Tassilo Herrschel

Competitiveness AND Sustainability: Can ‘Smart City Regionalism’ Square the Circle?

Increasingly, the widely established, globalisation-driven agenda of economic competitiveness meets a growing concern with sustainability. Yet, the practical and conceptual co-existence—or fusion—of these two agendas is not always easy. This includes finding and operationalising the ‘right’ scale of governance, an important question for the pursuit of the distinctly transscalar nature of these two policy fields. ‘New regionalism’ has increasingly been discussed as a pragmatic way of tackling the variable spatialities associated with these policy fields and their changing articulation. This paper introduces ‘smart (new) city-regionalism’, derived from the principles of smart growth and new regionalism, as a policy-shaping mechanism and analytical framework. It brings together the rationales, agreed principles and legitimacies of publicly negotiated polity with collaborative, network-based and policy-driven spatiality. The notion of ‘smartness’, as suggested here as central feature, goes beyond the implicit meaning of ‘smart’ as in ‘smart growth’. When introduced in the later 1990s the term embraced a focus on planning and transport. Since then, the adjective ‘smart’ has become used ever more widely, advocating innovativeness, participation, collaboration and co-ordination. The resulting ‘smart city regionalism’ is circumscribed by the interface between the sectorality and territoriality of policy-making processes. Using the examples of Vancouver and Seattle, the paper looks at the effects of the resulting specific local conditions on adopting ‘smartness’ in the scalar positioning of policy-making.

City regions, polycentricity and the construction of peripheralities through governance

City regions have become a key paradigm in current academic debates, and with them the notion of network-based, polycentric spaces. They have moved to the foreground of national (and EU) policies of creating economic ‘champions’ for successful national economies. No longer is such success perceived as being equal everywhere across a territory. Instead, economic and policy spaces are being subdivided into ‘corridors of connectivity’ and city-regional ‘nodes’ as key elements of a network-defined space. The nodes are loci of bundled, variably ‘thick’ connectivities. This paper argues that instead of contiguous economic territories as spatial ‘containers’, these are now becoming increasingly subdivided into bundles of separate linear territories, leaving ‘in between’ much less well connected, effectively marginalized spaces and actors, whose access to power and policymaking capacity is much more limited. The result is a reinforced, perpetuated inequality in opportunities, with regionalization in danger of creating more divisions and boundaries, rather than less.

Regionalisation, “virtual” spaces and “real” territories: A view from Europe and North America

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine evidence of new forms of regionalisation in both theory and practice, and the relationship between the two. In so doing, it aims to demonstrate the essential complementarity, rather than widely argued alternativeness, of both conventional and new forms of inter‐local collaboration at the regional level. The paper also seeks to demonstrate the importance of institutional and local legacies for the nature of regionalisation.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on interviews by the author with economic policy makers in several city regions in Europe and North America over the last three years, and the results of a series of workshops involving many of these very policy makers.Findings – There is growing evidence of new forms of inter‐local region building being adopted by policy makers in response to a perceived need to maintain/improve economic competitiveness. Concerns about “giving away” powers and resources when engaging in usual conventional, formalised,...

Constructing a new understanding of the environment under postsocialism

This paper introduces a special grouping of papers on the theme of the environment and postsocialism. After the collapse of state socialism in Europe between 1989 and 1991, many immediate approaches to environmental reconstruction assumed that economic liberalisation and democratisation would alleviate problems. Since then, critics have argued that these proposed solutions were themselves problematic, and too closely reflected Western European and North American conceptions of environmental quality and democracy. The result has been a counterreaction focusing on detail and specificity at national levels and below. In this paper, we summarise debates about the environment and postsocialism since the period 1989–91. In particular, we examine whether an essentialistic link can be made between state socialism and environmental problems, and how far civil society—or environmentalism—may result in an improvement in perceived environmental quality. Finally, we consider the possibility for developing an approach to the environment and postsocialism that lies between crude generalisation and microscale studies.

Regions and Regionalization in the Five New Länder of Eastern Germany

Eastern Germany’s transformation process after unification has been unique among the former socialist eastern European countries, because of the degree to which ‘western’ (Germany’s) institutional, societal and economic structures, and related values and policy goals, were literally extended into the new eastern Lander. This reflected the accession of the former GDR to West Germany. There has been much uncertainty and insecurity within the new system of governance in eastern Germany, because most actors had little or no prior experience of democratic principles of local and regional government, and with managing market forces and business interests. The unprecedented extent of economic change challenged a regulatory system tailored to, and honed by, gradual, ‘orderly’ processes of economic development. This had permitted a conventional system of hierarchically organized economic regulation with fixed territories and a strong emphasis on spatial planning. The reconfiguring space economy challenged this conventional relationship between fixed territories of jurisdiction and economic activity, and not only in eastern Germany (see Barnes and Ledebur, 1998). There are signs that government institutions, federal to local, are beginning to respond to these challenges by discussing possible flexibilization (ARL, 1996) in the boundedness (Bennett, 1997) of policy-making spaces, so as to allow their adjustment to increasingly more variable economic territories. Only then can a sufficiently ‘close match’ and thus policy effectiveness be achieved (Barnes and Ledebur, 1998). This eurocommentary will discuss the process of establishing new ‘western-style’ formalized regions in eastern Germany immediately after unification, and evidence of differential re-interpretations in favour of more flexible forms of regionalization, through inter-urban collaboration (Aigner and Miosga, 1994). General institutional provision for formal regions

Cities and the Changing Nature of International Governance

This chapter examines the various types of international engagement by cities and city-regions, and the impact that has had on the constellation, operation and explanation of global governance. This involves identifying the key issues in emerging understandings of, and theoretical perspectives on, new international relationships. Particular attention will be given to the variations that emerge in the analysis and explanation of global governance, as well as different perspectives on network governance and its varying scales. In addition, the utility of the multi-level governance perspective will be examined, and ideas about regime formation through international networking as the increasingly more widespread mode of governing. From this discussion we move on to a second set of questions about understanding the rationales behind new international imaginaries of power, opportunity and interdependencies, as well as, importantly for the democratic systems examined here, questions of authority and legitimacy in the emerging new, and increasingly complex, multi-scalar and multi-actor forms of global governance.

