The politics of city-region planning and governance: reconciling the national, regional and urban

Issues relating to the governance of urban areas and regions have become of increasing interest to acade-mics and policy analysts. In the global economy, urban and economic development matters are being inter-preted within the governance framework. As a consequence of the lack of a formal statutory metro-politan political focus within the UK over the last 30 years, much of this debate has invariably focused on one scale: the city or the local. But the New Labour Government’s political and administrative restructur-ing of the institutions and regions of governance is reconfiguring the city development issue onto another level. In future, it will be possible to view the urban governance issue from the perspective of a muc