European Journal of Spatial Development

Imagined relations – relational imaginaries: on the discursive interrelations of small towns in East Germany

Franziska Görmar — 2024-07-24

Questions of actual and imagined relationality are still a gap in small town research. The paper closes this gap by focussing on imagined relations and relational imaginaries of two small towns, Zeitz and Lauchhammer, in East Germany. Such imaginaries are considered as discursive constructs being effective in multiple dimensions (e.g. flows of people, capital and infrastructures) and on multiple scales (e.g. local, regional, national). As such, they shape places’ identity and actual development paths decisively.

Towards cooperation? Reflections on spatial narratives and imaginaries regarding small town and metropolitan cores interrelations

Yane Marie Conradi — 2024-07-24

The article explores the local perspective of small towns in metropolitan regions by examining place-based narratives in the case study area Main-Kinzig-district in the Rhein-Main metropolitan region. The research is based on interviews conducted with representatives of the municipal administrations referring to the self-perception of the small towns and their perceived role in the region. It is argued that place-based narratives and metropolitan imaginaries (as underlying attitudes or “worldviews”) shape small-town realities and impact regional and local planning decisions and hence can promote or prevent metropolitan cooperation. Leaning on the framework of critical narrative analysis common topics of the narratives and shared imaginaries are identified and contextualised by relating them to findings of mapping, statistics and fieldwork. As a result, an ambivalent picture of the region and the small towns within it emerges providing particular insights into the perspective of small towns, their specific views of the metropolises and potentials for a metropolitan understanding and future planning cooperation.

European small towns: what role do they play in metropolitan governance?

Giancarlo Cotella — 2024-07-24

In recent years, several studies have explored the challenges that accompany the creation of metropolitan governments, with particular reference to the institutional relations and power dynamics that potentially subordinate smaller towns to logics and objectives defined in the core area. This paper aims at shedding further light on the matter as it argues that, whereas the establishment of institutions and governance arrangements exercising autonomous metropolitan political power may overcome the institutional fragmentation of metropolitan regions, it may on the other hand overshadow the role played by the smaller towns, which often lack the opportunity or the necessary institutional capacity to participate in the process. More in detail, the effectiveness of existing metropolitan settings from the small-town perspective is addressed comparatively in the contexts of England, France and Italy, three European countries which have been characterised by relevant reforms on the matter in the last decades. By tracing (i) the history of the administrative reforms that have characterised the three countries, (ii) the spatiality of their metropolitan authorities and (iii) the instruments and mechanisms that allow for the engagement and cooperation of small towns with(in) metropolitan authorities, the authors argue that the actual potential for the engagement of small towns within metropolitan governance dynamics is path and context-dependent and often hampered by institutional preconditions that gave birth to metropolitan governance in a specific context.

Engaging small towns in metropolitan governance: evidence from Italy

Donato Casavola — 2024-07-24

Metropolitan areas represent nowadays the main drivers of European development. This puts traditional spatial governance models into crisis, with existing territorial units that are challenged by phenomena hardly manageable within their fixed administrative boundaries. A growing number of governance experimentations have emerged in Europe aiming to address the metropolitan dimension. In the Italian context, this process led to the introduction of 14 Città Metropolitane, that substituted the respective provinces in particularly complex territorial contexts. Due to its nature, however, the reform raised a number of challenges in relation to the actual role that small and medium towns should play within the new governance arrangement, and how their cooperation with the large urban core they gravitate around can bring reciprocal benefits and added value. This paper sheds some light on the matter, discussing the state of the art of metropolitan governance and planning in the country, to then use the cases of Torino and Bari to highlight how different levels of territorial fragmentation contribute to raise different challenges for metropolitan governance and planning. In doing so, the authors reflect on the advantages and disadvantages that small and medium towns encounter when participating to metropolitan governance.