1st Edition
Governing Urban Regions Through Collaboration A View from North America
With the demise of the Old Regionalist project of achieving good regional governance through amalgamation, voluntary collaboration has become the modus operandi of a large number of North American metropolitan regions. Although many researchers have become interested in regional collaboration and its determinants, few have specifically studied its outcomes. This book contributes to filling this gap by critically re-evaluating the fundamental premise of the New Regionalism, which is that regional problems can be solved without regional/higher government. In particular, this research asks: to what extent does regional collaboration have a significant independent influence on the determinants of regional resilience? Using a comparative (Canada-U.S.) mixed-method approach, with detailed case studies of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Montreal and trans-national Niagara-Buffalo regions, the book examines the direct and indirect impacts of inter-local collaboration on policy and policy outcomes at the regional and State/Provincial levels. The book research concentrates on the effects of bottom-up, state-mandated and functional collaboration and the moderating role of regional awareness, higher governmental initiative and civic capital on three outcomes: environmental preservation, socio-economic integration and economic competitiveness. In short, the book seeks to highlight those conditions that favor collaboration and might help avoid the collaborative trap of collaboration for its own sake. More specifically, this research concentrates on the effect of bottom-up, state-mandated and functional collaboration, the moderating role of regional awareness, governmental initiative and civic capital on environmental preservation, socio-economic integration and economic competitiveness. In short, the book seeks to understand whether and how urban regional collaboration contributes to regional resilience.
Biography
Joël Thibert is an Urban Planner, Consultant and Co-founder of Walk the region.
’Joel Thibert’s ambitious new book blends large-N statistical analyses of the effects of regional collaboration on American and Canadian metropolitan issues with careful case studies of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Montreal archipelago, and cross-border Niagara. Notwithstanding an appropriate degree of caution and modesty, he arrives at some memorable counter-intuitive conclusions: voluntary collaboration can be counter-productive; imposed metropolitan structures can undermine regional problem-solving.’ Andrew Sancton, The University of Western Ontario, Canada ’Into a field long on presumption and short on actionable evidence comes Joël Thibert’s ambitious and meticulous study of how regional collaboration matters - or not - to regional economic, social and environmental outcomes. Combine his original database of metropolitan collaborations with theoretically fair-minded and empirically forthright insights from the field: et voilà , a worthy new voice in regional analysis.’ Kathryn A. Foster, University of Maine at Farmington, USA ’The Region is a blurry and fuzzy concept, in particular when one looks at it from a policy perspective. Joël Thibert’s book explores the case for studying regional collaboration, focusing in particular on its extrinsic importance: does it make a difference in terms of providing public goods and how and under what conditions can urban regions be successfully governed? The author presents critical evidences based on an original mix of quantitative and qualitative research methodology which deals with central research questions in the field.’ Valeria Fedeli, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
