Anagrafe della ricerca

Issue addressed Europe's metropolitan regions are crucial to regional economic stability and growth, generating 51% of the EU's GDP and hosting three-fifths of the EU's population. They compete for foreign and domestic investment, drive the knowledge economy and attract migrants, spreading the benefits from the core city to the wider functional urban area. However, unbalanced development within core cities and their hinterlands is mainly due to fragmentation/dispersion of powers, as urban and suburban parts are often governed by a number of different local or regional authorities and other state structures responsible for their economic and spatial development. This has a direct impact on overall metropolitan governance and highlights the need for tailor-made frameworks and cooperation models to achieve balanced development, as well as effective coordination in multi-sectoral strategic planning (i.e. planning of public services) between core cities and their suburbs. The challenges presented by metropolitan phenomena in the EU are varied, encompassing social, economic, financial, territorial, environmental, political, and institutional dimensions. The ongoing transition between traditional administrative boundaries and metropolitan areas has led to multiple theoretical approaches and proposals for governing urban agglomerations in Europe. This diversity stems from the interplay of several factors: territorial and institutional fragmentation, the scope of metropolitan responsibilities, and the methods of financing and representation. Within this framework, achieving effective cooperation between core cities and their surrounding areas remains difficult, often confined to specific regions or sectoral issues, which limits the broader metropolitan potential. To address this, there is a need for integrated, place-based development strategies that are effective at the functional area level and adhere to the principles of the New European Bauhaus (NEB). Project’s overall objective METRO-CASE aims to improve the strategic planning policies and tools of EU metropolitan areas by strengthening multi-sectoral and multi-level coordination between core cities and their hinterlands. At the same time, the project addresses the need to optimise EU investment in metropolitan regions across Europe. The development of a common vision on metropolitan governance, the identification of appropriate forms and themes of cooperation, and the improvement of existing strategic planning tools/policies are essential to address metropolitan challenges and to promote comprehensive, integrated territorial development strategies that address diverse territorial needs. This will support the programming of actions and the targeting of expenditure towards initiatives that serve the holistic development of the whole metropolitan area.