City-region Governance: the Cooperation between the City and the Metropolitan Area. European Examples and the Relevance for Hungary

Abstract

The territorial cooperation between the cities and their surrounding areas is of key impor- tance for the competitiveness and sustainability of European development. The new, 21st century period of city-region cooperation will differ from the earlier versions, giving more emphasys to flexible, govemance- and network-type structures, instead of fixed administra- tive organizations. City-regions have to address double-task: to solve the intemal conflicts of the narrow, functional urban area and to exploit the opportunities of the broader, economic cooperation area. The first might need top-down regulatory mechanisms, while the latter might best function in bottom-up partnership. In the Budapest metropolitan area territorial cooperation is non-existent, neither in the narrow FUA nor in the broader economic zone. In the lack of cooperation, regulations and joint development plans based on mutual trust, the Budapest metropolitan area will not be able to solve the intemal problems and will be unable to exploit its advantageous European development potentials.