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

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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 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

5. 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

6. 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?

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

8. 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