Cities as political objects : historical evolution, analytical categorisations and institutional challenges of metropolitanisation / edited by Alistair Cole, Professor of Comparative Politics, Institute of Political Studies, Lyon, France, Renaud Payre, Professor of Politics, Institute of Political Studies, Lyon, France.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: 1. Cities as Political Objects Alistair Cole and Renaud Payre PART I CAPITAL CITY DYNAMICS 2. Functional Integration, Political Conflict and Muddled Metropolitanism in the London Region: 1850-2016 Ian Gordon 3. The Greater Paris Debate: The French State and its Capital region Pauline Prat 4. A Tale of Two Cities: Madrid and Barcelona in Spain Andrew Dowling PART II CITIES AS POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CATEGORIES 5. The City as a Legal Category and legal archive Jacques Caillosse 6. The rise and demise of neighbourhood democracy: decentralising the urban polity in Rotterdam since 1940 Stefan Couperus 7. Cities in the Italian political system: incomplete actors and objects of policies Francesca Artioli 8. Cities in the Multi-level System of German Federalism Hubert Heinelt and Karsten Zimmermann 9. The Metropole as a Contested and Partisan Institution: Reflections on the Case of the French City of Nice. Stephane Cadiou PART III CITY ACTION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 10. Making Metropolis: Innovation and Local Governance issues in Paris and Milan Clement Pin and Deborah Galimberti 11. The Metropolis and the Market: Political Rescaling Through Public-private Bike-sharing Policy in Brussels Maxime Hure 12. Two Faces of the City: Varieties of metropolitanisation in Lyons and Marseilles Christophe Parnet 13. Assembling multi-level governance in regeneration: an international comparison between France and Britain Juliet Carpenter Index

Cities are back as significant political-administrative units - only now as metropolises. Rather than simply a mechanical effect of the exigencies of economic globalization, this book convincingly demonstrates that an array of active political actors are involved in energizing the trend. It is political praxis not economic structure that provides the key to understanding the efflorescence of urban governance today. The fact that there is much variation across cities in the extent and effectiveness of new models of governance suggests how much one-size-fits-all economic determinism misses the point,'