Metropolitics

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Magda Maaoui & Pierre Mansat — 2020-06-26T05:00:00Z

Magda Maaoui interviews Pierre Mansat, former deputy mayor of Paris and a founding father of “le Grand Paris” (the metropolitan authority for Greater Paris), about Grand Paris and the limits of political action at the municipal level in light of the upcoming municipal elections.
Less than a week before 12 million Parisians vote in the second round of elections for their mayors and their municipal councils, which has now been delayed from March 22 to June 28 owing to the coronavirus lockdown,

- Interviews / Grand Paris, Grand Paris Express, Greater Paris, Paris region, Paris, Île-de-France, France, banlieue, suburbs, metropolitan areas, metropolitan restructuring, metropolis, territorial equality, territorial reform, governance, local governance, metropolization, coronavirus, Covid-19, public transportation, transport, mass transit, intercommunality

The mixed success of Toronto's metropolitan merger

Guillaume Poiret & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-11-20T05:50:00Z

While the debate on local-government reform rages on in France, Guillaume Poiret looks back at the municipal mergers that took place in Toronto in 1997. Although amalgamation has not resulted in the kind of demergers seen in Montreal, it has not had the anticipated economic benefits either, and leaves the metropolitan question – and the attendant democratic challenges – unanswered.
Since the City of Toronto Act, or Bill 103, of 17 December 1997, the City of Toronto has comprised the former

- From the Field / governance, local governance, intercommunality, metropolis, territorial reform, Canada, Toronto

Intercommunality, or the broken promises of local democracy

Stéphane Cadiou & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-01-16T12:05:47Z

As a new territorial reform is set to be enacted in France, what lessons can be learned from past reforms? In La Politique confisquée, Fabien Desage and David Guéranger describe a “backdrop of disenchantment” with regard to intermunicipal structures: mayors appear to have monopolised these new “intercommunalities”, with representative democracy seemingly replaced by something more opaque.
In France, intercommunalities – intermunicipal structures covering several communes (municipalities) that

- Reviews / governance, local councillors, intercommunality, local democracy, territorial reform