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URBAN GEOGRAPHY,Vol.42,Issue1,P.103-117

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英文

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Network regionalism,metropolisation,cohesiveness,democratic legitimacy,state territory,network spaces

作者单位

a Visiting Research Fellow, University of Westminster, London, UK;b Brussels Centre for Urban Studies, ‘Vrije, Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium

摘要

This paper explores the gaps between two geographic rationales in region-building: territorially defined, bounded sub-units of the state and relationally defined spatial backdrops to functional and actor networks. The latter are driven by urban/metropolitan agency aimed at international competitiveness, often resulting in self-selecting entities that peripheralize those places that are not attractive to the network. The paper questions the legitimacy of this understanding of “region” and its tensions with established territories of formal democratic representation. While efforts to adjust both rationales must confront the rapidity of changes, large cities may adopt the role of interlocutors between the two geographies, as they are both the driving force behind relational network-building and the key nodes of conventional state territories. Their efforts to integrate the rationales of urban competitiveness and collective cohesiveness are examined for the case of the Danish-Swedish Øresund functional region, as it straddles two state territories and their formal divisions.KEYWORDS: Network regionalismmetropolisationcohesivenessdemocratic legitimacystate territorynetwork spaces1. IntroductionAlmost four decades of predominant neo-liberal discourse in the narrative of globalization has resulted in a changing balance in the perceived value of individual vis-à-vis collective interests (Hoper, 2017). As current discussions about a growing wealth gap in capitalist western societies indicate (World Inequality Lab, 2019), this is the result of two potentially conflicting agendas: (1) competitive individualism, here seen through the lens of the interests of individual entrepeneurial cities, and (2) the broader, collectivist perspective underpinning representative democracy in a territorially organized democratic state (Sørensen, 2002). The state-based collectivity is conventionally deemed to encompass all those localities sharing a territory by their position within set boundaries. But this notion of commonality and equality of local actors has been challenged by the institutionally and economically more capable larger cities, which have become more “entrepreneurial” in their policies, driven by growing competitiveness and a neo-liberal state (Harvey, 2007). Indeed, states encouraged “their” cities to become more pro-active and entrepreneurial since the 1990s, pushing out their “best horses” to gain rewards for all (Herrschel & Newman, 2002).This entrepreneurially-driven individualism creates a growing contrast (and potential conflict) between the two geographic rationales, effectively casting, as populist politics has been doing recently in Europe and North America, a proclaimed urban elitism against the collective interests of the population within the territorial state. Traditionally, since the creation of the nation state and the end of medieval city-centric power structures, cities and their interests have been considered as just one among other sub-national actors within a national political discourse and agenda. Yet, international competitive economic pressures have led entrepreneurial and politically innovative larger cities to seek to push for their own advantages beyond the confines of their respective state territories (Herrschel & Newman, 2017). They have thus come to increasingly define and articulate their ambitions through functional and political relations with other like-minded cities in collaborative networks, but also with other actors, such as international organizations or companies (Sassen, 2016).As a result, cities, especially metropolitan areas and city-regions, are effectively wearing two hats – one conventional, as sub-entities and thus integral part of a territorial state, and a more recent one, as independent actors reaching out to the international and global arenas to pursue individual opportunities and thus rise above the structural and policy confines of their surrounding regions (Herrschel & Newman, 2017). The attempt by the London mayor to build direct bridges to the EU administration in Brussels in the face of Brexit negotiations by the UK government (Khan, 2018), illustrates this dual role of larger cities as both part of a state and independent actors.Urban individualism thus seems to sit opposite state collectivism, where cities are part of states and fulfill national and/or regional responsibilities. This is not exactly so, as states also have an interest in encouraging urban individualism, enabling cities to act as national/regional champions in a globalized economy, with the expectation that their success will trickle down to the respective territories. But cities are often at the center of the contradictory roles of seeking to further their own opportunities through enhanced competitive engagement – “entrepreneurial cities” (Hall & Hubbard, 1996) – while also fulfilling their role as redistributive centers for their respective state territories. And this entails two competing – and potentially conflicting – sources of legitimacy of such action: the urban population as likely immediate beneficiaries of urban