The Problem of Metropolitan Governance and the Politics of Scale

COX K. R. The problem of metropolitan governance and the politics of scale, Regional Studies. In the United States, the problem of urban governance is in part, and in virtue of a characteristic jurisdictional fragmentation, one of metropolitan governance. This paper argues that in order to understand emergent solutions to these governance problems, it is important to place local governments both in the context of the state as a whole and the state as a differentiated territorial form. This leads to an approach emphasizing the politics of scale. The arguments are exemplified through the experience of one particular American metropolitan area.