Is metropolisation a process which can generate national policy? Results from a comparison in Western Europe

Metropolisation as a specific facet of urban development is part of a wider set of issues that can generate ad hoc public policies. Since economic and social problems of cities have become objects of supra- and sub-national policies, the actual role played by nation states in dealing with them is not to be taken for granted. Thus, the contribution focuses on how metropolitan issues are present (or otherwise) and politically constructed in the national political agendas of five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). In doing this, convergences and differences among policy frames and strategies are considered (e.g. counteracting spatial disparities vs. promoting the most competitive areas; governance as an answer to fragmentation). Metropolisation does not emerge as a policy-generating issue in all the countries analysed, nor is the spatial scale of urban problems similarly constructed across countries. This depends on some conditions that are addressed in the contribution.