Speaker
Description
In recent decades, the shift from post-Keynesian nationally redistributive welfarism has increasingly taken the form of urban-centric, competitiveness-oriented forms of locational policy (Brenner, 2019). Among other effects, it has led to the gradual erosion of the meso level of territorial governance, necessitating urban authorities to assume responsibility over the broader territorial scale (Cardoso & Meijers, 2021). Combined with the historical proliferation of extended urbanisation processes and fragmented urban forms, this shift challenges the established administrative borders and governance models in Europe (Robinson & Le Galès, 2024, 10).
It has generally been addressed with the resurgence of varied forms of metropolitan governance, which prioritise the approach of permeable, ‘fuzzy’, and ‘soft’ governance arrangements over defined territorial jurisdictions (Pike et al., 2017, 35-36; Allmedinger et al., 2015). This approach also received recognition within the EU’s Cohesion Policy and its instruments, such as the Integrated Territorial Investment (Musiałkowska et al., 2024). At the same time, the novel metropolitan governance schemes are criticised for misrepresentation of the observed population dynamics (Mikula, 2024), parallel functioning with the existing local government institutions (Maier et al., 2025), and neglecting the social reproduction function (Zimmermann and Feiertag, 2022, 4). As observed by Zimmermann and Feiertag, “the discussion on metropolitan governance and re-scaling of territorial governance in geography and planning has paid little attention to the political and administrative science discussion on regionalisation, decentralisation, inter-municipal cooperation and fiscal relationships of state levels” (2022, 6).
Building upon the evidence of a global and European trend towards decentralisation reforms and territorial re-scaling of the local government (Ladner et al., 2019; Hendriks et al., 2010), this presentation offers insight into the emblematic case of decentralisation reform in Ukraine, completed in 2020. Viewing decentralisation and local government re-scaling through the perspective of the country’s core cities, it provides a longitudinal diachronic analysis of decentralisation in Ukraine and traces its imprint in spatial planning and design, as well as historical forms of local autonomy and evolution of territorial divisions. It offers an alternative outlook towards the expansion of urban governance upon the territorial scale, facilitating new linkages between discourses in spatial planning, public administration, geography, and urbanism.
| Keywords | decentralisation; city-region; metropolisation; territory; Ukraine |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
