socio-Cultural System),
POLIS (Socio-Political System) and DEMOS (Democratic System).

Unlike the nation-state governance, smart city governance has opened up a plethora of factors, such as data devolution, in which citizens might take a more prominent role in reorienting ongoing implementations. Moreover, in light of the giant technological flagship firms of surveillance capitalism, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, assuming many functions previously associated with the nation-state protecting citizens’ digital rights has become a key aspect for many Algorithmic Nations in the digital age (Calzada, 2018). As such, Smart City Citizenship shows the way in which Algorithmic Nations—defined as non-deterministic city-regional and techno-political conceptual assemblages—probably will emerge driven by data sovereignty (Hummel et al, 2021).

This article aims to examine the current and timely situation that has recently emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by proposing a strategic wake up call in the Basque Country regarding the need to reimagine the international role of stateless nations through a not less urgent techno-political response and standpoint. Despite the fact that European city-regions presents rather distinct and unique compositions, this policy strategic analysis—centred comparatively in the Basque Country—sheds light on a potential roadmap to enhance the way digital transformations, AI, and data ecosystems/governance can provide an opportunity amidst this pandemic crisis for empowering citizens and institutions and opening up a transnational collaboration based on solidarity with other cities, regions, and nations in Europe and worldwide. Given the thorny aftermaths for many European city-regions, this article encourages particularly stakeholders in the Basque Country to take the lead and coordinate a strategic response in close collaboration with other European territorial realities’ stakeholders by suggesting the creation of the Basque algorithmic nation for renewing the national community discourse and the state building old narrative employed so far and thus putting at front the strength of the co-operative active response among city-regional businesses, institutions, civic society, academia, and entrepreneurs/activists to ensure (i) the wellbeing and social justice (life), (ii) a sustainable economic model and platform-driven socio-economic alternatives (economy), (iii) a more transparent AI for social good (techno-politics), and ultimately, (iv) further democratic and less dystopic panopticon (democracy). Hence, this article situates itself in the current data policy debate in the EU reinforcing the role city-regions could play in leading data ecosystems under the post-GDPR policy umbrella in the EU particularly by providing cases, projects, and initiatives about technological sovereignty as a result of the collaboration among stakeholders at the local and city-regional level. This policy article is structured in three main sections: (i) Diagnosis, (ii) Intervention, and (iii) Roadmap.

To cite this article:
Calzada, Igor (2020), Euskal Nazio Algoritmikoa Sortuz: Subirautza Teknologikoa Post-COVID-19 Gizartean/Setting up the Basque Algorithmic Nation: Technological Sovereignty Amidst the Post-COVID-19 Society. Bergara: TMLab.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28853.01766/1
Available at/Retrieved from: https://telesforomonzonlab.eus/covid-19-gogoeta-gunea/ (accessed on 17th April 2020).

"En el presente trabajo nos proponemos reconocer las líneas maestras que han marcado algunas de las interpretaciones en este tema [relaciones campo-ciudad] y apuntar nuevos enfoques y propuestas para su estudio en los reinos hispánicos, a fines de la Edad Media y en los inicios de la Edad Moderna"

This article compares three small, stateless, city-regional nation cases of Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country after September 2014. Since the referendum on Scottish independence, depending on its unique context, each case has engaged differently in democratic and deliberative experimentation on the «right to decide» its future beyond its referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in the UK and Spain. Most recently, the Brexit referendum has triggered a deeper debate on how regional and political demands by these cases could re-scale the fixed (pluri)nation(al)-states’ structures while even directly advocating for some sort of «Europeanization». Based on a broader research programme on comparing city-regional cases titled «Benchmarking City-Regions», this paper argues that the differences in each of these three cases are noteworthy. Yet, even more substantial are their diverse means of accommodating smart devolutionary strategic pathways of self-determination through political innovation processes among pervasive metropolitanisation responses to a growing «post-national urbanity» pattern in the European Union. Thus, the paper examines: To what extent are the starting points of the levels of «smart devolution» for each case similar? What are the potential political scenarios for these cases as a result of the de- or recentralisation strategies of their referential (pluri)nation(al)-states? What are the most relevant distinct strategic political innovation processes in each case? Ultimately, this paper aims to benchmark how Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country are strategically moving forward beyond their referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in such a new European geopolitical pattern we can call «post-national urbanity» by formulating devolution, and even independence, in unique metropolitan terms.

