European Urban and Regional Studies current issue

Regionauts: the Transformation of Cross-Border Regions in Scandinavia

Lofgren, O. — 2008-06-16

Many cross-border regions in Europe remain more political dreamscapes than examples of strong transnational integration.The development of the Öresund region through a bridge linking Copenhagen and eastern Denmark with Southern Sweden has been seen as a model for EU region building. Drawing on a multidisciplinary project, this article uses the Öresund case as a starting point, bringing in some contrastive Scandinavian examples. The aim is to discuss how regions try to make themselves visible and attractive for investments and visitors, but above all to what extent they produce regionauts actively creating integration by different border-crossing activities and contacts. The focus is on the cultural dimensions found in everyday practices and symbolic manifestations of these transnational processes. What kind of gaps between regional rhetoric and actual mundane activities emerge? A historical perspective is used to illustrate these changing border dynamics in which cultural, political and economic asymmetries often become an energizing factor.

Reorganizing Cross-Border Governance Capacity: The Case of the Helsinki--Tallinn Euregio

Pikner, T. — 2008-06-16

Different forms of regional politics and network-type coordination are present within European cross-border initiatives. The purpose of the article is to study the changing organizational configurations of interregional governance in the context of the Helsinki—Tallinn Euregio (HTE), and how these new forms of coordination influence cross-border institutional capacity and policy outcomes.The basic empirical material consists of official public documents and eight semi-structured theme interviews conducted with the key actors of the HTE in June—July 2004. `Governance capacity' is used here as a theoretical tool to understand and interpret the reorganization process of cross-border governance. The case-study about the HTE shows the possibility that governance may be practised through dynamic social networks and partly shifting territorial configurations according to interregional interests. The HTE agency creates a flexible intervention frame for the cross-border governance capacity to support regional competitiveness through the policy instruments of the European Union.There are already some results, but several challenges remain for the HTE to create additional scale effects between the Helsinki and Tallinn regions.

Patterns of Social Capital in West German Regions

Blume, L., Sack, D. — 2008-06-16

Social capital is often defined as consisting of trust and postmaterialist values on the one hand, and social networks on the other hand. This article examines how different governance modes such as networks, markets, and hierarchies are related to trust and postmaterialist values in 74 West German regions.A principle component analysis of 40 social capital indicators shows that trust and postmaterialist values do not solely combine with networks but also with preferences for markets and hierarchies. A cluster analysis identifies two dominant types of regional social capital in West German regions. These types are different from the well-known Italian patterns described by Robert Putnam in his seminal work. In the period 1995—2002, the annual economic growth in regions which have combined trust with preferences for strong markets and weak political networks was on average 1 percent higher than in regions with inverted preferences.

Urban Residential Development in Isolated Small Cities That Are Partially Integrated in Metropolitan Areas By High Speed Train

Garmendia, M., de Urena, J. M., Ribalaygua, C., Leal, J., Coronado, J. M. — 2008-06-16

The proliferation of High Speed Trains (HSTs) in European countries has caused small, isolated cities within one hour's distance by HST to become partially integrated into metropolitan processes. These cities may be considered as a combination of small provincial centres and suburban metropolitan districts. Scientific literature suggests that subcentres in polycentric urban regions are becoming more numerous and diverse, that there are doubts whether HSTs are facilitating decentralization or concentration from/to metropolises, and that fewer HST effects are taking place in big cities than small ones, where HST contribution to accessibility amelioration is greater. The article discusses the types of urban residential processes according to temporal relations with HSTs (before and after HSTs) and spatial relations (HST station location). The conduct of household survey and review of building permits and mortgage valuations was done to analyse the urban process which these cities undergo with the development of HSTs. It was found that residence location with respect to the HST station varies with the type of inhabitant (local versus immigrant, tenant versus owner, etc.) and their relation to HSTs (commuter versus non commuter, etc.). It was also shown that the HST (alongside the presence of a university) helps isolated cities to acquire territorial roles of greater importance, by virtue of attracting intraprovincial immigration and familial investment, as well as immigrants and investments from other provinces.

Mapping Corporations, Connecting Communities: Remaking Steel Geographies in Northern England and Southern Poland

Dawley, S., Stenning, A., Pike, A. — 2008-06-16

In recent years, economic geographers have turned their attention to the growing geographical reach and complexity of economic networks to focus on the increasing integration of economies, the geographical organization of economic activity and the social, economic and political relationships within these networks.Within this work, particular attention has been paid to the corporation, allowing for corporate geographies to be rethought using new approaches and new methodologies. Building on these approaches, we seek to develop a holistic economic geography which embeds the globalizing corporation within a broad array of economic, social, political and cultural settings shaped by multiple social agents.We do this in the context of the European steel industry. We argue that refocusing attention on the steel industry is important for two reasons. First, the industry itself has radically changed in the last decade. Persistent global overcapacity and cycles of profitability, ongoing consolidation and privatization, the emergence of new steel regions and of more `globalized' steel producers have all altered the industry's anatomy. Second, the tools of economic geography have changed. New approaches enable us to look again at the steel industry and to rethink its corporate geographies. This article develops these arguments by using an innovative approach, integrating the narratives of two steel corporations and two European steel regions, and focusing on issues of corporate geography, financialization, government and governance, labour and community. In this way, we seek to continue the strong tradition within economic geography of conceptualizing the spatial contexts and consequences of economic change through accounts of the continuous remaking of steel geographies.