entrepreneurialism, and the population beyond the city, whose benefits from the apparent success of their cities are not a given. However, both groups exercise democratic claims on urban policies and agendas and claim equal voice within the state. It is for that reason that cities must find a way to act as interlocutors between the collective principles of the territorial nation-state and the opportunistic individualism underpinning “opportunity spaces” defined by collaborative networks and engagements.A particularly interesting case where both roles of cities come together in a problematic way is in cross-border polycentric metropolitan regions. Here, cities still act as parts of their territory, arguably pursuing national interests, while also engaging in network building with other cities across a state border. How can the two geographies – territorially circumscribed versus virtually manifested – and their underlying rationales be reconciled and what could be the role of the main cities in shaping governance responses? The role of national governments in encouraging their star cities to “become global” becomes more contested when even national borders are erased. This raises questions about the democratic legitimacy of policies that originate from collaborative networks, which may be accessible only to a selected group, rather than being based on a common will (Sørensen, 2002).This paper presents the example of the international Danish-Swedish Øresund Region in order to examine this contestation between the two different geographic concepts and entities and their mismatching shapes. Here the main cities take on a key role by both shaping the unbounded network spaces and linking them to the state territories through their statutory status. The discussion is based on an assessment, based on news items, strategic reports by various policy actors and interviews to policymakers, of the process of metropolisation of the Øresund Region, as greater integration is sought along the three dimensions defined by Cardoso and Meijers (this issue): the spatial-functional, political-institutional and symbolic-cultural. The paper continues with a discussion of the relevant literature about the political and geographical challenges at stake when competitive urban individualism coexists with traditional state collectivism, followed by the analysis of the Øresund Region as cross-border metropolisation intersects with state-defined territories, and some concluding observations about the tensions between urban competitiveness, selective inclusion and the democratic state.2. Urban network individualism and the collective territorial stateMismatches between the two geographies described above represent quite different worldviews concerning the link between nation-states, global capitalism and metropolitan areas (city-regions). An emphasis on global competitiveness under neo-liberal principles gives individual places, especially larger metropolitan areas, increasingly more scope and support for acting independently (Herrschel & Newman, 2017) to boost their individual economic prospects. The expectation of the state is generally that gains will get channeled back to the wider national population. Given their restricted statutory powers as sub-national entities, cities seek to enhance their capacity through forming collaborative networks with other like-minded and similarly positioned cities. Such networks project a virtual space, also called “soft space” (Allmendinger et al., 2015; Jesse., 2013; Olesen, 2012), of network engagement and involved places.These spaces are inherently variable, changing with the coming and going of inter-city relationships, and also very selective (Giuliani, 2006), involving only those actors tied in through their relationships, just as in social networks (Papacharissi, 2009). Metropolitan networks include collaborative action as a way to boost capacity to advance individual interests. Inevitably, such networks will contain equally interested, positioned and capable players. Others, with lesser capacity, prospects and associated opportunities may not be “permitted” into the network, as their benefit to the existing members is unclear. And so the scene is set for the growing divergence in the prospects and experiences of the places (and people) that are part of the opportunity-driven urban-centric networks and those that are not, irrespective of whether they share the same state territory. In other words, competitiveness-driven individualism effectively supersedes equity-focused, territorially defined collectivism as the underpinning of a representative democratic state.The different rationales between the two underlying geographies provide for potential tensions and contestations: the less congruence between them, the greater the potential frictions will be, and vice versa. Much of this friction, so it has emerged in the current political (populist) claims, manifests itself in notions of territorial belonging. Belonging to a bounded territory is clearly determined by one’s position in relation to that territory’s boundary: inside or outside. This suggests ownership and shapes identity. By contrast, belonging to network-based spaces is less clearly defined and varies depending on participation in a relevant network, rather than position within a boundary. This may imply a perceived lack of control and access to assumed territorial “rights”, and that is what anti-globalist populism dwells on (Rodrik, 2018). The battle cry of “taking back control” by the pro-Brexit advocates (North, 2018) illustrates