Growth and Innovation of Competitive Regions: The Role of Internal and External Connections

The title of this edited collection of 16 contributions addresses a certainly interesting and relevant topic within public and academic debate, especially so in the aftermath of the current financial and economic crisis. It is a broad and, as it turns out, rather ambitious title. For once, it is firmly rooted in regional science with its penchant for econometric and abstract modelling and theorizing. There is rather less, as the book freely admits, reference to “real life” applications and examples, nor is there much on politics and governance. It may be this de facto narrower thematic approach and perspective than implied by the rather sweeping title, which makes the reader feel left with a bit of a sense of disappointment, especially as there is no punchy, thought provoking summarizing and concluding chapter. Instead, it sort of “fizzles out” with a listing of the main findings’ potential usefulness for policy making. But that is not really developed as an argument and comes across more of an afterthought than a genuine part of the book. Nevertheless, the book provides many interesting and thought provoking arguments and discussions, as well as insights, and there are sound, quite detailed bibliographies for each chapter. The book is divided into four parts, each containing several chapters illustrating the theoretical respective approaches: (1) the general framework, (2) more in-depth analysis of processes of innovation and entrepreneurship, (3) exploration of the key factors shaping the development of innovative regions and (4) suggested analytical methodologies. A minor curiosity, perhaps, is the fact that the book is an entirely Italian affair in terms of authorship and thus, inevitably, references to practical examples follow that national focus. Although causing a bit of a surprise, given the broad, general, title of the book, this mono-national underpinning is, however, in no way to its disadvantage. References to case studies sit merely in the background. Of more fundamental relevance is the fact that many of the contributions, especially in the second half of the book, are firmly rooted in econometrics and related modelling, seemingly unaffected by actual developments and, especially, policies, on the ground. The first half of the book shows fewer formulae and diagrammes and instead more conceptual contributions, including conceptual (a times rather complex) diagrammes (e.g. one on “sustainable growth mechanism”, p. 32) drawing on regional [economic] science. There is little, if any, reference to policy or governance. Clusters, linkages, connectivities and innovation are first and foremost business centred and driven by “growth”. Although there are references to “learning regions” and “growth regions”, yet there is little more than nominal acknowledgment of the role of governance and institutions as part of these. European Planning Studies Vol. 18, No. 7, July 2010

Population shifts and local democratic representation in Eastern Germany

The shift to market forces in East Germany has fundamentally reconfigured its social and economic geography. In particular, spatial inequalities between localities and regions have re-emerged forcefully in response to new values, expectations and preferences. Increased mobility through private transport, changing job opportunities, educational choices and desire for new housing qualities have inter alia created new parameters for the populations lives. The responses i.a. in the form of migration have altered demographic structures and spatial patterns of the population considerably, often varying significantly over relatively short distances within and between regions. After initial population losses generally through outmigration from East to West Germany, population losses in cities occurred in favour of suburban areas, and rural depopulation in favour of the cities; creating a highly differentiated basis for future development through new urban-rural contrasts and differences between urban regions. This paper will outline some of these processes and demonstrate their effects on the already-considerable inequalities inherited from communism. Attention will also be given to the effects of changing population structures and patterns on local government and the future prospects for an indigenously supported, sustainable economic development for regions and the likely pathways of transformation and adjustment.

Smart City-Regional Governance: A 'Dual Transition'

This paper introduces the concept of ‘dual transition’ in relation to the notion of ‘smartness’ in city-regional governance. This consists of two intersecting dimensions, a broader change in political-economic and societal circumstances which surround city-regions, and a more detailed, local change towards ‘smartness’ in policy practices. Although ‘smart’ seems to have become a somewhat ubiquitous adjective in urban policy, it seeks to project policies that seek to go beyond a one-dimensional ‘growth agenda’ by addressing also the multifaceted quest for social, economic and environmental sustainability. The underlying shift in discourse, rationality and suggested policy responses in both dimensions may be captured by the concept of ‘transition’ in relation to policies and governance. Originally developed in conjunction with broad political-economic regime change, such as post-authoritarian democratisation, the idea of ‘transition’ has also been applied to the more specific concept of sustainability as ‘sustainability transition’.

Continued Division through Obstructionist Institutionalism: The City-Region of Berlin and Brandenburg 15 Years on

In this article, we examine Berlin as a city-region and the nature of the relationships between the city and its neighbouring local and regional governments. Berlin is an administrative island surrounded by the Land government of Brandenburg, a situation made more complicated by Berlins dual status as a local and a Land government. We examine the failure of cooperation between Berlin and Brandenburg over the first decade or so after reunification. In the first part of the article, we give some background to the particular challenges facing the Berlin city-region and outline institutional arrangements. Next, we track the weaknesses in the co-operation between Land governments and between local governments. At these two scales, we distinguish two sets of problems. Firstly, there is the constitutional and political separation of the Land governments and the constitutionally autonomous local authorities (Kommunen) surrounding the Land of Berlin. Secondly, both Lands and local governments face considerable financial pressure. The financial costs of rebuilding a capital city, the phasing out of federal subsidies from the Cold War era, and the collapse of the regional economy following reunification concentrated the attention of political leaders at Land and local levels on their immediate economic interests.