Rescaling metropolitan governance: examining discourses and conflicts in two Swiss metropolitan areas

Abstract

Due to their nodal position in economic and social development, metropolitan areas give impetus to globalization. In turn, they are themselves transformed by this process. However, the question of how metropolitan areas transform by participating in the process of globalization is subject to debate. Based on case studies of two Swiss metropolitan areas (Berne and Zurich) and two policy domains (public transport and urban foreign policy), we argue that the rescaling process in metropolitan areas depends on the global competitiveness pressure the cities face and on the meaning that political actors give to these global pressures.

Keywords:

• metropolitan governance
• rescaling
• public transport
• urban foreign policy

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Joachim Blatter and three anonymous referees for their insightful and constructive remarks. Funding for this research was generously provided by the NCCR ‘Challenges to Democracy in the Twenty-first Century’ and by the State Secretary for Education and Research (grant no. C04.0097). The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1. State power can be defined as the state's capacity to act on all scales. See Jessop (2009) for a more elaborate discussion of the term ‘state power’.

2. In this article, we understand the concept of scale in political–institutional terms. For a more differentiated picture, see Jessop, Brenner, and Jones (2008).

3. The Swiss federal system has three main layers of political authority: the national, the cantonal, and the communal (or municipal) level. The 26 cantons are the constitutive elements of the Swiss federal system. From a comparative perspective, Swiss communes have a high degree of political autonomy. In between the three state levels, a forth level, the agglomeration, has gained ever more political attention in the last decade (for an overview see Kübler, Schenkel, and Leresche (2003)). The term ‘agglomeration’ (agglomeration/agglomération/agglomerato) is used by the Swiss Statistical Office to describe functionally integrated areas of urban settlement that cut across local government boundaries (Schuler 1984; Schuler, Joye, and Dessemontet 2005). Conceptually, it corresponds to the notion of metropolitan area commonly used in the English literature and based on the nomenclature of the US Census Bureau (Hoffmann-Martinot and Sellers 2005). In the remainder of the article, the term metropolitan area is used.

4. For the full and comparative presentation of the case studies, see Koch (2011, 2013).

5. See for instance: Gutachten Walther and Leibbrand (1954) and the Generalverkehrsplan (Stadtplanungsamt Bern 1964) for Berne and Gutachten Kremer and Leibbrand (1954), Pirath and Feuchtinger (1954) for Zurich.

6. See the U-Bahn-project 1960, Tiefbahn-project 1962, and the S-/U-Bahn-project 1973 in Zurich, the Expressstrasse 1960 and the H-Lösung 1970 in Berne.

7. See the creation of the RPV in 1963, the establishment of a research center for regional issues in the administration of the city in 1964 and then the creation of the highly influential AFö in 1974.

8. See the debates in the cantonal parliament in 1951, or the composition of the several working groups and committees, in which hardly any representatives of surrounding communes had any seat (Arbeitsausschuss Eisenbahnfragen; Ausschuss für den Zürcher Vorortsverkehr; Behördendelegation für den Zürcher Regional Verkehr).

9. See the debate on the new law on railroad companies in 1967/1968 in the cantonal parliament and the debate on the social democrats’ initiative ‘Gesetz für einen umweltfreundlichen Verkehr’ in 1987/1988.

10. See for instance the several reports and publications by the ‘Stadt- und Regionalforschungsstelle’ of the city of Berne (Berner Beiträge zur Stadt- und Regionalforschung 1964–1975) and the cantonal ‘Kommission zur Frage der Regionenbildung’ founded 1973.

11. We thus exclude the international activities of private companies from our analysis although these international contacts have certainly been increasing over the last few decades, especially for enterprises located in metropolitan areas (Dicken 1994; Porter 2000).

12. However, Vion (2001) and Saunier (2001) in their analysis of interurban networking in the late-ninetieth and early-twentieth centuries show that even international networking between cities has a longer tradition.

13. In a broader study, we investigated the international activities of five of the largest city-regions in Switzerland as well as two city-regions from the EU (Lyon and Stuttgart) (van der Heiden 2010).

14. See Bulkeley et al. (2003) as well as Keiner and Kim (2007) for a more detailed analysis of interurban networking in climate policy.