Nel corso degli ultimi decenni la struttura insediativa italiana si è modificata in ragione di nuove dinamiche di aggregazione e di gravitazione, definendo immagini spaziali inedite che sconvolgono i quadri interpretativi consolidati, affermando il ruolo sempre più strategico del sistema urbano intermedio. La tesi è che non tutte le città medie sono uguali: alcune svolgono ruoli gregari e tributari rispetto alle città metropolitane, altre si propongono come alternativa regionale autonoma rispetto ai grandi poli, altre infine svolgono il ruolo di cerniera tra le città metropolitane e i territori marginali delle aree interne. Tutte insieme, però, contribuiscono alla funzionalità complessiva del sistema economico-sociale. Nel ridisegno programmatico del nuovo modello di sviluppo, il riconoscimento del ruolo del sistema urbano intermedio può rappresentare la chiave di lettura capace di riconoscere il valore aggiunto delle città di media dimensione all’interno del programma di riequilibrio complessivo del territorio, in termini di complementarità e sinergia tra aree forti e zone marginali interne. Una rilettura critica di questa situazione in corso di evoluzione è quanto mai utile e opportuna, per ripensare il sistema della governance territoriale e per proporre il definitivo completamento del progetto di riordino istituzionale avviato con la Legge Delrio e mai giunto a compimento, partendo dal ruolo delle Province, fino all’eventuale ridisegno delle Regioni secondo una diversa logica ‘macro-regionale’.

The Taiwanese central government views city-county consolidations as an effective method to strengthen national competitiveness and to balance regional development. But for local governments, consolidation presents a series of planning challenges, especially in relation to the reconstruction of planning concepts and discourses in their new territories. Aiming to understand the process, this study first proposes a typology of regional planning concepts as a conceptual tool to explore whether and how the consolidated governments (re)construct their urban-rural planning concepts, and then it examines the factors that may influence (re)conceptualisation through a comparative study of Taichung City and Tainan City. The research results show that overemphasis on using the concept of competitive city regionalism to balance regional development at the national level may lead to a widening of rural-urban disparities at regional and local levels.

ABSTRACT:

This policy report about the 2nd Edition 2016-2017 of the MSC in Global Sustainable Cities, entitled ‘Global Sustainable City-Regions,’ covers the work developed jointly by the lecturer, Dr Igor Calzada, MBA, as the editor of the publication and students/participants of the second edition of the MSc from September to December 2016 at the Institute for Future Cities in the Business Faculty at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (Scotland – UK).

Specifically, this policy report follows a two-sequential-module structure:

• The first module, entitled ‘Global Cities: Sustainability and Society,’ consists of six methodological units.
• Thereafter, the second module, entitled ‘Public Policy, Governance and Strategic Change in Cities,’ consists of five methodological units.

The policy report focuses on three urban global issues in a comparative basis. The MSc was developed in a team-based dynamic by applying qualitative action research methodologies to understand and interpret each case and to benchmark and contrast with other cases that addressed the same global urban issue.

The cases were selected jointly by the lecturer and the students/participants in a dynamic process in order to achieve a suitable selection of cases that would allow them to:

• arrange groups around one specific global urban issue,
• compare cases around the same specific urban issue, and
• produce a full case study by applying the two-sequential-module methodology.

As a result, the following three global urban issues and seven Global Sustainable City-Region case studies were selected. Each student/participant worked on each of them, as follows:

Transformative Smart Cities:

    Stockholm (Melissa Candel)
    Kolkata (Dalia Hui)
    Masdar (Omar Islam)
    Bengaluru (Seema Issar)
    Seoul (Nattharucha Piamsawat)

Changing Social Innovation:

    Berlin (Laura Fritsche)
    Belfast (Laetitia Lucy)
    Malawi (Akuzike Florence Kamwanja)
    Hong Kong (Rebecca Seraphine Mueller)
    Helsinki (Venla Riekkinen)
    Glasgow (Rhona Morven Sampson)


---
The series of editions have been published as follows:

