Urban Governance

Cities are key for sustainability and the radical systemic changes required to enable equitable human development within planetary boundaries. Their particular role in this regard has become the subject of an emerging and highly interdisciplinary scientific debate. Drawing on a qualitative literature review, this paper identifies and scrutinizes the principal fields involved, asking for their respective normative orientation, interdisciplinary constitution, theories and methods used, and empirical basis to provide orientations for future research. It recognizes four salient research epistemologies, each focusing on a distinct combination of drivers of change:
(A) transforming urban metabolisms and political ecologies; (B) configuring urban innovation systems for green economies; (C) building adaptive urban communities and ecosystems; and (D) empowering urban grassroots niches and social innovation. The findings suggest that future research directed at cities and systemic change towards sustainability should (1) explore interrelations between the above epistemologies, using relational geography and governance theory as boundary areas; (2) conceive of cities as places shaped by and shaping interactions between multiple socio-technical and social-ecological systems; (3) focus on agency across systems and drivers of change, and develop corresponding approaches for intervention and experimentation; and (4) rebalance the empirical basis and methods employed, strengthening transdisciplinarity in particular.

This is an expanded version of:
- Aalbers MB (2018b) Financial geography II: Financial geographies of housing and real estate. Progress in Human Geography DOI:10.1177/0309132518819503.
- Aalbers MB (2019a) Financial geography III: The financialization of the city. Progress in Human Geography, in press.

Financial geography is often understood as the geographies of money and finance, but this paper takes a different understand in which financial geography is a lens that can be applied to a range of topics (Aalbers, 2018a). This approach follows my historiography of financial geography, which suggests that financial geography is not simply a sub-sub-discipline embedded in economic geography; the field of financial geography is equally rooted in the sub-disciplines of political and urban geography (Aalbers, 2015a) and in this literature review I will look at a frontier of financial geography, that is, the intersection of economic and urban geography.

My goal here is not to foreground ‘the city’ or ‘the urban’ as the privileged site of applying a financial geography lens, but rather a pragmatic choice to demonstrate how a financial lens can help to enrich different fields of geographical research. My conceptualization of the city is equally pragmatic: for the purpose of the literature review in this paper, I use it primarily as a container term to include studies of urban governance, housing, real estate and the built environment. This review is not the place to discuss the nature of ‘the urban’. It is also worth pointing out what I have not included here: studies of financial centres, such as the City of London, Wall Street, Raffles Place or Bandra Kurla. Research of financial centres and districts is, in a way, the recognized core of geographies of money and finance, not the frontier I want to prioritise here.

In the following sections, I will first discuss financial geographies of housing, with a focus on mortgage debt, securitization and the rise of corporate landlords, but also the financialization of construction firms and social housing non-profits. Subsequent sections zoom in on financial geographies of 1) commercial real estate and large urban projects; and 2) the local state and (semi-)public sector. Finally, I draw some conclusions based on the cumulation of findings, diversity of perspectives, and spatialities and temporalities of financialization. In this literature review I have tried to include literature from non-English speaking countries where possible.

This Paper explores and summarises the Director's Duties of the UK Companies Act 2006 with emphasis on "the duty to promote the success of the company.

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Emerging patterns of urbanization world over show differing scenarios in different continents, requiring diverse approaches, policies, and strategies. Amazing democratization of ICT around the world leads to a discussion on sustainable, resource-conserving, and resilient smart cities, and smart city economic development appropriate to different cities, countries, and continents. It can be possible that each city in a particular country and continent may possess differing challenges to smart city economic development. When ancient rural economy gives way to urban economy, which contributes a major share of national domestic product, the emerging question is what constitutes smart city economic development. How is it different from conventional urban economy? Is the theory and practice of conventional urban economy valid in a smart city economy or is it necessary to investigate newer theory and practice of smart city economic development? What is a food shed in a smart city economy in smart cities? What a smart city industry looks like? What constitutes smart city commerce services, transportation, and communication, and how they impact on smart city economy? How do smart cities fit in the urban dynamism and policy dialogue at the global, regional, and national levels? Can smart cities and smart economy be socially inclusive? How to strategize social inclusion in smart city development? What sort of governance and institutional support would smart cities require to fulfil their role with regard to smart economy? What may constitute a Sustainable Model of smart cities economic development, and what may be Smart Cities Standards? These are some of the questions addressed in this chapter.

