Since December 2016, the German Academy for Spatial Planning and Spatial Reserach (ARL) supports a Working Group on Planning & Governing the Metropolis. The initiative to launch this working group was taken by Karsten Zimmermann and Panos Getimis for two reasons. Firstly, it is characteristic that although several books have been produced during the last years on metropolitan governance issues presenting collections of case studies, there is no systematic comparison of factors that influence the institutional form of metropolitan governance, the success factors and the performance of metropolitan governance and especially the role of metropolitan planning. Secondly, there are new developments going on, at least in some of the EU countries. One example is Italy where a new type of jurisdiction (città metropolitana) has been introduced by a national law in 2014. Another example is France where the métropole as a new layer in the institutional fabric of the French state has been established. In both cases metropolitan regions are created as strategic sites for economic development, but also make the public sector more efficient in times of austerity policies. There is a variety of institutional forms, planning practices and episodes manifested and experimented recently in the metropolitan regions of Europe, while there is a gap of knowledge about these, both in the scholarly debate and in the world of practitioners (policy makers, planers, politicians).
Members of the Working Group are: Christophe Demazière (University of Tours), John Harrison (Loughborough University), Valeria Fedeli (Milan Polytechnic), Daniel Galland (Aalborg University), Gina Giannakourou (University of Athens), Mark Tewdwr-Jones (University of Newcastle), Mariona Tomas (University of Barcelona), Peter Schmitt (Stockholm University), Zafer Sahin (Atilim University Ankara), Evelyn Gustedt (Academy of Spatial Planning and Spatial Research / ARL), Patricia Feiertag (TU Dortmund).
The hospitality of DASTU Milan Polytechnic is appreciated very much. The group also thanks ARL for generous support.
Last week the annual Summer School was held in Florence in the wonderful Palazzo Medici Riccardi. The more than 20 participants from various European countries experienced an intense training week with lectures from distinguished scholars such as Hubert Heinelt, Luigi Bobbio and Sabine Kuhlmann. Our acknowledgement goes to Prof. Annick Magnier and Prof. Andrea Lippi from the Department of Political Science and Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of the University of Florence. In addition the support of the Municipality of Florence and the Tuscan Unit of the Italian National Municipal Association is greatly appreciated. As in the last years, the Joint PhD Training School is a result of the cooperation between EURA and ECPR/LOGOPOL.
