Exploring Metropolitan Governance: The Balance between the Institutional Context and the Planning Practices

The institutional mark and the planning practices can be the two principal dimensions for improving metropolitan governance, addressing the running challenges of several greater cities. Regarding the South West European capital regions, what are the main differences and innovations in their currently processes and models? This paper proposes an applied framework to present the metropolitan governance analysis. Through a comparative case study methodology, various elements and interviews were qualitatively measured, in the regions of Madrid, Barcelona, Paris and Lisbon. The conclusion finds a tendency to balance, between the efforts on those major dimensions of the metropolitan governance system, which does not prevent different paths to register: for example Ile-de-France has developed good initiatives in the technical processes, which then require some adjustments in the political mark, while Madrid had in recent years "less activity", in result of his institutional stability. If it can be obvious that institutional reforms lead to new challenges in planning practices, the research argues that the opposite direction is also true - that operational processes give rise to structural changes, proving their corresponding influence on responsibilities, resources and leadership, given by the political context.