Pour les observateurs de la plus grande démocratie du monde, le mot « participation » évoque surtout le pourcentage d'électeurs qui se rendent régulièrement aux urnes. Pourtant, depuis les années 1990 de nouvelles pratiques émergent et se développent en Inde, qui ont en commun d'organiser une interaction directe entre citoyens et autorités publiques, autour de la gestion des affaires locales. Mais à quoi ressemble la démocratie participative dans cette société profondément inégalitaire ? Comment la participation est-elle organisée, autour de quels types de dispositifs ? À quelles idées politiques est-elle associée ? À quels discours, à quelles expériences passées fait-elle référence ? Les dynamiques qui portent le développement des pratiques participatives indiennes sont-elles surtout endogènes ou exogènes ? Et que peut nous apprendre cette version indienne sur la démocratie participative en général ? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, ce livre propose une analyse sérielle de quatre dispositifs élaborés et mis en oeuvre dans la ville-État de Delhi, qui constitue un véritable laboratoire de la participation à l'indienne : les « comités de circonscription » ; les « audiences publiques » ; le programme Bhagidari (« participation» en hindi) ; et les assemblées de quartier. L'enquête montre comment les formes successives de la démocratie participative révèlent autant de définitions du « citoyen ordinaire » qui leur sont associées. À travers une analyse de l'incarnation, des transformations et des mésaventures de la participation depuis les années 1950, le livre raconte le lent et sinueux processus d'institutionnalisation de la démocratie participative en Inde.

One of the key agreements adopted at the Rio Conference in 1992 was the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Both in practice and research biodiversity has been mainly addressed in a non-urban context, often discussed in relation to issues such as the depletion of rainforests and desertification. However, as more than half of the world population are urban dwellers, it is increasingly urgent to discuss the application of the concept of biodiversity within an urban context. Issues approached in this article are: What does it mean to talk about biodiversity in an urban context? Is biodiversity a meaningful goal for urban politics and planning? Is there empirical evidence of implementing biodiversity in urban politics and planning? After an introduction, the article is organized into four sections. In the second section the concept of biological diversity is defined with special reference to its application in an urban context. Biodiversity and its relationship to urban governance is the topic of the third section, followed by a section analysing examples of how this relationship is practised in selected Swedish cities. The final section highlights five major conclusions with regard to the application of biodiversity in an urban context: (1) that all cities studied have adopted overall 'green' policies, including biodiversity as one component; (2) that local coalitions in favour of implementing biodiversity have been established between employees at different offices, between employees and politicians, and between employees and NGOs; (3) that there are in all cases tangible signs of spatial patterns and structures that are favourable to biodiversity; (4) that urban biodiversity, for its successful implementation, needs to be related, and accommodated to other values given priority in current policymaking, such as recreation; (5) that mainstream biodiversity analysis should be complemented by an urban landscape approach. Finally, the article returns to the more general question of what biodiversity could and should mean in urban planning.

Advocated mostly by technology companies, the smart city concept promises participation, democratization and innovative urbanism. Tracking these promises and ideas, this paper explores "smart urbanism" in ten cities from all over Israel. Based on interviews with leading figures in municipalities, smart city consultants and key figures in technological companies (n = 40), the aims of this paper are to assess the efforts of cities to become smart by responding to the following questions: 1. What is guiding the decision-making process in developing technological initiatives? 2. Does context play a role in implementing technological initiatives? 3. How are the residents perceived, and what tools are being used to address residents' digital differences? The key argument of this paper is threefold: first, in the process of becoming a smart city, the roles of public and private actors are blurred, influencing the process of decision making. Second, despite contextual differences, cities adopt similar digital initiatives. Third, technological initiatives that focus on social needs and address inequality in the digital age are still at the margins. The final discussion suggests that most municipalities are still at an early stage of digitization implementation and have the ability to shape and form a vision for the cities as socio-technological ecosystems in a way that will serve their publics as a whole. The paper ends with a call for shifting the focus from the city to society in developing digital initiatives and cultivating smart social urbanism. ++ Cities today are influenced by the digital revolution. Context, funding and regulations play a key role in this dynamic process, which results in variations between cities. As a global uneven process, the key question is not whether digitization is penetrating cities, but what are the new types of socio-technological ecosystems being created? What are the departure points in implementing digitization projects in cities? Who is taking the lead in this formation process? Is there still a possibility to shape this process with an aim of creating an ecosystem that would serve the public good? This paper addresses these questions, under the premise that most municipalities are still at an early stage of digitization implementation and have the ability to shape and form a vision for the cities as socio-technological ecosystems in a way that will serve their publics as a whole. Digitization implementation and projects in cities are often entitled and branded as "smart city" projects. The "smart city" concept became common in the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, there is no consensus about what the term "smart city" means, despite its importance and its contribution to urban development (

Problems in distressed neighbourhoods in Western European cities are nowadays often linked to a decline in social cohesion. Recently, some authors have discussed the link between the concept of social cohesion and the concept of urban governance. One of the important questions they raise is whether the process of urban governance can create more social cohesion in a neighbourhood. We contribute to the discussion in this paper. Our specific perspective is the unintended effect of urban governance processes. Three different types of cohesion are introduced: horizontal, vertical, and institutional. Our aim is to ascertain to what extent aspects of urban governance, such as cooperation among different partners, affect these types of social cohesion. The paper is based on a research project that has recently been carried out in two early-post-WWII neighbourhoods in the Dutch cities of Utrecht and The Hague. Both neighbourhoods are subjected to urban restructuring policies.