that. Indeed, populist political discourse has often denounced the emergence of a selfish “metropolitan elitism” by the winners in the competitiveness game, leaving behind the rest of the territory. This simple dichotomy is presented as evidence that the promise of positive effects for all through trickle-down economics (Marginson, 2009) has not been kept.As a result, the democratic state finds itself caught between conflicting demands: acting on behalf of the electorate as its democratic legitimator of power, and meeting the requirement of globalized capitalism to permit the pursuit of (selective) economic opportunity. In other words, a balance between allowing cities to go ahead and compete for maximum return, and ensuring that the proceeds will thus follow the cities’ standing as part of a larger whole. Failures here have encouraged a vilification of globalization and a growing emphasis on introspective, anti-competitive, territorially bounded and protectionist agendas which imply cohesiveness and commonality of economic rewards (Colantone & Stanig, 2018).In summary, the current focus on metropolitan areas and city-regions as places of competitive energy, innovativeness, and – presumed – success implies equally growing pressures emanating from the implications of such a selective view of political-economic and societal space: those of fragmentation and inequality. By the nature of competitiveness, not everybody can be a winner to the same extent. Some will do better than others in gaining an advantage, while others may not gain at all – or do even worse. It is hard to justify the legitimacy of policies that make some people and/or places worse off. Such places include those outside the urban/metropolitan network nodes, which may be effectively excluded from derived economic opportunity. Even though they may share the same bounded state territory, this, on its own, is not sufficient for participation and inclusion.3. Space and citizenship within and outside opportunistic metropolitan networksCities take a central role in the interface between the two types of understanding of regions distinguished here: they shape the networks and help define the congruence of agendas between the virtual and the territorial region, while also being an integral part of a (state) territory with defined roles and allocated resources (Zadek & Lenssen, 2008). The outcome of such a connectivity is most likely an “uneven mosaic” (Brenner, 1997) of differential opportunities within networks, but where place matters even more due to the presence of territorially applied regional policies. In fact, relational fluidity in networks favors, and benefits from, collaborative or associative forms and/or practices of governance (Healey, 1999), e.g. collective action (Hardin, 2013), driven by very specific places and their interests. One conventional response to maintain some congruence has been to keep up with the relational dynamics through repeated territorial reorganization of the state (Brenner, 2004). This is cumbersome and may be ultimately futile, however, given organizational and popular resistance to moving administrative boundaries (Zimmerbauer & Paasi, 2013).Yet, the scope for local agency varies. The retreat by the state from public investment as part of “austerity” after the 2008 financial crash has reinforced underlying inequalities in economic parameters. Places with greater opportunities and policy-making capacities may act more autonomously from their state context, seeking to improve the prospects of their surrounding region. Meanwhile, less successful and/or capable places may be more hesitant to follow suit to avoid costs of uncertain outcomes and, rather, continue to rely on their embeddedness in state structures and fiscal and political provisions as a safer bet. The resulting growing fragmentation of interests and priorities in society lead to the “denaturalization” of nation-state space (Brenner, 2004). It is a process in which stakeholders may keep sharing a space but have no given common interests as to how to order that space, utilize it, and benefit from it, both politically and economically.Such localization (or, rather, differentiation) of citizenship may correlate with the growing distinction between an urban/metropolitan and a rural/small town society with distinctly different outlooks on life, societal values and the role of the state vis-à-vis its citizens. The traditional left-right distinction in politics, so it seems, is being replaced by a new overarching contrast between a generally younger, internationalist and liberally minded urban/metropolitan society, and a more conservative, nationalistic, protectionist and even authoritarian-minded small town/rural population. The two resulting notions of national identity and belonging may thus differ quite significantly. The outcome is a re-territorialization of ideology, civic engagement and partisanship (Sellers and Walks, 2013). This, in turn, challenges established national political systems based on, and operating through, the territorial and societal integrity of the nation-state, notions of common national identity and democratic expressions. One challenge can be the more confident, assertive and also imaginative political stance of larger cities and metropolitan areas to promote their own interests. Sellers and Walks (2013, p 4) see this as leading to “a multi-scalar, rather than uniformly national process of political differentiation”. This differentiation follows three inter-related processes: First, the rise of relationally defined network spaces, where economic