COMPARING GLOBAL CITIES Proposal for an OECD definition of Metropolitan Region 11th Working Party on Territorial Indicators 29 November 2005 OECD Headquarters - Paris

Introduction Metropolitan Regions (MR) are crucial economic actors. The TDPC and the Working Party are increasingly called to compare the performance of MR across member countries Lack of comparable definition Propose a methodology to develop an internationally comparable definition of MR across countries.

Background A preliminary survey of definition of MR has been carried out among member countries (Table 1) All definitions employ at least one criteria among the following: Size Density Commuting from peripheral to core area Large size in terms of population or employment High population density or densely built-up area

Background The OECD collects data at two levels, Small regions (TL 3) Large regions (TL 2) As for the analysis of MR these territorial grids pose 3 problems: MR identify an economic space defined by commuting patterns “functional region” . This space is not always reflected by TL 3 or TL 2 administrative regions. In some cases TL 3 regions are too small to approximate a MR (e.g. Paris, Inner London, Milan) In some countries (Australia, Canada, Mexico and USA) regional account data are available only for large regions (TL 2) ISSUE TO BE FACED Trade-off between the accuracy of the delimitation of a MR and the availability of statistical information

The proposal Use as much as possible units for which data are available Two rules to deal with problem 2 and 3 respectively: Rule 1: if the MR is larger than a single TL3 region, aggregate TL 3 regions close to the core as to approximate the MR. Rule 2: If data are available for regions significantly larger than the MR, estimate missing data based on the existing definition of MR

349 TL3 Regions Classified as PU (Predominantly Urban) according to the OECD definition Selection of PU regions with positive commuting rate Is the commuting rate lower than 10%? Yes No The Urban Region is economically self contained. lower than 10%? Adding urban or intermediate (rural) regions next to the urban region taken into exam is the commuting rate Yes According to its population in what of the following groups is the Urban region classified? More than 9 m Between 9 and 5 m Between 5 and 2 m Less than 2 m Does the PU region concentrate more than 20% of the country population?

Bratislavský Region Name Commuting Rate Bratislavský kraj 1.22 Trnavský kraj 0.86 Bratislava FR 1.06

København og Frederiksberg Kommuner Region Name Commuting Rate København og Frederiksberg Kommuner 1.77 Københavns amt 1.04 Frederiksborg amt 0.75 Roskilde amt 0.70 Skåne län 0.99 Copenhagen FR 1.06