This article considers processes of urban development within the context of mega-event preparations in Rio de Janeiro. We begin with a brief overview of these development processes, highlighting their connections to political and economic change in recent years. Proponents of these mega-event-led initiatives argue that Rio is undergoing a period of inclusive growth and integration: a perspective we call here a ‘post-Third-World city’ narrative of urban renewal. Critics, however, contend that urban officials are harnessing mega-events (e.g. the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games) to push forward a neoliberal agenda of socially unjust policies benefiting the interests of capital and marginalizing the city’s poor and especially its favelas (i.e. the ‘city-of-exception’ thesis). In this article we explore the insights of these two perspectives and consider why they have grown popular in recent years. Though we side generally with the city-of-exception thesis, we argue that import...

This article examines the saga of local government restructuring in Canada's capital city. Specifically, it analyzes the interplay between provincial and local agendas for local government reform over many years, which culminated in provincial legislation and a one-year transition process to establish one municipality for the Ottawa city region. In doing so, the article addresses the extent to which the Ottawa transition demonstrates learning from other major urban restructuring efforts and the extent to which the Ottawa case provides new insights for future local government reform efforts. Key conclusions are that the key motivation for provincially initiated reform-cost saving through simplification of the local government structure in Ottawa-does not fully coincide with local needs and interests. Furthermore, the promise of financial savings has proven difficult to realize as a result of the local politics surrounding existing municipal debt and unresolved human resource management costs. Instead, future benefits from the amalgamation may lie in improved capacity to manage physical development, environmental sustainability, and cultural diversity.

This edited volume offers a critical reflection on the failed experiment to redevelop the city of
Rio de Janeiro according to the neoliberal strategy of entrepreneurial urban governance and
mercantile regulatory transformations, which were leveraged by mega-sporting events. The
case of Rio de Janeiro is presented as an example of a failing global strategy for urban
redevelopment, entrepreneurial urban governance and the realization of mega-events. This
book aims to present the real and critical state of the legacies of such mega-events. It shows
how instead of the promised economic redemption, Rio is experiencing a severe economic,
politicaland social crisis,handling three observation perspectives: the first is the description of
urban transformations and mega events,assessing the contradictions in the model for the
intended urban development and taking into account historical factors both at local and
national level; the second restricts on neighborhoods as case studies representing an ensign of
a neoliberal urban transformation’ results; the third links city and citizenship focusing tensions
and inconsistencies and opening up a perspective on the importance of fostering the concept
of citizenship, including actions, movements and initiatives that express the resistance and
struggles around a possible new destination for Rio de Janeiro.
Prof. Luiz Cesar de Quieroz
Ribeiro and Dr.Filippo Bignami as General Editors thank Ana Paula Soares Carvalho, Humberto
Meza, Niccoló Cuppini and Orlando dos Santos Junior for their contributions as co-editors of this book.

Post 2000, European cities have been shaken by a wave of urban collective action. In this Introductiory chapter to the book Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe, we argue that this wave needs to be understood in connection with the structural context of neoliberal urbanism, and that it can be analysed using the concept of  ‘urban social movement’. We argue that collective actions that may look different on the surface share an urban dimension – they are all in different ways reactions to the developments and effects of neoliberal urbanism, as they address and challenge spatialized social inequalities produced by processes of segregation and gentrification. Further, the chapter addresses three inadequacies in contemporary urban research that have been made particularly apparent by developments in the 2000s. First, considering the wave of urban collective action post 2000, it is curious that research on contentious politics and social movements rarely addresses the urban dimension. Second, the distinction made in contemporary research between urban "riots" and urban social movements (they even may be said to represent different research fields) is unsatisfactory for an adequate analysis of contemporary urban collective action. Third, while contemporary analyses of neoliberal urbanism have begun to take an interest in urban collective action, such analyses rarely draw on social movement research. Against this background, this Introductory chapter contributes toward a re-thinking of the relations between social movements, "riots"’ and neoliberalism.

