The rise of the city-region as a geo-political concept Kevin Morgan School of Planning and Geography Cardiff University Geographical Association Conference April 2015 University of Manchester

The country in the city (by design) Bosco Verticale Milan

The country in the city (by default) Bangkok 2011

Framing the city-region City-regionalism can be framed in two ways Broadly – it refers to the multiple ways in which cities are trying to reconnect with their regional hinterlands to create more strategic planning spaces Narrowly – it refers to functional economic areas which are normally defined by travel-to-work areas The narrow lens sees city-regions as a vehicle to promote local economic growth (“collaborate locally to compete globally” is the mantra) and this is the dominant conception in the UK

New economic geography The New Economic Geography has fuelled the narrow version because it reifies agglomeration Productivity and innovation are strongly correlated with agglomeration of economic activity Economic growth is uneven, but NEG argues that development can be inclusive if connectivity is good The implication is that policy-makers should foster urban agglomerations not frustrate them NEG provides the rationale for a metro-centric philosophy, bordering on metromania

Metromania – the academics

Metromania – the policymakers

Cardiff Capital Region  South East Wales: 10 municipalities, 1.5 million population  2 main cities : Cardiff/Newport  3 zones: the coastal area; heads of the valleys; lower valleys  Cardiff Capital Region created in 2013  Cardiff’s twin city, Stuttgart, created its city-region in 1994 with 179 municipalities and 2.6 million population

Commuting flows into Cardiff

Metro Map

Integrating the city-region

Sustainable city-regions: the broader/ecological frame

Bristol Good Food Plan

City-region narratives Two very different city-region narratives have emerged in the UK over the past decade The competitive city-region narrative is framed around economic growth and it is a top-down elite-driven affair led by the Core Cities and Central Government The sustainable city-region narrative is framed in ecological terms and it tends to be a bottom-up civic affair led by social movements and municipalities The fate of these narratives will be decided by politics not economics – not least by the rapidly changing geo- politics of the UK

References Harrison, J. (2014) Rethinking city-regionalism, Urban Studies 51/11 Morgan, K. (2007) The polycentric state: new spaces of empowerment and engagement? Regional Studies 41/9 Morgan, K. (2014) The Rise of Metropolitics: urban governance in the age of the city-region, in N. Bradford and A. Bramwell (eds) Governing Urban Economies, UTP, Toronto OECD (2014) The Metropolitan Century, Paris OECD (2015) Governing the City, Paris