Calzada, I. (Ed) [Abubaker, H., Bensaid, M., Butler, M., Cameron, M., Doin, S., Duke, I., Dutary, R., Fleming-Knox, A.R., & Klinefelter, T.] (2018), Global Sustainable City-Regions: Naples, Glasgow, Rio de Janeiro, Lyon, Panamá, Kuala-Lumpur, & Silicon Valley, Zumaia: Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing, in collaboration with the Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde. ISBN (e-book): 978-84-946385-5-8. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21794.73922

Calzada, I. (Ed) [Candel, M., Fritsche, L., Hui, D., Islam, O., Issar, S., Kamwanja, A., Lucy, L., Mueller, R., Piamsawat, N., Riekkinen, V. & Sampson, R.] (2017), Global Sustainable City-Regions: Stockholm, Berlin, Kolkata, Abu Dhabi/Masdar, Bengaluru, Malawi, Belfast, Hong Kong, Seoul, Helsinki, & Scotland, Zumaia: Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing, in collaboration with the Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde. ISBN (e-book): 978-84-946385-0-3. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14958.72000/2.

Calzada I. (Ed) [MacDonald, K., Qiu, N., Dynes, C., Murray, G., Watson-Puskas, N., McAdam, G., & Barrett, F.] (2016), Global Sustainable City-Regions: Mumbai, Shenzhen, Reykjavik, Portland, Budapest, Glasgow, and Rotterdam, Zumaia: Translokal – Academic Entrepreneurship for Policy Making – Publishing, in collaboration with the City Protocol Society and the Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde. ISBN (e-book): 978-84-942752-7-2. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3053.1609.

A globális gazdaságban lezajló folyamatok a növekvő agglomerálódás és a nagyvárosok radikális felértékelődése felé mutatnak. A világvárosok hálózata és a hozzájuk kapcsolódó nagyvárosi központok a magas hozzáadott értékű gazdasági tevékenységek erős koncentrációját valósítják meg, és ezek a térségek a fejlesztéspolitika idealizált esettanulmányaivá is válnak. Ezzel párhuzamosan azonban az elégséges méretgazdasági előnyökkel nem rendelkező, 100-300 ezer lakosú kisebb nagyvárosok a perifériára sodródás veszélyével kénytelenek szembenézni. Mivel ezek a városok és kapcsolatrendszereik fedik le a közép-európai tér jelentős részét, kritikus kérdés, hogy képesek-e alkalmazkodni az uralkodó térfolyamatokhoz, képesek-e a gazdaságukat jó irányba elmozdító fejlesztő együttműködések kialakítására.

Ebben a tanulmányban három kisebb nagyváros (Pécs, Miskolc és Győr) példáján azt vizsgálom, hogy a gazdasági szerkezet, a telephelyi adottságok és üzleti környezet átalakulása, valamint a hálózatszerveződés milyen kapcsolatban van a helyi–térségi intézményi struktúrákkal, és mennyiben lehetséges az innovatív fejlesztéspolitika kialakítása olyan térségekben, ahol csak gyenge agglomerációs előnyök találhatók. A tanulmány felhívja a figyelmet a kedvező folytonosságot hordozó örökölt tényezők és az emberi erőforrások, társadalmi tőke jelentőségére, valamint az ezek folyamatos megújítására képes intézményrendszer fontosságára.

A városi kormányzás gyengesége és meghatározó, tőkeerős hazai nagyvállalatok hiányában nem beszélhetünk fejlesztő városi rezsimekről, de a helyi tudás tudás és stratégiai gondolkodás  városi térségekben fellelhető elemeinek egymáshoz illesztésével kialakíthatók a fejlesztési döntések megfogalmazására és képviseletére alkalmas fejlesztési koalíciók, illetve a neokorporativista (osztrák-délnémet mintájú) modellhez közel álló formalizált együttműködési rendszerek.