‘If the nation doesn’t work, cities won’t.’ This statement lies behind The Wealth and Poverty of Cities: Why Nations Matter, an intriguing journey into the failures and successes of many cities – with a predominant focus on North America – aimed at unfolding the factors determining wealth and prosperity across diverse urban agglomerations. Author Mario Polèse openly declares the purpose of moving the study of cities and economics beyond an academic audience to create a book that is fun to read. That goal has been achieved here.

Depuis quelques annees, un interet croissant pour les ecoquartiers se manifeste chez les elites urbaines. A travers l’analyse du projet New Islington a Manchester, cet article cherche a comprendre le role joue par la realisation de ces quartiers dans les demarches de developpement urbain. En replacant ce projet dans le contexte des politiques urbaines conduites au Royaume-Uni, l’article cherche a isoler les logiques a l’œuvre dans les usages repetes de la notion de « ville durable ». Les ecoquartiers, bien que contribuant a l’approfondissement des politiques urbaines d’environnement, apparaissent insuffisants pour repondre a l’« ideal » de la ville durable. En circonscrivant les innovations et ameliorations a des zones reduites de la ville, ils participent a l’accentuation de la differenciation du traitement des espaces urbains.

Chennai is the largest metropolitan city in South India (8.7 million in 2011) and the provincial capital of the large state of Tamil Nadu (population 72 million in 2011). Before that, under British rule, the city was the capital of the Madras Presidency, and was known as Madras until 1996, when the name was officially changed to Chennai. Located on the east coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal, sea trade has been an important aspect of the regional economy since at least the colonial period. Still today, the city combines political functions with economic command functions for both manufacturing and services, reflecting the region’s diversified economy. The Chennai metropolitan area has witnessed strong growth over the last 20 years in automobile manufacturing, software services, hardware manufacturing, healthcare and financial services (CDP 2009). However, it should be noted that only 30% of total employment in the city takes place in the formal sector i.e., is covered by contracts...

The Big Cities Policy is currently the major urban policy in the Netherlands. Prepared unhurriedly in 1994, it picked up steam at the end of the 1990s when the new Minister for Big Cities Policy asked the cities to prepare their plans to spend the money made available for this policy. ...

This paper is an attempt to assess the impacts of off-site and on-site resettlement projects in Indore by comparing slum dwellers lives before and after the implementation of the projects, complimenting and corroborating a sister paper based on fieldwork in Ahmedabad (Patel, Sliuzas, Mathur, & Miscione, fortcoming). The impact analysis is based on the indicators of impoverishment risks due to displacement and resettlement formulated by Cernea (2000a) in his Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) model. The findings indicates the presence of the following forms of impoverishment which Cernea proposed for the displacees: significant loss in household assets, increased joblessness or unemployment, loss of access to common services, increased health risks, marginalisation and social disarticulation, all of which have compounded their vulnerability and chances of falling deeper into poverty. The paper also argues that compared to off-site and on-site resettlement displacees were l...

Probes, supervised models trained to predict properties (like parts-of-speech) from representations (like ELMo), have achieved high accuracy on a range of linguistic tasks. But does this mean that the representations encode linguistic structure or just that the probe has learned the linguistic task? In this paper, we propose control tasks, which associate word types with random outputs, to complement linguistic tasks. By construction, these tasks can only be learned by the probe itself. So a good probe, (one that reflects the representation), should be selective, achieving high linguistic task accuracy and low control task accuracy. The selectivity of a probe puts linguistic task accuracy in context with the probe's capacity to memorize from word types. We construct control tasks for English part-of-speech tagging and dependency edge prediction, and show that popular probes on ELMo representations are not selective. We also find that dropout, commonly used to control probe complexity, is ineffective for improving selectivity of MLPs, but that other forms of regularization are effective. Finally, we find that while probes on the first layer of ELMo yield slightly better part-of-speech tagging accuracy than the second, probes on the second layer are substantially more selective, which raises the question of which layer better represents parts-of-speech.

Le collectif Degeyter est composé de 9 enseignants-chercheurs, sociologues, politistes et géographes : Antonio Delfini, Fabien Desage, Fabien Eloire, Rémi Lefebvre, Yoan Miot,  Frédéric Poulard, Stéphanie Pryen, Juliette Verdière et Cécile Signal.

Résumé :
À Lille, le récit d’une agglomération reconvertie en métropole tertiaire, culturelle et créative semble avoir chassé les fantômes de la crise économique. Mais, cinquante ans après le début de sa désindustrialisation et sans nier les dynamiques économiques et culturelles nouvelles, la « bifurcation tertiaire » est loin d’avoir tenu ses promesses.

