Metropolitan Governance: Multi-Level Coordination for a Comprehensive Territorial and Urban Planning

The growth of metropolitan areas has blurred the frontiers between them and their surroundings, which include settlements of different sizes, and rural zones. As a result different authorities face the challenge of achieving an operative coordination for the effective management of the city. In the absence of adequate governance mechanisms, the scope of public decisions does not respond to the dynamics of the phenomenon regulated.
The management of metropolis demands a systemic and innovative approach with institutional arrangements of governance that enable the capacity to plan, coordinate, finance and manage urban development beyond the temporary political-administrative frontiers that at present, conform local governments. Metropolitan governance demands better coordination mechanisms among the authorities that participate in a metropolitan area. Furthermore, instruments such as: innovative legal frameworks incorporating associative models of local government and metropolitan governance; financing schemes for strategic regional projects, and comprehensive metropolitan planning with a long-term vision are required.
Knowing the urban system, requires information; particularly with regard to social, economic and environmental flows that nurture the dynamics of cities. These interactions demand coordination among policy makers. The administrative fragmentation of the territory fosters a lack of cooperation and interaction between the diversity of actors and governmental levels. Metropolitan areas with fragmented governance structures tend to have lower levels of productivity since administrative boundaries within metropolitan areas do not normally correspond to the actual urbanization and functional patterns.
Intersectoral and multi-level coordination enables a collaborative relation among different governmental levels and a diversity of relevant stakeholders that includes civil society and the private sector, in order to create responsive legal frameworks and efficient political and administrative processes. In many countries, the Metropolitan phenomenon lacks clarity and recognition on the national legislation relating to development and land use planning, and is frequently perceived as a reduction in local authorities’ autonomy.