Empowering metropolitan regions through new forms of cooperation

Leo van den Berg, Jan van der Meer, Alexander Otgaar, Carolien Speller

Empowering Metropolitan Regions through New Forms of Cooperation analyses the development of cross-border and cross-sector partnerships in various European cities and regions. It provides insight into the factors of failure and success in relation to the coalition-forming process by comparing various attempts at this in European regions. Over the course of nine case studies the following questions are addressed:

What forms of metropolitan and/or regional partnerships can be found?
What are the motives for establishing such partnerships?
What factors contribute to or obstruct cooperation on the metropolitan level?
How is performance of partnership models to be measured?
How are the successes and failures of these attempts to be explained?

The comparative analysis of these attempts to establish cooperation between municipalities sheds light on the importance of a regional approach to governance in dealing with challenges that cross the borders of borders.

About the Authors
Leo van den Berg is Director of EURICUR and Professor of Urban Economics and Urban Management at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Jan van der Meer is Associate Director of EURICUR and Associate Professor of Urban Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Drs Alexander Otgaar is senior researcher at the unit Regional, Port and Transport Economics, which is part of the department Applied Economics of the Faculty of Economics within the Erasmus University. Carolien Speller is researcher Urban and Regional Economics at Erasmus University. The authors have initiated, carried out and contributed to many comparative urban research projects through EURICUR in cities across and beyond Europe. The results of these investigations have been published internationally in the EURICUR-series with Ashgate and in academic journals. More information about their activities and publications can be found on the EURICUR website.   

Table of Contents
Introduction; Brain port Eindhoven
Centrope: a cross-border alliance in the Central European region
New forms of regional cooperation in the Helsinki region
The networks of Wonderful Copenhagen
Planning for sustainable development in the Munich region
Integrated public transport policies in the Budapest metropolitan area
Noordrand project: cooperation in the Rotterdam region
The Better Districts programme of Catalonia: Serra d'en Mena
Porto's experience with the Serrasalves Foundation Synthesis Index

More Information
Book homepage
Homepage Leo van den Berg
Homepage Jan van der Meer
Homepage Alexander Otgaar
Homepage Carolien Speller