ancient cities

508 Metropolitan Governance
Despite these variations, metropolitan governance
today is generally associated with a shared
belief in the need for and the virtues of international
competitiveness. Most citizens, elected representatives,
bureaucrats, and civic leaders have
internalized the idea that working together on a
metropolitan scale will increase competitiveness in
global markets and produce prosperity and happiness.
This belief is at the core of the legitimation
strategies for metropolitan governance reforms.
This is not to say, that no one is contesting this
idea. The problem for critics, however, is that
transformation in interest-mediation mechanisms
have made it more difficult for them to be heard.
Interest-Mediation Mechanisms
Traditionally, political parties, periodic elections,
and corporate organizations such as trade unions
or boards of trade were the main mechanisms to
arbitrate between conflicting interests. Critical
voices could thus be heard in an organized fashion.
With the transformations under way since the
1980s, points of access to the decision-making process
have multiplied at the same time as they have
weakened. On the one hand, public consultations,
the use of mainstream media channels, the creation
of information hotlines by public agencies, and
high-visibility urban projects have made urban
politics more present in people’s daily lives. On the
other hand, the channels through which citizens
can influence decision making depend more and
more on personal networks. Unelected actors make
important decisions outside of democratic accountability
mechanisms, and access to these decision
makers depends on personal networks. To counter
these back-corridor decision-making practices,
alternative forms of activism such as demonstrations
and social justice work have become an integral
part of the political life of metropolitan areas.
Policy Implementation and Evaluation
The consolidation–fragmentation debate was
centered on the quest for the most effective and
equitable service delivery system at the least cost
for taxpayers. Programs were considered successful
if residents were satisfied. The recent metropolitan
governance debate is largely shaped by international
transfers of knowledge on best practices,
accompanied by ever more sophisticated performance
measures and ranking schemes such as, for
instance, Richard Florida’s controversial Creative
Index, which measures the proportion of educated,
artistic, high-technology, and foreign-born population
in cities to assess their potential for innovation
and economic growth. In addition, authoritative
auditing instruments based on legal contracts,
norms, accounting categories, and new surveillance
technologies aim to control how grant money is
spent and how employees work.
City-Regions as Collective Actors
Internally, metropolitan governance refers to a profound
transformation of the political process in
terms of the multinodal and networked spatial configuration
of political exchanges and the emergence
of new decision-making, legitimating, interest-mediation,
and evaluation mechanisms. Externally,
metropolitan governance means the constitution of
the city-region as a collective actor on global markets
and in international governmental relations.
Seeing the city-region as a collective actor with
the capacity to coordinate interests and actors
and to represent the city externally implies a sense
of common purpose rather than internal conflict.
This may give the impression of a depoliticized
region where there is a strong agreement on governing
priorities. This apparent consensus, however,
is usually the result of political struggles
between interest-based strategizing practices. In
Toronto, for example, the role of coalitions such
as the Toronto City Summit Alliance, led by the
Board of Trade, United Way, and union leaders,
in fostering a common identity for the city-region
is central. The dominant role of transnational
capital within this coalition, created in 2002, is
linked with its interest in making Toronto more
competitive and amenable to global business. It
also symbolizes the development of new strategies
to influence the political process. While transnational
banks, finance, trade, and multinational
corporations have traditionally not been very
involved in metropolitan politics in Toronto, preferring
lobbying strategies at the national level,
there has been a rescaling of their political activities
toward metropolitan politics. They have
become the most visible leaders of metropolitan
governance in Toronto.