Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

117
competitiveness of the Capital Region. The 2005 Government Platformdocument,
however, stresses the need for a balance between growth areas
and peripheral areas. It is currently unclear to what extent the central
government is willing to allow differentiation between regions and whether
it continues to see Copenhagen as pivotal for the economic development of
Denmark as a whole.
There is only limited co-ordination between the different cities in
Denmark. Closer economic co-operation between Copenhagen and
Denmark‘s major regional cities could bring greater economic benefits to
them all by exploiting their current and potential economic linkages. In
England over the past few years, a dialogue has developed between London
and the major regional cities (Core Cities) on how to realise their collective
economic potential. This may offer some lessons to Copenhagen and Danish
regional cities on how they might collaborate with each other to better
exploit their different economic roles and create stronger economic growth
individually and collectively (Box 2.1). There is a co-ordination forum of
main cities in Denmark, called the ―six-cities co-operation‖, a forum of the
six largest cities in Denmark: Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg,
Esbjerg and Randers. This forum has so far been mostly an arena for the
exchange of experiences and data collection in areas such as economy,
budgets, health care and infrastructure. In addition, there is a project to
involve the large cities in the branding efforts connected to the Copenhagen
Climate Summit. Although this forum is an interesting platform for cooperation,
more could be done, including increasing the visibility of links
between cities and the co-ordination of economic functions. It is the primary
responsibility of the authorities of the different cities in Denmark to engage
in a similar dialogue, but the national government could also play a
facilitating role in this. The absence of a national urban policy in Denmark
and a vision of the role of cities in Denmark certainly does not help to create
links between cities that would help to co-ordinate their functional economic
responsibilities.