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This paper seeks to examine evidence of new forms of regionalisation in both theory and practice, and the relationship between the two. In so doing, it aims to demonstrate the essential complementarity, rather than widely argued alternativeness, of both conventional and new forms of inter‐local collaboration at the regional level. The paper also seeks to demonstrate the importance of institutional and local legacies for the nature of regionalisation.

The paper is based on interviews by the author with economic policy makers in several city regions in Europe and North America over the last three years, and the results of a series of workshops involving many of these very policy makers.

There is growing evidence of new forms of inter‐local region building being adopted by policy makers in response to a perceived need to maintain/improve economic competitiveness. Concerns about “giving away” powers and resources when engaging in usual conventional, formalised, fixed forms of regionalisation have created reluctance among many local actors to do so. The need to be more responsive to rapidly changing economic conditions, coupled to a realisation of the need for concerted action, have encouraged economic policy makers to adopt new, more experimental forms of region‐wide collaboration.

The findings not only challenge established practices and a conventional focus on planning and technocratic views of “regions”, but also raise questions about the prevalent regulation theory‐inspired arguments in academic debate. Instead, “virtual regionalisation” seems to open new opportunities for defining meaning and operation of “regions” and “regionalism”, with the different backgrounds in Europe and North America allowing a somewhat more “open mind” in the latter than the former.

The paper illustrates that in many regions in Europe and North America there is now a multitude of actors and organisations seeking to promote regional competitiveness and growth.

Since the 1950s, and the steadily growing mobility of people and production (economic activity) as a result of the shift to road traffic, especially in North America, suburban areas have grown rapidly as residential areas and places of (post-industrial) economic activity (Hoffmann-Axthelm, 1998). People moved from ‘the country’ and, especially, the established central cities to the more spacious and cheap to develop peripheral locations. In Europe, differences have emerged on the basis of established planning law and thus availability of land for development, and of historic legacies in the relationship between ‘city’ and ‘country’. Thus, for instance, while in Germany cities were distinctly separate from their surrounding areas in legal terms and land ownership, in Italy, cities have been viewed as ‘owning’ or controlling the surrounding areas to the extent that these are subservient to the cities’ developmental needs (Heitkamp, 1998).

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the role of territory in (city‐) regionalisation and to revisit the problems of distance from the core in cluster strategies. The paper further aims to discuss the implications of how agglomeration and networking economies, strongly promoted and based on city regions, are being realised across national boundaries.

The paper argues that there are negative spatial impacts for those areas which do not and cannot establish “core cluster” status. The focus on such “cores” threatens to exacerbate the peripherality of the non‐core regions of the European Union, and especially those in the external (northern) border regions of Europe.

Against an evolving pattern of reducing effective distances across the mainland continent through EU funding, Celtic and Nordic Europe is facing a relative increase in peripherality. Ownership and control of industry and the economy are becoming ever more concentrated and centralised at the core, and monetary and fiscal policies are driven by the needs of the market and so of the demands of the metropolitan heart of the continent. While the new territorial clusters are promising growth and development for some regions allowing them to converge on the core, this should not be allowed to obscure the threats to others which are becoming ever more disadvantaged.

The paper highlights a major, albeit not much acknowledged, threat emanating from the current focus on city regions as “economic champions” in debates and policy making. Not only does this threaten to overlook, but, indeed, may create areas of “exclusion” and peripherality.

Advocates of the role of city‐regions in economic development seek lessons from other countries to boost the case. But processes of lesson learning raise many challenges and the purpose of this paper, therefore, is to argue that it is necessary to shift from descriptive comparison to a better understanding and explanation of what works where.

The approach taken in the paper is to review recent debates about the design of comparative studies and suggests a range of comparative questions.

The paper draws on insights from the ESRC Research Seminar and other papers in this issue and helps clarify some of the issues that may be involved in developing a better comparative understanding of the emergence and impacts of new “experimental”, time‐limited regional institutions.

The paper argues for more rigorous comparative research.

Questions are raised about current lesson learning concerning the governance of city regions.

The paper contributes to new debates about the potential of comparative study.

This paper aims to examine a pan‐regional initiative, The Northern Way. The argument is framed within the on‐going city‐region debate to demonstrate some of the challenges and difficulties of working in collaboration and partnership across associational networks. It seeks to highlight the importance of institutional and local legacies and politics for understanding the nature of this particular form of pan‐regional arrangement.

The paper draws on existing literature and other secondary source material from policy and guidance documents, participant observation in regional and sub‐regional meetings, and supplemented with primary interview data.