interaction and opportunistic links produce virtual spatial backdrops (i.e. metropolitan regions) to these relations. By their nature, they are variable, time-limited and fuzzy in their geographic reach (Jesse., 2013).Second, a selective and exclusive new political-geographic dynamics driven by a growing metropolitan-centric agenda-setting through informal networks and agreements. Such networks appeal because they generate fewer institutional and constitutional challenges than efforts to re-arrange institutional and governmental (and fiscal) powers by restructuring the state. Examples include city-regionalism (Brenner, 2002; Harrison, 2012; Jonas, 2013; Jonas & Moisio, 2016; Tassilo, 2014) with novel forms of city-to-city and city-suburban cooperation, or international engagement by cities (Herrschel & Newman, 2017). However, as Khanna (2016, p. 75) argues “the more peripheral areas witness – but don’t partake in – the success of the centre, the more they will push to seize control of their own affairs”. And this leads to disquiet about not being “heard” at the political level, or not having a stake in democratic decision-making and politics.Third, there is a spatial-democratic dimension that focuses on the role and purpose of borders under globalization and, in relation to that, the territorial manifestations of identities. This fundamentally challenges the (conventional) perspective of nation-states as the “natural” rallying points (Khanna, 2016) of society. Contiguous territories become increasingly brittle and fragmented, raising questions about “who is in control” and who feels “left out”. The result is a more or less organized mosaic of discursive and practical political spaces with differing attitudes to, and expectations from, the representative democratic state.Network-based metropolitan-centric regionalization, therefore, raises important questions about legitimacy and representation of governance systems based on network relations, which play out as differentiated opportunity structures resulting in a self-sustaining process: as stronger players become more successful, they may become more self-interested, and seek to further their own prospects, rather than pulling other, less successful (non-urban) actors along as part of a sense of national and/or regional responsibility. Instead, as a form of agglomeration shadow effect, such urban individualism results in an effective disempowerment and marginalization of those places, territories and actors that are not part of the self-organizing urban networks.4. The example of the international Øresund regionThe Danish-Swedish Øresund Region illustrates the network-building role of cities and the political tensions emanating from mismatches between state territories and a bi-national “virtual” region. The very nature of network regions such as the Øresund means they are difficult to assess in their extent and functionality – as Cardoso and Meijers write (this volume), the difficulty in understanding a process of metropolisation in a region such as the Øresund lies in the intertwining over a long time of spatial-functional, political-institutional and cultural-symbolic dimensions of integration. The Øresund is a good illustration of this process, as the region-building process involves a spatial-functional device (a bridge) enabled by, and further enabling, the parallel development of a political-institutional project, as both dimensions are underpinned by an evolving cultural-symbolic narrative whose agendas and priorities have changed in time.To capture this complex process, indirect information and personal assessments by policymakers within and outside a network region are required. This is why the analysis in this paper includes interviews, strategic documents and local news reports that point to the relations between, and thus likely inclusions or exclusions of, places and actors, as well as subjective perceptions about peripheralisation and being “left behind”, whether by individuals, places or organizations. Different organizational structures in city and region administrations mean that different departments are involved in collaborative efforts in the Øresund region. The choice of interview partners reflects this and was guided by learning about the network. A time series of interviews, going back to the beginnings of the Øresund Region as a project, allows us to capture its evolving nature and the challenges faced, as well as changing emphases in policies. The analysis thus adopts a longitudinal perspective of nearly 20 years, to gain a flavor of the views and expectations from its early phase to its current re-casting as Greater Copenhagen, a new and eventually controversial step into strengthening the symbolic role of the core city as a proxy for the whole region, even if across a national border.4.1 Spatial-functional, political-institutional and cultural-symbolic dimensions in the construction the Øresund RegionThe beginning of constructing publicly the Øresund Region as a discursive entity of cross-national togetherness was the opening of the fixed link Øresund Bridge in 2000. This fundamentally changed the functional and relational dynamics within the Danish-Swedish region in terms of both perceived and actual reachability. The project was driven by the realization on both sides of the Øresund Strait in the 1990s that “scaling up” the existing sub-national regional entities, albeit virtually, to the international level would generate mutual benefits in a competitive globalizing economy. This involved creating a new international discourse of common