Governance and Planning of Mega-City Regions: An International Comparative Perspective

@text:Neoliberalism's market revolution has had a tremendous effect on contemporary mega-city regions. The negative consequences of market-oriented politics for territorial growth have been commonly realized. While a lot of attention has been given to how planners and policy makers are fighting back political fragmentation through innovative governance and planning, little has been done to reveal such practices through an international comparative perspective. In case studies written from a variety of theoretical and political perspectives by a group of world leading scholars, this volume examines how new approaches in governance and planning are reshaping mega-city regions in Europe, North America, Australia and China.The volume provides a comparative treatment of mega-city regions' development and planning around the world. The contributors highlight how European mega-city regions are evolving and strategic intervention redefined to enable the integration of urban qualities in a multi-level governance environment, how traditional federal countries see the promise of major policies and development initiatives finally moving ahead to herald a more strategic intervention at national and regional scales, and how transitional economies witness the rise of state strategies to control the articulation of scales and to reassert the functional importance of state in a growing diffused power context due to decentralization and market reform.While all mega-city regions are at the forefront of rapid transition, they have different rationales, development patterns, fiscal capacities, managerial abilities and experiences in regional governance and planning. Also, they are evolving in different political contexts and economic landscapes. The roles of their public and private sectors in regional formation vary in form and sophistication. Through the international case studies, however, we see that regulatory power is unlikely to wane in all contexts despite strong market revolution under neoliberalism. Strategic concerns and planning efforts will play more important roles to increase competitiveness and sustainability of mega-city regions around the world.