This article compares the cases of the three small, stateless, city-regional nations of Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country in the period after September 2014. Since the referendum on Scottish independence, these nations have, depending on their unique contexts, engaged differently in democratic and deliberative experimentation on the “right to decide” their futures beyond being referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in the UK or Spain. Most recently, the Brexit referendum has triggered a deeper debate on how regional and political demands by these nations could rescale the fixed (pluri)nation(al)-states’ structures while even directly advocating for some sort of “Europeanization”. Based on a broader research programme on comparing city-regional cases titled ‘Benchmarking City-Regions’ (www.cityregions.org), this paper argues that the differences in each of these three cases are noteworthy. Yet, even more substantial are their diverse means of accommodating smart devolutionary strategic pathways of self-determination through political innovation processes among pervasive metropolitanization responses to a growing “post-national urbanity” pattern in the European Union. Ultimately, this paper aims to benchmark how Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country are strategically moving forward beyond their referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in such a new European geopolitical pattern that can be called “post-national urbanity” by formulating devolution, and even independence, in unique metropolitan terms.

It has been argued that the new form of relational governance might lead to a substantial deficit of democratic accountability, but in previous studies less attention has been paid to what accountability is and how to systematically analyse it before announcing there are accountability deficits. In order to advance the knowledge of accountability and relational governance, this paper examines the notion of accountability and adopts a conceptual framework of public accountability established by Mark Bovens to conduct a case study of Eindhoven city-regional governance. Eindhoven city-region has been recognised as a successful story of high-tech development and its success is a result of a new form of relational governance—close collaboration between different levels of government and other parties, including high-tech firms and knowledge institutes. Major focus is put on the establishment and operation of the Brainport organizations, which perfectly represents the new form of relational governance in Eindhoven city-region. By mapping its networks of accountability and assessing its accountability arrangement, this paper finds that the degree of the Brainport organizations’ accountability toward the municipal councils differs from municipality to municipality. While the councils of municipal stakeholders of Brainport Development NV may use municipal regular planning and control cycle of annual memorandum, reports, and budget to influence the content and financial frameworks of Brainport organizations’ year plan to certain degree, the councils of non-stakeholder municipalities in Eindhoven city-region can hardly ever influence the decision making of the Brainport organizations. From either the democratic or the learning perspective, the institutional arrangement of the Brainport organizations insufficiently satisfy the criteria of accountability. This indicates large space for improvement. Further, the case study results remind us that comparing to the traditional governance mode the nature of relational governance is rather dynamic. It is a learning by doing process and is constantly shaped by the alteration of national policy as well as of the changing agreements between the municipalities. Thus, it deserves continuously monitoring and investigating the change of city-regional institutional setting and its influences on the accountability arrangement of the relational governance.

South Africa’s post-apartheid government has been successful in raising the standard of living for millions of people. It has provided them with access to housing and basic services, improved health and education, and developed social services and urban amenities where none existed before. However, there remain many thorny development challenges that government is, at least at present, poorly equipped to address. Consequently, there remains deep dissatisfaction among many residents, which at various times and in certain contexts has led to widespread community protests.

This report stems from the premise that data, and analysis thereof, are critical for local and provincial governments in Gauteng to understand where progress has been made and where intervention is required.

The City Benchmarking Report presents some key findings from the Quality of Life IV (2015/16) survey at the municipal and provincial levels. The results provide insight into a range of objective indicators such as access to basic services, travel patterns, and economic activity, as well as respondents’ subjective opinions, perceptions and levels of satisfaction. This combination allows us to gain a multi-dimensional understanding of quality of life in the province as well as some of the drivers that improve or worsen it. While there are many aspects of quality of life measured by the survey, this report focuses on specific issues related to municipal service access, satisfaction with services received, satisfaction with the municipality providing those services, and the relationship between access, satisfaction and overall quality of life.

Although this report allows government, residents and stakeholders to compare municipalities with one another, its benchmarking analysis should not be read as a competitive scoring of cities, which in turn becomes a basis for municipalities to market themselves as having the ‘highest quality of life’, or to vie with one another over who has the best performance. Some municipalities do better on some variables, but worse on others. The point of this report is to help each municipality understand its own strengths and weaknesses in relation to others and to the broader Gauteng context.

