GOLD Report I - UCLG

261former colonies, structures of colonial administrationstill define local district boundariesoutside central cities. Elsewhere, as with theIndian panchayat or the Philippine barangay,indigenous settlements shape municipaljurisdictions. Where metropolitan governmentsare in place, spatial expansion oftencontinues beyond the formal administrativeboundaries into surrounding localities. Metropolitangovernments now administer 50% ofthe metropolitan population in Mexico City,71% in Sao Paulo, 45% in Seoul and 38% inJohannesburg.Even where the jurisdiction of metropolitangovernmental authority extends over the entiremetropolitan area, other forms of fragmentationcan frustrate effective governance.In Bangkok, Manila, and Mumbai, for instance,metropolitan authorities have securedextensive geopolitical jurisdiction, yeteffectiveness is often limited by political andadministrative interference. To some extentlocal or high-level governments can formallyrestrict the power of metropolitan institutions.A further dilution of metropolitanauthority occurs where agencies or officescharged with different sectoral tasks, such asroads, housing, and transit, resist directivesfrom the metropolitan government.III.3. Economic globalizationand competitivenessIncreasingly, in both the North and the South,metropolitan regions have been recognizedas key nodes for national economic strategies.They are also regarded as vital hubs formobilization for rapid economic development.Alongside the globalization of trade and productionnetworks, the shift to service andhigh-technology business has reinforced thistransformation of metropolitan commerce.Most literature on “global cities” initially centeredon the largest cities of the North, andsought to analyze urban regions accordingto global hierarchies based on their positionin international finance, corporate governance,elite travel, and communication (e.g., Sassen1991; Taylor 2003). Other work on “globalcity regions” points instead to the role ofregional economic clusters in the high-technologyand advanced service components ofmodern industrial economies (e.g., Scott2001). In developed countries, a range ofsmaller and mid-size urban regions havealso managed to stimulate growth by attractinghigh technology, corporate branch offices,and educational or administrative services(Markusen, Lee and DiGiovanna 1999). Thisnew round of economic competitiveness hasnot pushed growth in just one direction. Increasingly,metropolitan centers find thatthere is considerable commercial allure in avibrant urban environment and the culturalamenities found there (Glaeser, Kolko andSaiz 2000). Such new regional economicdynamics further reinforce demands for moreregional collective action.In the South, development has been comparativelyuneven. Despite greater pressuresthere to pursue economic prosperity, governanceof metropolitan regions in the Southpresents challenges that are similar to thosein the North. For the first half of the 20thCentury, cities in Asia and Latin Americafocused almost exclusively on industrialdevelopment and modernization. In much ofLatin America, as well as in the Asian countriesof Thailand and Republic of Korea,cities absorbed much of this industrializationand commanded correspondingly large proportionsof national resources. Aggravatedby conditions of authoritarian rule in many ofthese countries, urban primacy had thedemonstrated effect of reducing the potentialfor overall national development (Adesand Glaeser 1994).Since the 1970s, however, much of the newmanufacturing capacity in the developingworld has been built outside urban centers,usually in surrounding towns. New industrialparks and high-technology centers have alsobeen situated on the periphery of majorurban centers, such as Campinas in the SaoPaulo region (Markusen, Lee and DiGiovanna)and the HITEC Center outside of Hyderabad(Kennedy 2007). In the face of theunderdevelopment and declining fortunes ofSince the 1970s,however, muchof the newmanufacturingcapacity in thedeveloping worldhas been builtoutside urbancenters, usually insurrounding towns