The transforming role of the state and its relationship to urban development

Abstract

In today’s globalized world, the urban areas more often emerge as places of economic activity competing with each other. In the case of metropolitan areas, it is evident that the city centre can form an economic area with an important role only together with its region. Small and medium-sized towns can be competitive with metropolitan areas if they unite their forces in a network and abandon competition. For the further implementation of cohesion policy as convergence, regional competitiveness, employment and territorial cooperation are unarguable. The EU calls our attention to the importance of strengthening territorial cohesion – which is supported by the specific geographical location and network of cities, and has been linked with the principal of polycentrism in and outside of metropolitan areas. The network-demanding strategic cooperation is one of the main methods for the governance of city-regions. This paper examines how the renewal of spatial planning with a new development character instead of landuse planning encourages the implementation of governance structures, especially in urban areas. City-regions become the supra-local level with competences of a decentralized territorial unit which status supports the competitiveness of the cities. The regulation of urban planning is a key issue of how to handle the urban problem in the whole city-region. At the same time, the public sector opens itself towards both the private and non-profit sectors, from which it expects to raise additional resources to achieve its goals. This new development approach must be supported by the state whose role has changed during the past two decades. We are witnesses to the birth of the cooperative state which defines its new urban and planning policies by positioning metropolitan areas and networks of small and medium-sized cities in the framework of international economy.

Győr is in a weak position in the international urban hierarchy and the city doesn’t have a real concentration of population (weakness of agglomeration advantages). The research revealed a range of experiences of successful city-regional models in the wider European area. Based on this, the research focused on the issue of institutional, financial and planning conditions, on the possibilities and opportunities the Hungarian city should possess in order to make its governance structures and networks more effective and to enhance its economic development perspective.