Krawchenko, T. (2012). Institutional Solutions to Jurisdictional Fragmentation: The Implications of Regional Special Purpose Bodies for how City-regions are Governed in Canada (original) (raw)
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Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 2011
Regional special purpose bodies are becoming an increasingly common form of institutional arrangement across many metropolises. This paper examines regional special purpose bodies for transportation and transit provision in Canada, through the case studies of Translink (in Greater Vancouver) and Metrolinx (in Greater Toronto and Hamilton). The adoption of regional special purpose bodies has important implications for the regional political economy, impacting resource allocation, decision-making, accountability, and urban form – and reflecting an important institutional trend in the ongoing politics of metropolitanization. On remarque que les organismes régionaux spéciaux deviennent une forme de plus en plus courante d'arrangement institutionnel dans de nombreuses métropoles. Ce document passe en revue les différents types d'organismes régionaux spéciaux pour le transport et le transit de la fourniture au Canada, par les études des cas de Translink (le Grand Vancouver) et Metrolinx (le Grand Toronto et Hamilton). L'adoption d'organismes régionaux spéciaux a d'importantes répercussions pour l'économie politique régionale, conséquences sur l'allocation des ressources, la prise de décisions, la responsabilisation et la forme urbaine — qui reflète une tendance institutionnelle importante dans les politiques de métropolisation en cours.
Regionalism from above: intergovernmental relations in Canadian metropolitan governance
Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 2022
This article surveys recent developments in Canadian metropolitan governance. Canada was admired in the postwar period for the effectiveness of its two-tier and unitary metropolitan governments; however, few survive today as urbanisation patterns have become increasingly polycentric and intergovernmental relations more conflictual. Three models have emerged in Canada, sometimes in combination with one another: the multipurpose regional intergovernmental organisation, the single-purpose metropolitan agency, and the provincial metropolitan policy overlay. Examples of each are discussed, with an emphasis on the interplay of horizontal (intermunicipal) and vertical (provincial-municipal) intergovernmental relations. Ultimately, provincial governments are by virtue of their constitutional authority and spending power the only actors capable of establishing and maintaining durable institutions and policies of metropolitan scope, and they have chosen to do so in Canada's largest and most urbanised provinces.
Continued patterns of urbanization are leading to ever larger and more complex urban regions. Regional institutions have arisen as a governance solution to address the problems of coordination across large, jurisdictionally fragmented urban regions. Regional special purpose bodies (RSPBs) are one such regional institutional arrangement. This paper examines this institutional phenomenon with a particular focus on transportation and transit bodies. It describes the extent of their adoption across Western Europe and North America and contrasts their development in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Governing Cities Through Regions: Vancouver
The globalization of trade has brought an irreversible change in urban regions. For the last 20 years, they have been understood as areas of production and wealth creation, which in turn has driven a worldwide process of increased urbanization and concurrent labor migration. Although urban regions take varied forms in different countries, the literature points to similar sets of issues: the loss of natural areas, the increase of motorized transportation networks, the increase in social inequity. These challenges contribute to a debate regarding the best modes of municipal and regional government. On the one hand, some scholars point to the importance of region wide cooperation and collaboration to foster sustainable forms of social and economic growth, while others argue that region wide municipal competition serves best worldwide regional economic competitiveness. The literature discusses the rise of urban regions as spaces of increased democracy, civil engagement and solidarity. In the specific case of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, an additional factor needs to be highlighted: the nature of the relationship between urban regions and higher levels of government, in particular, at the provincial level. In Vancouver, the distrust of the Provincial Government, as illustrated in this chapter, undermined regional attempts of coordination and collaboration in the area of transportation; this in turn allowed the province to influence fundamentally the regional governance of planning and housing. Although it led to strong protests, and the rise of regional political awareness, local policy choices and democracy were undermined at the regional scale. While citizen groups and community and municipal officials ended up having weak political clout, on the contrary, the power of key provincial political and economic players swelled despite local political protests. The findings presented in this chapter are based on a literature review as well as semi-structured elite interviews with stakeholders in the planning, public transportation and housing policy areas.
This thesis explores the relationship between regional government structures in the Toronto and Vancouver metropolitan areas and the development of comparatively high post-war transit use. While local government reforms and the impacts of regional development on transit use following World War II have received much attention in isolation, they have rarely been analyzed together. This paper investigates how the unique regional governance structures in Toronto and Vancouver allowed both cities to counter North American transportation trends by facilitating the creation of policies that favored transit use. By analyzing the historic operating and financial data from the transit agencies in both cities within the context of legislative reforms to local government and the resulting transportation policies, the impact of regional governance structures on transit use is examined. This paper finds that the success of transportation institutions in achieving high regional transit use is closely tied to the extent that local government bodies have fiscal autonomy, jurisdictional flexibility and involve local transit operating knowledge in transportation policy formation. Finally, the cases of Toronto and Vancouver suggest that the presence and long-term sustainability of these three capacities is inversely related to the involvement of senior government in local transportation planning.
New Regionalist Metropolitan Action: The Case of the Alberta Capital Region Alliance
2004
City Regions in a Globalized World Globalization is a defining characteristic of the latter few decades of the 20 century; it is reshaping how we trade, communicate, and relate to one another. Continental trading blocks are emerging, and international trade is allowing the free movement of goods, services, labour, and ideas on a scale that was unimaginable only a few decades ago. Information flows easily and inexpensively across international borders thanks to new technologies, as do people and capital. Physical location no longer poses much of a limitation on the interactions between and among communities and individuals resulting in the destabilization of existing centres of authority and security such as the nation state. National governments find they have less capacity to influence the economy given the decreasing significance of state boundaries in the global market place. As a result, new centres of political power are emerging at various levels and the role of regional econo...