Creating City-region Governance Structures in a Dysfunctional Polity: The Case of Ireland’s National Spatial Strategy

Devolution of powers and functions from national to regional level has been a common experience internationally in recent times. A range of possible driving forces underpinning this trend are reviewed. The city-region has become a favoured spatial unit for organising direct regional participation in global markets. New governance structures are being forged for mobilising joint cross-communuty action in pursuit of broad regional objectives. A range of influences can shape the configuration of these structures, giving rise to a varied geography of regional governance arrangements. This paper focuses on the dysfunctional governance structures which have inhibited the implementation of the National Spatial Strategy, introduced by the Irish government in 2002 with the objective of achieving balanced regional development through the creation of a polycentric system of city-regions. These structures are described and their origins attributed to features of the Irish system of government which favour administrative centralisation over devolution

Metropolitan strategic planning: An Australian paradigm?

This article describes the characteristics of a distinctively Australian paradigm of metropolitan planning which reflect circumstances of governance, infrastructure provision and concentration on suburban expansion into surrounding countryside. The resultant plans are detailed in their arrangement of land use and communications, comprehensive and long term. There are indications this paradigm may be changing as these dominating influences alter in character. Contemporary metropolitan strategic planning in Europe and America is overviewed to establish the distinctiveness of the Australian paradigm. Changes in plan-shaping forces are leading the emergence of a new European strategic spatial planning paradigm very different to Australia's. Strategic spatial planning in the United States, while heterogeneous, has examples that reinforce the idea of an Australian paradigm in terms of the influence of governance structure and infrastructure agency on the level of spatial plan detail