Scales, Actors and New Power Values of Urban Governance of Sustainability

Dear Collegues,

It is not enough to say that the majority of the world’s population lives in cities. It is no longer sufficient or even acceptable to use the word “city” or “metropolis” as if they mean the same thing all over the planet. These words can no longer describe all realities in terms of quality, or quantity or even, of concern here, in terms of transformation dynamics. For each type of city—those that are growing, those that are being renovated, those that are in crisis, those that are hesitating about their future—there are different challenges that require distinct resources and models for governing solutions. 

The destiny of these territories, cities or metropolises is very diverse (fortunately so), thus forcing us to understand that each one of them has a unique identity which represents how it should continue to be seen.

In parallel with a teeming urban and metropolitan universe, we also find political structures in transformation, needing to be analyzed under the structural change that reveal. On one hand is a state which in many cases shows signs of weakness—regarding legitimacy, resources, the capacity to perform, command, and control. On the other hand is an economy and a civil society that seek to find spaces of representation—creating new structures and new claims. From this combination—a state in crisis and an emerging society—naturally arises a reconfiguration between the two, which in fact symbolizes an ongoing shift in the (until now) dominant values of power.

Complex links are established between territories and societies, mediated by governance structures. These structures, whether democratically legitimized or not, take the form of local, regional, and metropolitan governments which sometimes pile up in successive layers, generating problems of effectiveness and efficiency.

This is where we stand now. Territories, societies, and power structures in convulsion and in a permanent search for a better and more balanced relationship between them. As there are no ideal solutions, everyone realizes that there is a problem here, or rather, there are as many problems as there are cities, territories, metropolises, and regions. There is still a long and narrow way to go from the institutional configurations that come from the past to the configurations that we are missing in the present.

The mainstream literature has oscillated between a focus on territorial structures (borders, institutional amalgamation and fragmentation, one, two, three levels, etc.), political structures (cooperation, competitiveness, conflict, and institutional collective action), or sectoral governance processes (with an emphasis on transport and sanitation). Some complementary tools have been adopted to overcome the difficulties experienced, such as the development of joint strategic visions for the environment and spatial planning, among others.

However, many question marks remain on this journey from government to governance. This is what we want to continue to unravel in this Special Issue, toward a more solid and resilient urban, social, environmental, and economic sustainability.

Prof. Dr. Jorge Gonçalves
Guest Editor

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• civil society
• city region
• governance
• governance arrangements
• governance beyond the state
• interactive governance
• interest group involvement
• metropolitan government
• urban governance
• metropolitan scale
• urban scale
• multilevel governance
• participatory governance
• power configurations
• public participation
• urban rescaling
• state-based arrangements
• strategic spatial planning
• smart governance
• territorial governance
• inclusive governance
• governance for sustainability
• local government