The year 2014 was remarkable for the European Union with regards to how city-regional 'small nations' (Keating, 2014) engaged in democratic experimentation on the right to decide their future beyond their referential nation-states. Key examples include Scotland's and Catalonia's pursuits of independence from the United Kingdom and Spain, respectively. A similar situation occurred in the Basque Country as a consequence of the region increasingly overcoming the political violence that dominated the previous era. There, a democratic debate regarding devolution, constitutional change, independence, and new political relationship with nation-state Spain has arisen (Calzada & Bildarratz, 2015). Regardless the political outcomes, consequences, and meanings in the three aforementioned small nations, the differences in each case's political culture and history are noteworthy. Even more notable are their different means of accommodating a new strategic city-regional governance pathway (Herrschel, 2014) through implicit social innovation processes. Social innovation processes (Moulaert, 2013) depict the way in which stakeholders in a given city-regional small nation-such as political parties, social movements, corporate powers, and media, among others-are led in one direction or another as a whole. To what extent is the starting point of the devolution for each city-regional small nation similar according to its governance, history, and policies? What are the potential political scenarios for each city-regional small nation as a result of the de/recentralisation attitude of its referential nation-states? What are the most relevant strategic social innovation processes occurring in each case? This paper aims to benchmark how the Basque Country, Catalonia and Scotland are strategically moving forward beyond their referential nation-states in a diverse way by formulating devolution and even independence in unique terms, as a consequence of the dynamics between stakeholders in each location. This paper is part of a broader research project entitled 'Benchmarking Future City-Regions 2 '.

Hungarian planning struggles. Budapest and the Agglomeration is an administrative unit going through a rapid urbanisation. It has a plan but no representation. Communities are exposed to per diem decisions of local governments and market forces - unconcerned by future consequences, impacts on future resources and available land allocations. Planning in Eastern European countries is slow to adapt to metropolisation. Planning and plans have been adapting till today to changing scales and complexity producing different solutions in different places by becoming: more spatial and strategic. Through a series of mixed research methods - literature reviews, face-to-face interviews with experts and an internet questionnaire targeting wider audience of planners this study examines the concept and practice of city-region planning and forms an argument that strategic spatial planning on city-region level can address challenges of metropolisation in the case of Budapest Agglomeration.

This article introduces three small, European stateless nations that—invigorated by pervasive metropolitanisation phenomena—are increasingly shaping calls for devolution: Catalonia, the Basque Country and Scotland. These three nations are re-scaling their respective nation-states (Spain and the UK) in different ways: (i) being bolstered by their metropolitan hubs (Barcelona, Bilbao, and Glasgow) and (ii) generating a stateless ‘civic nationalism’ rooted in the metropolitan ‘right to decide’. Oppositional response to this ‘civic nationalism’ has re-emerged as state-centric ‘ethnic nationalism’. This article concludes that gaining or lacking metropolitan support for the ‘right to decide’ will establish the future directions of devolution debates.

Academia should (ultimately and) inevitably overpass its disciplinary boundaries if engaging in knowledge exchange activities in order to tackle political and city-regional challenges. Despite the current post-Brexit scenario's uncertainty and the similarly evolving context of the European regional realm, research collaborations among urban scholars across Europe through interdisciplinary scientific ties are vital to building further democratic cities and regions, even more so now and for the future. The present circumstances urge us to take action in support of this socio-political endeavour to, as it was the main purpose for this visiting fellowship.

Many studies of neighbourhood change adopt a ‘bookend’ mode of analysis in which a baseline year is identified for a chosen outcome variable from which the magnitude of change is calculated to a determined end-point typically over bi-decadal or decadal timeframes. However, this mode of analysis smooths-away short-run change patterns and neighbourhood dynamics. The implications of this practice could be far reaching if it is accepted that as neighbourhoods change they are liable to cross a threshold and transition from one state to another in the short as well as longer-term. In a case study of deprived neighbourhoods in the Greater Manchester city-region, this paper aims to contribute to neighbourhood change debates in two ways. The first is by isolating transition pathways for individual neighbourhoods using annual change data. The second is by testing the thesis that the more deprived a neighbourhood is, the more likely it is to respond with greater volatility to short-run shocks when compared to less-deprived neighbourhoods. Four indicators collected annually between 2001 and 2010 are used to develop a typology of neighbourhood change and a subsequent typology of neighbourhood transition. The analysis exposed 260 different transition pathways that deprived neighbourhoods followed over the study period. Multinomial logistic regression was then used to determine the odds of a neighbourhood undergoing transition along a specific pathway owing to its level of deprivation. The model revealed that the most deprived neighbourhoods were likely to follow more volatile transition pathways compared to the less-deprived neighbourhoods especially during periods of economic difficulty.

