Governing from Below

This book documents the growth of urban governance and analyses its causes and consequences.

Cities play a growing role in governing. This role fits within a context that nation-states, global market forces and cities define. The book's analysis focuses on how local efforts in the European systems of France and Germany, as well as American counterparts, have provided for environmental quality and social inclusion.Throughout the world more policy making and the politics that shape it take place in the urban regions where most people live. This book draws on eleven case studies of similar but disparate urban regions in France, Germany and the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. It documents the growth of this urban governance and develops a pioneering analysis of its causes and consequences. It traces the origins to the expansion and devolution of policy making, to local business mobilization and institutional interests in high-tech and service activities, and the incorporation of local social movements. Nation-states shape the possibilities for this urban governance, but operate increasingly as infrastructures for local initiatives. Where urban governance has succeeded in combining environmental quality and social inclusion with local prosperity, local officials have built on supportive infrastructures from higher levels, the local economy, civil society, and favourable positions in the global economy.