The Northern Way, promoted by central government to manage decline in the Greater North of England, demonstrated a continued legacy of regional disparities and an attempt to move city actors from inter and intra regional rivalry towards collaboration and partnership. As an associational network, the fluidity of scales and wide ranging social forces impacted on coordination and integration of processes, institutions, plans and strategies. This emergent governance form exemplified institutional turbulence, as powers were re‐configured continuously across scales and, across policy sectors and policy actors. The Northern Way was a very complicated arrangement of networks across regional and sub‐regional territories, and its lack of autonomy from central government hampered its overall effectiveness and strategic approach.

The paper provides a valuable insight for academics, practitioners and policy makers into some of the challenges and difficulties of managing across a pan‐regional associational network. It is original because most of the earlier literature focuses solely on city‐regions rather than a specific pan‐regional initiative such as the one under enquiry here.

This paper aims to present a case study of the Philadelphia region's efforts to implement a regional approach to economic development by relying on business‐civic leadership to transcend governmental boundaries.

The paper examines the role of leadership in organizations representing business interests, and the competing and conflicting perspectives on the “right” scale to do so – local and/or regional, drawing on participatory insights into the relevant processes.

While ad‐hoc partnerships and governance are often recognized as important elements of economic competitiveness for metropolitan areas by key civic and business leaders, established localist and institutional‐organizational interests and strategies may counteract that. Overcoming long‐established fragmentation requires a high level of attention to symbolism and the details of inclusiveness in organizational and spatial terms.

The recognition and study of city‐regional governance is very topical. The contribution of this paper is timely and offers a rare insight into the practical side of city‐regional governance, thus illuminating theoretical arguments.

This paper aims to present a case study of the Manchester metropolitan area's efforts at implementing a regional approach to economic policy making and metropolitan governance. Vis‐à‐vis an emerging proposal for a concerted and effective approach towards the development of a governance model for the Manchester City Region, the paper aims to discuss the competing proposals for a mayoral and more “federalist” model of coordinating local policies in the area..

The paper examines the roles of different agencies – business representations and local authorities – in working towards a form of coherent governance for the city region against the backdrop of the many current precedents of such arrangements across Europe.

The paper finds that local authorities in the Greater Manchester area tend to favour a federalist City Region approach with greater autonomy for each participating local government. Yet, the alternative mayoral model retains the advantage of a distinct identity and direct accountability. In any case, a strong and coherent private sector input on key issues affecting the economy and its development in the Manchester City Region are required, but, as yet, not always sufficiently articulated.

Finding an “appropriate” model of city‐regional governance is a very topical issue. The contribution of this paper is thus timely and offers a good insight into the practical side of coordinating public and private sector interests and ways of making policies as part of city‐regional governance.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of emerging “megaregions” in the USA and the challenges they present to planning for large‐scale systems of transportation infrastructure, environmental resources, and economic growth, and their implications for developing a national growth strategy.

The paper examines the existing research on megaregions and their applications in addressing specific challenges in large geographical areas. It also discusses the efforts of a privately led initiative to create a national growth strategy and how megaregions may provide an interim scale toward national planning.

The paper finds that while ad hoc megaregional partnerships and governance will help lay the groundwork for large‐scale investments and policies needed to address the expanding spatial dynamics of the twenty‐first century economy, ultimately the USA requires a national plan to prepare for future growth.

The recognition and study of US megaregions is relatively new. The contribution of this paper is that it discusses how megaregions might shape a national strategy for growth in the USA in the next half century.

Drawing on changes in the nature of European metropolitan development planning in general, and the example of the Randstad, in particular, the purpose of this paper is to argue for an improved interconnectedness between regions and their public and private sector agencies. These should be linked to “flows of social and economic interaction”, and, as such, complement conventional notions of “bounded spaces” and “nested territorial jurisdictions”. This is in response to the now crucial question for metropolitan planning of how to develop and renew effective institutional capacity to deal with the increasing spatial complexities at regional or metropolitan level.

The paper is a case study‐based theoretical review of types of metropolitan planning, drawing on original policy documents and interviews with relevant policymakers.

It is shown that the answer to addressing the challenges of development planning at the city‐regional level is not primarily to enlarge the steering powers of regional planning per se, but to broaden its strategic network capacity through enlarging the coordinative and communicative intelligence of the intermediate regional planning bodies. This allows better responsiveness to the evident transformation processes within spatial development planning as such, with a growing emphasis on a strategic element within it. This, again, is more in line with the changeability of urban space.

The paper shows that the notion of spatial development planning has made a strong revival in the last ten years. It has been spatial planning that has attracted the key focus of debate, more so than adjacent policy‐making sectors (economic policy in particular).