Lille est aujourd’hui la grande agglomération régionale la plus ségrégée de France. Les politiques publiques nationales et locales se sont révélées impuissantes à réduire les inégalités sociospatiales héritées du développement industriel et à contrecarrer un chômage persistant. La reconversion tertiaire s’est accompagnée d’une précarisation accrue du marché du travail et de ségrégations renouvelées, tant sur le plan résidentiel que scolaire.

Cet ouvrage rend compte de ces transformations, indissociablement politiques, économiques et sociales, qui font de l’agglomération lilloise un site privilégié pour comprendre les dynamiques inégalitaires des villes contemporaines.



Introduction
I / De la ville industrielle aux reconversions tertiaires
Une ville habitée par les ouvriers
L’explosion de la production textile - La condition ouvrière - Les travailleurs migrants
Une ville façonnée par la bourgeoisie
Les « maîtres du Nord » - Lille, ville « haussmannienne » ? - Les industriels et le logement ouvrier
Une ville remodelée par la reconversion
Restructuration textile et conséquences sociales - Le pari de la tertiarisation
II / La métropolisation comme salut ?
Conjurer la crise par la réforme du gouvernement local : aux origines de la « métropole du Nord »
Une pensée d’État - Une réappropriation rapide par les élus locaux et le patronat
De quoi la métropolisation est-elle le nom ?
L’attractivité et le rayonnement comme nouveaux mantras - L’approfondissement du consensus communautaire : l’union fait la force, mais la force de qui ? - Atténuer les coûts sociaux du projet de métropolisation : de la Ville renouvelée aux politiques de peuplement
III / Sous la métropole, une ville populaire et inégalitaire
Les réalités contrastées de l’emploi et du chômage
Une reconversion tertiaire en trompe-l’œil - La face cachée de la tertiarisation - Le chômage lillois ou la restructuration permanente
Une agglomération populaire, marquée par la ségrégation sociospatiale
La résistance des classes populaires face au rattrapage des cadres ? - Gentrification à la lilloise
Vie quotidienne des classes populaires précarisées
Discriminations et racialisation de la question sociale - La pauvreté comme quotidien
IV / Des jeunesses confrontées à un espace scolaire segmenté
Le poids de l’enseignement privé : catholicisme patronal et encadrement du monde ouvrier
La formation des enfants de la bourgeoisie patronale - Former les ouvriers
Réussite scolaire différenciée et polarisation sociale des établissements scolaires lillois
Une ségrégation scolaire qui accentue la ségrégation sociale - Une mise en concurrence des établissements scolaires transversale aux secteurs public et privé
Lille et ses étudiants
L’enseignement supérieur dans l’agglomération lilloise - La géographie lilloise des étudiants - Trouver un emploi ou la reproduction des inégalités
V / Un bastion socialiste ?
Le modèle historique du socialisme municipal
Une terre de guesdisme - La modernisation de l’hégémonie socialiste dans les années 1970 - Fragilités du bastion
L’érosion électorale du bastion
La montée de l’abstention - La faiblesse des rivaux à gauche et à droite du PS
La rétraction du milieu partisan socialiste
L’érosion de la base militante - Les réseaux participatifs et associatifs - L’équation personnelle de Martine Aubry
VI / La culture, entre fiction politique et nouveau mythe urbain
L’avènement d’une politique artistique événementielle
Impulsion patronale et leadership politique - Les ingrédients du consensus - Pérennisation de l’événement et désolidarisation territoriale
Par-delà la fête, les controverses
Le paradigme participatif en question - La culture, cheval de Troie de la gentrification ?
Conclusion
Repères bibliographiques.

In the post–World War II period, the police department emerged as one of the most problematic municipal agencies in New York City. Patrolmen and their superiors did not pay much attention to crime; instead they looked the other way, received payoffs from organized crime, performed haphazardly, and tolerated conditions that were unacceptable in a modern city with global ambitions. At the same time, patrolmen demanded deference and respect from African American civilians and routinely demeaned and brutalized individuals who appeared to be challenging their authority. The antagonism between African Americans and the New York Police Department (NYPD) intensified as local and national black freedom organizations paid more attention to police behavior and made police reform one of their main goals.

This article considers the fractured nature of state power in contemporary Mumbai. Based on a case study of the ongoing Dharavi Redevelopment Project, a 2-billion US dollar initiative to redevelop Mumbai's most infamous ‘slum’ settlement as a mixed-use, mixed-income township, it details the new state strategies emerging to support urban development efforts in India today. Identifying the structural weaknesses that have traditionally hindered development planning in Mumbai, it describes how a private developer, acting as a political entrepreneur, has worked to consolidate the authority and resources necessary to overcome these institutional gaps and structural weaknesses. Situating the analysis in theories of state restructuring, this case sheds light on how the local Indian state is responding to the pressures associated with neoliberal globalization and competitive urbanism. While a growing literature in this area has offered important insights into emerging configurations of power, it remains overly focused on the role of NGOs in these efforts, failing to provide an adequate analysis of alliances between the state and other private actors. This article attempts to address this gap with an in-depth examination of the political entrepreneur as a site of institutionalized, but ultimately incomplete, power in globalizing Mumbai.

