Inequality and Governance in the Metropolis

"These outstanding essays demonstrate the growing significance of metropolitan spatial inequalities in a range of countries across the globe. Using comparative data on taxing and spending, the authors show how institutions at different levels of government accentuate or mitigate spatial inequalities. This well-planned collection provides a vital guide to the causes of this new form of inequality and the strategies that work to remedy it." (Professor Margaret Weir, Brown University, USA) "In a context of growing global inequality, looking into the mechanisms that organize fiscal solidarity among jurisdictions in charge of providing services to citizens is a much needed perspective. By disentangling the complex territorial relations within which metropolitan regions are embedded, the authors of this collection highlight the important role of policies in shaping individual choices, their context sensitivity and the diversification of places across the globe. A must read for understanding the importance of spatial relations in policy analysis." (Professor Yuri Kazepov, University of Vienna, Austria) "This book could not be more timely. There is growing concern worldwide with the intensification of socio-spatial inequalities both within and between cities around the globe. Responses to this situation have ranged from capitulation to despair, and in some parts of the world we are seeing mobilization and active citizen challenges to longstanding political practices and governance paradigms as a result. This edited collection offers a much-needed and constructive perspective on the topic by placing scales of governance and creative policy responses at the heart of the debate. Through deep engagement with eleven different country cases, it becomes clear that there is no single response to the challenges of growing inequality and exclusion in a globalizing and urbanizing world, and that certain political arrangements and policy tools are more well-suited to the task of making cities more equitable, redistributive, and manageable places to live." (Professor Diane E. Davis, Harvard University, USA)

This book undertakes the first systematic, multi-country investigation into how regimes of place equality, consisting of multilevel policies, institutions and governance at multiple scales, influence spatial inequality in metropolitan regions.

This book undertakes the first systematic, multi-country investigation into how regimes of place equality, consisting of multilevel policies, institutions and governance at multiple scales, influence spatial inequality in metropolitan regions. Extended, diversified metropolitan regions have become the dominant form of human settlement, and disparities among metropolitan places figure increasingly in wider trends toward growing inequality. Regimes of place equality are increasingly critical components of welfare states and territorial administration. They can aggravate disparities in services and taxes, or mitigate and compensate for local differences. The volume examines these regimes in a global sample of eleven democracies, including developed and developing countries on five continents. The analyses reveal new dimensions of efforts to grapple with growing inequality around the world, and a variety of institutional blueprints to address one of the most daunting challenges of twenty-first century governance.