ancient cities

transformation of the political process under the ideological
pressure of neoliberalism; that is, the ideological
push toward fiscal austerity and the decentralization
of governmental programs.
New Political Space
New Forms of Governance
Political territory is commonly understood as
the container-like area within which politics
unfolds. However, urban phenomena can hardly
be conceived as restricted to territorial boundaries;
urban politics may be better understood
within a multicentered logic of horizontal relations
that go beyond the hierarchical and territorial
conception of governments. Metropolitan
governance, in other words, recasts traditional
definitions of the urban political process by insisting
on open, overlapping, and fluid conceptions of
the space of urban politics and focusing on networks,
project-based decision making (rather than
rational comprehensive planning), and the collaboration
of state and nonstate actors. This constitutes
the new political space.
In this context, difficulties of regulation and
coordination caused by the unpredictability and
chaos of urban life in sprawling and growing metropolitan
areas are addressed by transforming the
way decisions are made and legitimated, the way
conflicting interests are mediated, and the way
policies and programs are implemented and evaluated.
These approaches replace institutional and
territorial reforms such as the establishment of
metropolitan two-tier governments.
Decision-Making and Legitimation Mechanisms
In the old debate, metropolitan governance
meant consolidating municipalities and creating
new governmental structures at a larger scale to
ease the coordination of municipal decision making.
Elected representatives would be compelled to work
together by integrating municipal bureaucracies and
pooling resources. In Toronto, for instance, the
Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was created
in 1953 to equip the metropolitan area with adequate
institutional capacity to face the challenges of
rapid (sub)urbanization. This territorial reform was
legitimated by the broad acceptance of rational and
comprehensive planning and the belief that, in the
Metropolitan Governance
507
modern world, a bigger city deserved a bigger governmental
structure. Only in that way could it efficiently
construct urban infrastructure such as
freeways or suburban housing developments.
In the new debate, metropolitan governance mostly
means inventing decision-making mechanisms
that are not necessarily based on voting and comprehensive
planning. Investing in megaprojects such as
waterfront revitalization, airport expansion, or
commercial street renaissance on an ad hoc basis
provides leaders with more visibility and fame.
Strategic planning still exists, but compliance mechanisms
are more voluntary. The regional plan is
often an opportunity to legitimate project-based
decisions through controlled visionary exercises
where well-known public and private leaders as
well as selected citizens are called to imagine the
future of the metropolitan area. Public consultations
are also used to legitimate decisions that may
or may not have been taken by elected representatives.
In short, decision making mostly takes place
in a debating or a bargaining mode between public
and private actors, often leading to public–private
partnerships for urban development. This networked,
project-based logic of coordination and
regulation is more prized than the traditional logic
of representative democracy.
Legitimacy in this context comes from sources
other than elections. Decisions that resonate with
people’s everyday practices and with their understandings
will more easily be seen as legitimate.
This implies more than one model of metropolitan
governance, with governance arrangements varying
according to the power dynamics and political
culture of specific places. For instance, in Montreal,
the government has chosen to create new metropolitan
institutions (as in the old days) while incorporating
practices of the new days (e.g., visioning
exercises, performance measures, public–private
partnerships, public consultations). In contrast,
Toronto followed the lead of economic and other
civil society leaders in constructing a metropolitan
political space based on networks and specific
projects such as the 2008 Olympic bid. These different
trajectories can be explained by different
configurations of actors and political cultures.
Economic actors are more powerful in Toronto
than Montreal, for instance, while the history of
Montreal has led to a more social democratic state
where, by comparison to Toronto, governmental
structures are more trusted.