Development and administration of capital cities and metropolitan areas :an introduction

Abstract

The paper provides an introduction to the collection of papers addressing issues of development and administration of capital cities and metropolitan areas. First, it is concerned with transformation of capital cities and emphasises heir twofold function: (i) transactional gateway-city and (ii) centre of state control this twofold function is also important in the era of globalisation characterised by great pressures on territorial self-government and administration of the capital cities and metropolitan areas. Second, it is argued that the contemporary shift of urban and metropolitan government towards governance seems to he marked by increased institutional fragmentation and decline in influence of territorial governments (i.e. decline in influence of actors of the self-governmental sector, diffused accountability, etc.). Issues of fragmentation necessarily result from single-purpose orientated solutions of decentralisation of competencies in the self-government and also from splitting of scarce means in the state administration by separate sectors (i.e. single-purpose governance, sector partnership systems, public-private partnership, etc.). Finally, the paper indicates the organisation of the volume