Surat is one of the fastest growing cities in India with a total population of 48, 49,213 (2011 Census), of which, the migrant population constitutes 58 per cent. Disaster-prone Surat witnessed a remarkable change in its governance by Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) after the floods in 1994 and the subsequent plague outbreak. This study assessed how urban governance by the SMC evolved in the aftermath of the plague outbreak. The assessment was conducted through the thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with key informants who included officials of SMC, members of the Surat Climate Change Trust, academics and citizens. The study traced various factors that led to the institutional transformation in public health management by the SMC after 1994. These include the revamping of SMC structure to instate a decentralized approach to governance, the commitment of SMC towards the welfare of citizens, strengthening of disease surveillance systems, involvement of academic institutions in research projects, working with international agencies on health and climate issues, e-governance initiatives, setting up an early warning system, trust of community members in the city’s leadership and the “Surati” attitude of cooperation.

L'articolo analizza la relazione tra pratiche sociali e politiche pubbliche a Barcellona. L'articolo  concentra l'analisi nell'ambito socio-spaziale della gestione di spazi pubblici, come Centri Civici e vuoti urbani sostenendo che le pratiche sociali hanno avuto sempre influenza sulle politiche pubbliche del Comune. L'articolo conclude mostrando gli ultimi sviluppi di questa relazione con il governo di Barcelona en Comú che sta lavorando per approvare un nuovo strumento istituzionale: Il Patrimonio Cittadino di Uso e Gestione Comunitaria.

The book highlights important urban development issues in Punjab such as urbanisation, slums, housing, poverty, urban governance, development, infrastructure/ services etc and suggests major reforms to improve quality of life in urban areas.

Many accounts of urban governance emphasize municipal and neighbourhood scales, featuring local participation, social cohesion and the relationship between local government and residents. By contrast, our focus is the vertical governance processes of integrated urban policies. We concentrate on the effectiveness of the steering of urban policies. Using a Dutch city as a case study, we evaluate local stakeholders' experiences in the vertical governance processes of integrated urban policy and the extent to which their experiences fit in with the theoretical notions of multi-level governance or multi-scalar meta-governance and the EU principles of good governance. The key result is that Dutch urban policy incorporates dominant neo-liberal multi-scalar meta-governance, owing to the simultaneously strong market orientation and state regulation. The legitimacy of urban policy is brought into question when city authorities have very little influence on its contents but are judged on its results. The major lesson learned is that neoliberal centralistic steering in the core domains of local government that aim to achieve effective and coherent urban governance practices is counterproductive. E u r o p e a n U r b a n a n d R e g i o n a l S t u d i e s European Urban and Regional Studies 17(4) 355-369

La Valdonsella es una comarca aragonesa del Prepirineo ubicada entre los elevados macizos pirenaicos y la planicie de la Depresión del Ebro, con unas características naturales propias de las zonas de montaña. Su situación geográfica, en el límite con Navarra, la convirtió desde el siglo XII y hasta el final de la Edad Media en una de las fronteras del reino, por lo que padeció con relativa frecuencia episodios bélicos. Este carácter estratégico favoreció el predominio del realengo en la zona así como la concesión por parte de la monarquía de importantes privilegios políticos y fiscales a sus villas cabeceras que gozaron de un destacable nivel de autogobierno.

The fast pace of urbanisation in Southeast Asia has undermined the sustainability of the social, economic and environmental infrastructure of many cities across the region. Urban resilience in Southeast Asian cities is being further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. While cities and national governments across the region have developed policies, strategies and programs to reorient their cities towards more sustainable and resilient development pathways, many cities continue to struggle with the uncontrolled nature of urban development and compounding impacts of crisis events. This article provides an overview of major trends and challenges with urbanisation in Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as the regional, national and sub-national policies and strategies established to address these trends and challenges. Given the current policy implementation gaps and ongoing challenges of urbanisation in Cambodia and Vietnam, the article makes the case for trans-disciplinary research to understand the potential for strengthening urban governance capacities for urban sustainability transformations.