This panel organised by Dr Calzada and chaired by Dr Herrschel, has been accepted to be into the programme of UACES (The Academic Association for Contemporary European Studies) Conference in Bilbao.

European regional context is being transformed by the increasingly demand of the sub-national territorial units to reach more devolution and even independence. Under the same devolution regional trend though, many manifestations can be identified that remark their new relationship with their referential nation-states. This panel looks at the concept such as 'devolution', 'independence' and 'self determination' in order to find theoretical and policy-informed evidences in the European arena. Moreover, it looks into ways in which the phenomenon could be explained from different perspective such as, city-regionalism, comparative politics, urban and spatial planning, city diplomacy and social innovation, among others.

This article aims to shed some light on the current debate of the independence in the European broad context that the author entitled 'Postindependence', by pointing out remarkable differences between EU nation-states such as the UK and Spain.

The UK and Spain are not depicted as having the same nation-state DNA with regard to their respective histories and political-cultural traditions. A glance at the current European regional comparative context reveals that, while the UK Government has legitimised the Scottish Government and supported the Scottish Independence referendum as being a highly democratic exercise, Spain stands out as remaining normatively inflexible without, so far, even contemplating any dialogue with the presidents of the Catalan and Basque Autonomies.

In 2020, in the new EU strategic horizon that is opening at present, the place should matter more than ever when it refers to territories that are envisaged from the Social Innovation paradigm (Moulaert, Mulgan and Morgan). Nevertheless, how will the suggested H2020 strategy based on Smart City and Communities1, contribute and implement the so-called Social Innovation; facing realistic, economic and politic-driven issues in an increasingly territorially heterogeneous EU current context? This article aims to shed some light on the Critical Social Innovation (CSI) challenges from a constructive position.

To cite this keynote conference: Calzada, I. (2021), Smart City-Regions’ Citizenship: Data Devolution in Pandemic Times. The making of city-regions: Mobility, innovation and networks. SwissLab_2021. Lugano-Locarno (Switzerland). 9-10 September. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.20408.26888.

The paper defines an analytical "post-suburban" framework to study the contemporary Italian urbanization. In so doing, the paper undertakes an overview of the Italian urban transformations from the II postwar onwards, by also discussing three pivotal national researches, towards the definition of an analytical perimeter able to unfold novel perspectives to study the contemporary urban Italy. The ultimate goal is to trigger novel approaches in the study of Italian landscape and urban areas. La configurazione del dibattito post-suburbano in Italia Il contributo propone una concettualizzazione analitica del "post suburbano" in Italia, costruita attraverso una descrizione dei processi evolutivi dell'urbanizza-zione in Italia dal II dopoguerra, ed una successiva discussione di tre rilevanti ricerche nazionali, con il fine di individuare un perimetro analitico capace di offrire nuovi approcci di studio alle questioni urbane, verso una comprensione più profonda dei processi di sub-urbanizzazione e di trasformazione dei contesti urbani italiani.

Spatial scale, in terms of public administration, is viewed as a manageable, planned, sustainable optimal spatial scale. The issue of incompatibility between functional economic spatiality of metropolitan areas or urban regions and the boundaries of local administrative units is one of the fundamental issues in the re-spatialization of the state, and considered from a wide variety of perspectives such as public choice school, liberal approaches, and radical or Marxist theory. This issue requires an evaluation involving many different dimensions such as dynamics and flows of socioeconomic life, reorganization of local governments, and collaborations across a metropolitan area. In this study, city-region is evaluated as a new factual stage of metropolitan development and the research has been shaped on this basis. In this framework, a classification of metropolitan cities is developed on the base of morphological (spatial methodology) and functional (index evaluations) analysis, findings of this analysis and evaluations.