purpose and likely advantage from overcoming the separating effect of the border (Øresund Committee, interview 19 November 2003). This discourse was underpinned and given credibility by the reality of opening the Øresund Bridge across the sea in 2000 as a millennium project.The Øresund Region centers on the metropolitan region of Copenhagen and reaches across the bridge to include the Malmö-Lund-Landskrona-Helsingborg conurbation on the western fringe of Skåne region, in Sweden. The physical connectivity has facilitated the interaction between two types of region: (1) “region” as a cohesive, clearly bounded territorial part of the hierarchically ordered state, exemplified by Region Skåne; and (2) “region” as a spatial backdrop of a set of self-organizing, collaborative linkages between different municipalities, branded overall as the Øresund (Figure 1). The aim was to raise visibility among global investors who may seek to benefit from the opportunities resulting from linking two countries more closely. Malmö has been one of the main drivers behind this international region-building narrative to step out of Swedish peripherality and was one of the first cities to embark on such strategy (City of Malmö, interview 10 December 2014).Competitiveness, metropolitan-centric regionalism and/or the cohesive stateAll authorsTassilo Herrschelhttps://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1833583Published online:03 March 2021Figure 1. Øresund region: selective metropolitanization and exclusion of the “Rest Region” of SkåneSource: AuthorDisplay full sizeFigure 1. Øresund region: selective metropolitanization and exclusion of the “Rest Region” of SkåneSource: AuthorSweden (as Denmark) is a centralized state with regions being little more than territorial containers for centrally administered policies, especially health care Since 2010, Skåne, with its historic distinctiveness, has benefited from some selective decentralization of powers, including economic development.1 Rather than centralized policies, regional self-government may permit, but also generate political expectations to produce, more effective responses to variations within the region in opportunities and quality of life for all residents. This includes in particular the differences between living and working opportunities in urban and rural municipalities. The functional division of Skåne into a western metropolitanized fringe – also defined by the travel to work areas – and a largely rural “rest” has been highlighted, and perhaps even exacerbated, by the creation and marketing of the Øresund Region as a distinct entity in its own right, because it merely covers the western part of Skåne (Figure 1). So, there is a clear mismatch between the two regions – Øresund and Skåne, highlighting the challenge to reconcile competitiveness and cohesiveness.4.2. Conflicting agendas and attempts at squaring the circleThe concept of the Øresund Region as a spatial image follows the rationale of network-based, relationally defined “new” regions. These are essentially opportunistic in nature based on a shared agenda and collaborations between a selected group of actors whose participation defines the spatial extent of that region. This concept is summed up by the City of Malmö’s account of its international policies. “Since [the] year 2000, Malmö and Copenhagen have had a common vision to promote cooperation and integration within the regions. Through close cooperation, Malmö and Copenhagen would be able to create a common Øresund Region with the vision that the inhabitants of the two cities would distinguish themselves as citizens of a coherent urban region”.2 Metropolitan interests, revolving around a strong Copenhagen-Malmö cooperation, have been a key driver of regional cooperation. There was even a plan for an undersea metro line (interview, City of Lund, 10 January 2013, and City of Landskrona, 19 May 2014) to strengthen the cross-border metropolis in which, as some claim, Malmö has effectively become a suburb of Copenhagen (CPH Post, 2015). The relationship is perceived as a win-win outcome for both, bringing together job opportunities in Copenhagen with entrepreneurialism and lower housing and living costs in Malmö (Crouch, 2015; interview Øresund Network, 19 June 2003). This metropolitan duopoly seems to have, in political and strategic terms, left behind the rest of the Øresund region, namely the bigger Region Skåne in Sweden, and has shown little interest in engaging with its peripheral rural parts (interview, Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, Malmö, 21 May 2014).Metropolitan competitiveness drives a strategy in which the whole of Region Skåne is expected to eventually benefit through “trickle down” from the combined qualities of cross-border metropolisation. And so it was politically presented when the Øresund project was developed. However, nearly two decades later, it turned out that the expected positive economic effects were spatially selective, rather than uniformly available across the whole of the Skåne. In fact, the eastern, largely rural, part felt even more distant and increasingly peripheralized, as all attention turned on Malmö and the main cities of the region, Lund, Landskrona and Helsingborg (interview, Region Skåne, 12 December 2013, City of Lund, 10 January 2013) along the western edge. In response, smaller cities like Ystad on the southern coast of Skåne, which sees itself outside the virtual border of the Øresund (interview Southeast Skåne Sub-Region, 21 May 2014), have sought other possibilities to step out of