Abstract
In Europe, metropolitan policies emerge in a multi-scalar system of supranational, national and regional scales. Besides national policies on metropolitan issues, more and more European policies address metropolitan regions. They propose varying attributes of what characterizes a metropolitan region, for instance, defining them as functional and statistical areas, or as nodes for European spatial development. These conceptualizations of metropolitan regions have implications for institutional forms of metropolitan governance. However, existing research has not yet comparatively explored the development of metropolitan concepts in national and supranational policy contexts. This paper compares the changing concepts of metropolitan regions in the European Union, France and Germany. It raises the question of how different policies conceptualize metropolitan regions. Thereby, the paper proposes a comparative perspective on concepts in policies addressing metropolitan regions, such as policy documents, planning strategies, regulations or reports. It analyses shifts in metropolitan policies by describing the change of concepts and the reference to frames of spatial development such as polycentricity, competitiveness or integrated development. Three analytical perspectives contribute to understanding the change of metropolitan policies. First, the comparison of concepts in different national and supranational policy contexts develops an understanding of metropolitan regions beyond national specificities. Second, a historical comparison contributes to understanding changes in metropolitan concepts since the late 1990s. And third, analysing the development of metropolitan policies comparatively explores similarities of concepts and frames between policy contexts, despite differences in institutional settings.
Highlights
In Europe, policies on metropolitan regions are influenced by various national specificities, such as the structure of the urban system, the institutional context or the planning tradition
Metropolitan policies in France, Germany and the European Union (EU) differ in their institutional context, and regarding the framing and specific conceptualizations of metropolitan regions, as we find important differences in how metropolitan policies implement and organize these ideas in practice
The comparison of metropolitan policies in France, Germany and the EU has shown that since the 1990s conceptualizations of metropolitan regions have shifted from a negative to a positive perception and towards a rhetoric emphasis on competitiveness
Summary
In Europe, policies on metropolitan regions are influenced by various national specificities, such as the structure of the urban system, the institutional context or the planning tradition. France and Germany represent two instructive examples of metropolitan policies, because in both cases national policies explicitly addressing metropolitan regions have changed importantly in the past two decades The comparison of these two national contexts contributes to understandings of metropolitan policies in Europe, as both are member states of the EU, yet differ in terms of their political, administrative and planning systems. This paper contributes to the existing research by comparing metropolitan policies with regard to changes in their central concept as well as underlying frames It raises the question of how metropolitan regions as spatial concepts have developed in the past two decades. The objective of the paper is, first, to describe the change of spatial concepts and underlying frames since the 1990s in three different policy contexts – France, Germany and the EU – in order to categorize existing understandings in policy practice. Thereby, the paper shows that policy concepts can be influenced by the exchange of ideas, yet change according to specificities of the national or supranational context
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