Quale governance si sta configurando nell'eterogeneo alveo delle aree suburbane? Come occorre agire sulle trasformazioni sociali delle popolazioni suburbane? Per intercettare le questioni di governance, il presente contributo individua il campo di studi della suburban governance, che offre un frame per leggere le questioni di carattere pubblico di governo delle aree suburbane, permettendo anche di ricondurre l'attenzione alle forme di pianificazione del welfare con un forte ancoraggio ai territori e alle loro specificità. Dopo circa vent'anni di sperimentazioni del welfare su scala locale, i contesti suburbani sollevano nuovi interrogativi e nuovi aspetti legati al bisogno di rispondere ai processi di trasformazione socio-spaziale che hanno lentamente ma gradualmente assunto forme disarticolate nello sviluppo urbano. Le realtà polinucleari di diverse città italiane cristallizzano, in forme eterogenee, tali fenomeni interpretabili con la chiave di lettura della "governance suburbana", applicata dalla ricerca internazionale Global Suburbanisms, suddivisa in tre principali aree tematiche (governance, land, infrastructure) e cinque cluster di ricerca in quattro continenti diversi.

This review grounds its reflection in the study of metropolitan areas in the 21st century by discussing and bridging the analytical differences between two recent contributions: a book edited by Jill Simone Gross, Enrico Gualini and Lin Ye on the one hand, and a report produced by a collective endeavour among Inter-American Development Bank, UN-Habitat and Development Bank of Latin America coordinated by David Gomez-Àlvarez who also co-edited the report together with Robin Rajack, Eduardo Lòpez-Moreno and Gabriel Lan- franchi. The two manuscripts address the key role played by metropolitan areas (or regions), whether they are core points of the global cities’ network, central urban areas of their country, or pivotal na- tional places for both international and local devel- opment. The editors undertake two different ap- proaches in viewing the metropolitan spaces and scales worldwide. On the one hand, Gross, Gualini and Ye tackle the fuzzy nature of metropolitan spaces as political actors and policy objects, even in view of the social construction of the scale lying behind the metropolitan rationale. Steering the me- tropolis discusses instead the importance of pursu- ing the already legitimized centrality of metropoli- tan areas for the contemporary development of urban areas, as well as to draw further governance challenges. Common to both volumes is the effort to shed light on the centrality gained by metropoli- tan areas since the second half of the previous cen- tury and in particular in the first decade of 2000s, as a result of the state rescaling began in Western countries (Brenner, 2003).

In sharp contrast to Soviet urban planning doctrines, which aimed to contain the growth of large cities, contemporary Russian planners do the opposite – promote urban growth by merging municipalities into " urban agglomerations ". While the economic effects of agglomeration and concentration have been studied extensively, the politics and policy of metropolitan government have attracted less attention, especially in non-Western contexts. Using the current debates on city-regionalism and metropolisa-tion, this paper examines state-led metropolisation in Russia. It concludes: i) metropolisation in Russia is promoted by the federal government; ii) case studies of the Siberian cities Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk show that the emerging form of metropolitan governance is weak and unstable; iii) state-led metropolisation is problematic because accelerated growth of selected metropolitan areas can further exacerbate existing disparities within the already spatially polarised country.

Zusammenfassung Die Kutsche vor dem Pferd: Gefahren staatlich be-stimmter Metropolisierung in Russland Im klaren Gegensatz zu den sowjetischen Städtebaudoktrinen, die auf die Eindämmung des Wachstums großer Städte abzielten, tun heutige russische Planer das Gegenteil – sie fördern das Städ-tewachstum, indem sie Stadtbezirke zu städtischen Ballungsräu-men verschmelzen. Während die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der Verstädterung und Konzentration intensiv erforscht sind, sind Politik und Strategien von Stadtverwaltungen weniger beachtet worden, besonders wenn es nicht um westliche Zusammenhänge geht. Diese Veröffentlichung untersucht die staatlich bestimm-te Metropolisierung in Russland und greift dabei die aktuellen Debatten zu Stadt-Regionalismus und Metropolisierung auf. Sie kommt zu folgendem Schluss: i) Die Metropolisierung in Russland wird durch die Regierung der Russischen Föderation gefördert; ii) Fallstudien der sibirischen Städte Krasnojarsk und Novosibirsk zeigen, dass die entstehende Form der Großstadtverwaltung schwach und unbeständig ist; iii) die staatlich bestimmte Me-tropolisierung ist problematisch, weil das beschleunigte Wachs-tum ausgewählter Großstadtbereiche vorhandene Ungleichhei-ten innerhalb des bereits räumlich polarisierten Landes weiter verschärfen kann.