This article explores the criticalness of decentralized governance as a solution towards service delivery challenges experienced by urban centres. But, in Zimbabwe centre-local relations are a phenomenological reflection of a tendency towards (re)centralization than decentralization. This is clearly visible in the widespread political interference by central government’s Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing in the administrative affairs of urban councils. The results from a survey of a sample of fifty-two respondents on the Zimbabwean urban governance status revealed that issues of political interference revolved around the firing of legitimate councils and mayors, control of all council reforms including generation of funds, politicking in the chambers, unlawful appointments, and the use of commissions. Constitutional amendment has been cited as a big step towards political interference in urban governance of the country.

Urban Design and Planning worldwide have long been criticized for their lack of meaningful public consultation and participation in the process of shaping our built environment. Currently, the existing practices of consultation and participation are within the confines of council meetings, complex form filling and survey reports that often carry little weight towards the decisions made by the planning authorities; the latter are increasingly seeking for ways to encourage meaningful public participation in urban development decisions. This paper presents a systematic literature review on sustainable urban governance visa -vis participatory planning, in an effort to consolidate, evaluate and critique the various approaches on involving the public in decision-making process in relation to urban form in general and public space in particular. The literature/case studies presented are referenced across a scale of degrees of participation, referring to a range of influence that participants have in the decision-making. In its two extremes it can be viewed as no participation, where designers make assumptions of users' needs and requirements, and full participation, based on user-defined criteria of quality. The evaluation of many participatory research practices is somewhere in between the two extremes, focusing more on design with the users. However, the given theoretical process, might provide an insufficient degree of realism that designers need to cope with, due to time and budget constraints. If it is to remain grounded to the practice of design, literature should be able to cope with barriers, and seek understanding beyond its conceptual approaches.

Urbanization is driving Southeast Asia’s economies, moving vast numbers of people to urban centers at a pace unheard of in the West. As impressive as these cities are, they bring with them massive problems in terms of sanitation, pollution, income disparity and infrastructure challenges. If the region is to enjoy the benefits of urbanization it will have to balance the old and new, taking advantage of both traditional knowledge and modern technology, writes Bharat Dahiya.

This paper is a survey of the Government Land Sales (GLS) programme in Singapore as a mechanism through which design aspects of private developments are regulated by the state. By comparing specifications in tender documents with what was eventually built, and tracing how much design weighed in the awarding of tenders, the survey shows how design regulations moved from an experimental phase in the 1960s when controls were sparse and discretionary, to being institutionalised by the 1980s, when controls became comprehensive, precise, and technical. Still, this did not translate planning visions directly into reality, as developers and architects successfully made counterproposals during and after the tender process. By examining the Integrated Resort development at Marina Bay against shifts in political culture and economic conditions in the 1990s, this paper concludes by arguing that the state deployed the GLS programme to procure ‘iconic’ buildings while excluding public involvement from actual design-review processes.

he discussion as to whether India’s affirmative action policy of reservation (guaranteeing women 33% of the local Ward Councilor seats) brings about substantive gender equality is based upon an in-depth ethnographic case study of one Mumbai administrative ward. To better understand what reservation brings both women councilors and women as a group, I leverage Caroline Moser’s practical and strategic needs framework. I also compare the Ward Councilors’ socio- political networks to see what differences exist between them regarding the amount and character of their politically relevant social capital.

The article examines the development of the urban planning system in Tallinn from 1991, when Estonia re-established its independence from the Soviet Union, until 2004. The planning laws and planning documents are analysed from the point of view of what kind of tools they provide for the public authority to intervene in urban development. It is argued that a liberal ad hoc urban planning that was established in the early 1990s is currently gradually being replaced by a more regulatory system where the rights of landowners are increasingly yet not always comprehensively defined in advance. Nonetheless, despite the recent revival of planning, the market still primarily dictates Tallinn's urban development.

The pace of urbanisation in India and China has, of late, been rapid. This raises concerns over urban governance in both countries. While urban governance in India is supposed to take place according to the 74th Amendment to the Constitution, in China, it is largely led, guided, and experimented upon by the Chinese Communist Party. With these aspects in view, this article looks at the extent to which urban governments in these countries have been moving from traditional government to network governance. What are the roles of state, civil society, and markets in the emerging scenario of urban governance so defined? The task of moving towards 'governance' is incomplete in both countries. While urban governance and urban civil societies are weak in India, markets are strong; whereas, in China, the urban government is strong while markets and civil society are weak. There is still a long way for both countries to go towards networked governance in urban areas.

