Metropolitan Elitism, Marginalisation and the Need for ‘Smartness' in Governing the Regionalised City

Abstract

This paper introduces the notion of ‘smartness’ in the governance of city-regions as an approach to reconcile competing and conflicting interests and outcomes between an increasingly metropolitan-centric competitiveness agenda and a territorially-based, concern with more equitable development of the state. While the former produces selective networks of opportunity-driven nodes of place and agency, circumscribing a virtual space of interconnection and inter- interaction, the latter refers to conventional territorial entities of control, power, governing legitimation and collective belonging. The ability to connect structure and agency, i.e. static and more dynamic interests, without reconfiguring the state, is where innovative, entrepreneurial and also experimental – i.e. ‘smart’ policy making and governance is required. This conundrum between conflicting, individualist aspirations and the need for considering collective interests in a representative democracy, is illustrated by the example of the Oresund Region.