URBAN REGIMES AND GROWTH MACHINES - TOWARD A CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH AGENDA

The article begins with an appraisal of the concepts of urban regimes and growth machines and an assessment of their utility for cross-national urban political analysis, referring particularly to the United Kingdom. It then suggests that the formation of subnational development coalitions has become increasingly common across European liberal democracies but that political scientists, at least those in the United Kingdom, have yet to develop adequate conceptual tools with which to analyze this phenomenon. A final section suggests that the insights of the U.S. literature, suitably adapted, might be incorporated into a comparative research agenda based on the notion of urban governance.