This paper reviews the experience of creation and functioning of ward committees in urban local bodies in states of Kerala and Maharashtra. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act provided for ward committees to be constituted in urban local bodies with more than 3 lakhs population. The ward committees were expected to act as an institutional space for participation of citizens in matters of urban local governance.
The state of Kerala has provided an elaborate legal and institutional framework for functioning of ward committees especially with regards to participation of citizens. This paper examines the functioning of ward committees in a municipal corporation in Kerala for the past decade and points out achievements and shortcomings in actual functioning of ward committees in the state.
        The state of Maharashtra while legislating for ward committees in its municipal acts has not provided an elaborate legal framework. Ward committees in Mumbai Municipal Corporation was constituted only after judicial intervention. In 2009, the state enacted Community Participation Law, which is yet to be implemented. This paper questions the legal framework for ward committees in Maharashtra from the point of view of enabling participation of ordinary citizens in matters of urban governance.
        In light of the experiences of both states with regard to ward committees, This paper concludes with issues for further discussion on citizen participation in urban governance and functioning of ward committees in India.

Over the past 25 years, the Brussels neighbourhoods confronted with the greatest difficulties have benefited from substantial public funds intended to renovate and revitalise them: 550 interventions on the built environment, 1730 housing units created, 130 elements of local infrastructure built, 850 socio-economic actions carried out and a large number of roadways and squares redesigned. Created in 1993, the “Neighbourhood Contract” rapidly became an emblematic tool of the Brussels public action and imposed itself as a structural and structuring policy. Beyond the many projects and actions implemented, there is also an entire social world that took shape around this project and that is composed of political actors, administrative agents, experts, associations and citizens. This publication traces the deployment of the Neighbourhood Contracts in Brussels over the past 25 years by means of an immersion in the discourse, imagination, steering, execution and administration of a long-term public action, recorded at different moments in its lifetime. The 14 situations that have been selected compose the sociological chronicle of an urban policy, from its birth to its current state of development, which today raises important questions. The text that concludes the work is the occasion for the author to question the “time perspectives” of the advocates and detractors of the Neighbourhood Contract, and to stir a public debate about the continuation or transformation of urban policymaking in Brussels.

Urban Governance of Informal Settlements in Cairo has become a critical challenge facing the Egyptian government Identification, integration and collaboration of relevant stakeholders becomes crucial. Consequently, this research aims at investigating new and adjustive governance models that imply effective participation of stakeholders. Three Methods were utilized; literature review to investigate norms of good urban governance and informality. Afterwards, political transitions in Egypt were traced in correspondence to spread of informal settlements in Cairo. Finally, the informal settlement of Ezzbet Al-Haggana in Cairo is particularly studied, as live evidence on the absence of collaboration between different stakeholders in a responsive framework. Site visits and interviews were conducted at this latter stage, which will be further explained within the paper. The research ends up with a conclusion that formal sector is incapable of providing adequate housing and services to everyone independently. Thus, all relevant actors should collaborate in efficient governance model.

There is wide agreement among the scientific community that local government's have a central role to play in fostering smart cities which focusses on improving quality of life by integrating technology with urban operations. But, urban governance in rapidly urbanising countries of global south is often poorly organised to deal with emerging challenges and sustaining local growth, seriously hindering their aspirations to become smart cities. Although smart city case studies are abundant in literature, their governance framework and structural variations across regions are not emphasised. Furthermore, efforts to import governance models from developed world cities are facing lack of unique context sensitivities , which stand against their transformation as smart cities. This paper contributes to the debate on urban governance of smart cities by providing their distinct theoretical conceptualisations and linking them with case studies. It analyses the urban governance dynamics in Indian cities which has started implementing a massive 100 smart cities development programme. From the past experiences of Indian cities in reforming urban administration to its new model of special purpose vehicle led project execution; this research critically assesses the ability of Indian cities to change its archaic bureaucratic complex traditional government in to a more accountable collaborative governance. The outcomes from this study highlights the need for aspiring smart cities in emerging economies to address deep-seated structural issues of municipal government's and engage in a process of governance transformation rather than adopting temporary solutions.

The paper discusses the sociological issues emerging from the Participatory action research laboratory in the Scampìa Neighborhood, coordinated by Department of Social Sciences of Naples. The project aimed to empower inhabitants in programming the waste management on the local scale, such as the separate collection of rubbish, in a door-to-door withdrawal method (DtD).  The DtD requires active cooperation by citizens, involved as producers in the process of selection and collection of waste. In contexts such as the metropolitan area of Naples, affected by the widely-known “waste-management crisis”, this cooperation can be difficult to reach.
In this scenario the City of Naples introduced the DtD on Scampìa, a modern suburb in the north of Naples, well-known  for the high disadvantage concentration. On this neighborhood City of Naples wanted to start an ad hoc Participatory action research. The analysis of this action research allows us to reflect on the relationship between the society  and its waste.