Ebbs and flows of metropolitan authorities: Supra-local spatial planning and impact on land-use patterns

Abstract

In this study, I propose an analytical approach to describe the institutional trajectory of metropolitan authorities by using theory-based institutional models that, like ‘ebbs’ and ‘flows’, alternate over time. By employing a comparative, qualitative case-based approach, I empirically validated this analytical approach by reconstructing the divergent institutional trajectories of the metropolitan authorities in Barcelona, Spain and Milan, Italy over a period of 70 years. Furthermore, I examine to what extent the different institutional trajectories of both metropolitan authorities have had an indirect impact on land-use patterns by comparing longitudinal datasets (1950s-2010s) at different territorial scales. Results show that the different institutional models characterizing both metropolitan authorities cannot be clearly associated with a higher or lower proportion of urbanized areas. Rather, findings suggest that it is the inter-mediating role that metropolitan authorities routinely perform that can promote efficient land-use development and sustainable use of land as a scarce resource (equifinality).

Keywords:

• land-use change
• metropolitan governance
• regional governance
• politics of scale

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the interviewees for their time in taking part to the research. I am grateful to the two Reviewers for their constructive comments. I also thank Annalisa Giocoli, Ernest Ruiz, Dante Fasolini and Charlotte Steinmeier for their help (and patience) in answering my questions about the land-use data used in this study. I am also grateful to Frank Moulaert, Anna M. Hersperger and Joerg Knieling for providing constructive advice on earlier versions of the paper. Any inaccuracies or missteps are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1 Broadly speaking, regional governance in the US context can be considered equivalent to metropolitan governance in the European context, although ‘regions’ in Europe are an administrative tier found in some European countries that should not be confused with the ‘regional organisations’ or ‘councils’ in the US (see e.g. Feiock, 2009, 363ff).

2 In this paper, the term ‘local authorities’ is used as a synonym for ‘municipalities’, although the two terms do not fully overlap.

3 The complete list of interviews is included in the Supplementary material (Appendix A).

4 For the Barcelona case, values for non-urban areas were calculated by subtraction. Accuracy of values for the total surfaces may slightly differ from other sources and administrative data.

5 As it will become clear in Section 4, the number of municipalities affiliated to the Milan metropolitan authority (PIM) has changed several times since its establishment in 1961. For this study, the number of affiliated municipalities in 2016 was considered because of data availability.

6 Although the Urban Atlas also defines the functional urban area (FUA) for Barcelona (136 municipalities, 246,440 ha), in this study the RMB has been preferred as a suitable functional equivalent to the Milan FUA given the comparable total hectares of surface (ca. 310,000-325,000 ha) despite the substantial difference in the number of included municipalities (164 in the RMB as compared to 303 in the Milan FUA). Hence, data availability for the RMB has not been the sole criterion for the selection of the RMB for comparative purposes. It is also important to note that the RMB is different from the current ‘Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona’ that was defined in 2017 and that, as compared to the RMB, does not include the comarques of the Alt Penedès and Garraf.

7 Land-use data were not available for the Barcelona metropolitan region (RMB) in 2011 and land-use data for 2007 instead of 2009 have been used for the Milan FUA. Please see Supplementary material (Appendix B and C) for further details.

8 An overview of the main spatial planning regulations and plans examined in this study is provided in the Supplementary Material (Appendix D).

9 Interviews marked with ‘B’ have been performed in Barcelona.

10 Interviews marked with ‘M’ have been performed in Milan.

11 See also footnote 6.

12 To a certain degree, in both cases ‘regional’ planning could be replaced with ‘territorial’ planning to more tightly adhere to the local denominations: ordenamiento del territorio (Spanish) and pianificazione territoriale (Italian) for regional planning, and territorial plans for Catalonia (Plan General Territorial de Catalunya (PGTC), issued in 1995) and territorial coordination plans for Lombardy and its provinces (piani territoriali di coordinamento regionale (PTCR) e provincial (PTCP), issued since the 2000s).

13 Denominations are provided both in Spanish and Catalan.

14 See footnote 12.

15 Differences exist between the values of the total surface area across each territorial scale because of spatial approximations. Please see the Supplementary material for further details.

Additional information

Funding

DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany, Grant ID: PA 3573/1-1.