their relative regional peripherality. This includes municipal collaboration within one of the four (also virtual) sub-regions in each corner of Skåne. Such sub-regional networks are a form of mutual assurance and support through occasional meetings “just to keep in touch” (Interview City of Malmö, 10 January 2013). Ystad also sought to gain visibility through its own internationalization efforts by participating in smaller EU-supported trans-border projects (interview, SE Skåne Sub-region, 21 May 2014).At the same time, the main cities in the Øresund Region have in 2013 tried to push the region’s development forward through a regionalization strategy ‘Øresund 2.0ʹ in an open letter to the Swedish government in 2014 (interview, mayor’s office of Landskrona, 19 May 2014). They wanted to add new momentum to a project they sensed had lost its initial drive and innovative enthusiasm, as well as some support by the public. It is for that reason that the city of Helsingborg, one of the main players in the Øresund, tries to reach out to its less connected surrounding smaller municipalities, so that they also gain a voice, albeit indirect, in shaping policies in the region and thus feel part of it. Helsingborg acts as an interlocutor for these municipalities, promoted together as “Helsingborg Family”. Here, the city quite clearly tries to wear both hats – being an individual player in its own right, while also being a central part of, and bearing a certain responsibility for, the wider non-metropolitan region. Helsingborg tries to reconcile its own individualistic urban interests with the collective interests of the territory to which it belongs, responding to the emerging disquiet among non-urban municipalities about a lack of scope for participating in the established policy network underpinning the Øresund Region (interview City of Lund, 10 January 2013).The outcome of this attempt to square the circle between responding to the rising metropolitan focus while also confirming the role of traditional territorial regions is a threefold core-periphery order: (1) the Malmö-Copenhagen duopoly as the core, (2) followed by the virtual Øresund Region and (3) the peripheral and rural rest of Region Skåne. Unsurprisingly, those “outer” parts are concerned about their limited scope for pushing their self-defined policies at the regional level in the face of the main cities’ growing agency and dominance in regional policy networks (interview City of Lund, 10 January 2013). Indeed, the varying influence within the network region between the region’s leading cities and the other municipalities becomes evident in the dominance of the former in the collective “roundtable” of the Øresund Committee, the region’s strategic body. This inequality has since 2006 been gradually addressed by giving the two actual administrative regions, Skåne (Sweden) and Sjælland (Denmark) a stronger representation in the Øresund Committee to speak on behalf of the population’s interests as a whole. But such politically motivated efforts at demonstrating equality may not disguise the stark differences in opportunities, as globalization-driven competitiveness sub-divide the region in highly selective spaces. And so it follows that the peripheral municipalities within the formal region still complain that the main cities, especially Malmö, are only looking after their own interests, rather than considering the whole region of which they are, after all, an integral part of (interview, Region Skåne, 12 December 2013, City of Lund, 10 January 2013).Individual perceptions of inclusion or exclusion matter here more than detailed statistical evidence and the original rebranding of the Øresund Region as “Greater Copenhagen and Skåne” tried to address these perceptions at least symbolically by adding “and Skåne” to the name. To underpin the politically needed inclusion of the wider region beyond the metropolitan areas, the Greater Copenhagen and Skåne Committee, the successor to the original “roundtable” with only eight members, now has representatives from the two formal regions in Denmark (Sjælland) and Sweden (Skåne), together with 46 municipalities from eastern Denmark, and 33 Swedish municipalities. This increase in size is a direct result of the political agenda of pushing back – at least in the public sphere – the dominance of the main metropolitan actors in favor of a formally more equitable representation of all the interested parties. The “Greater Copenhagen and Skåne” name, however, was later dropped (in 2018), and the region goes now simply under Greater Copenhagen as the internationally most visible place, now outshining the rest in name, too.The now explicit focus on Copenhagen alone was a response to the growing impatience by the city’s government with Skåne’s lukewarm approach to the Øresund Region concept of collaborative regionalism (interview Region Skåne, 12 December 2013). Copenhagen did not want to be held back in its competitiveness by the drag exercised by the seemingly stalled regional politics on its eastern margins. However, Copenhagen also benefits from the expanded hinterland and proximity of Malmö both as labor pool, as well as more affordable suburban residential opportunities. Whether renaming the Øresund Region is sufficient to overcome the peripheralizing effects of competitive network-defined regionalism remains to be seen. As it is, the main cities in the Greater Copenhagen Region primarily look at each other as part of shared urban-centric roles, agendas and interests. It may be that the renaming of the region reflects a middle ground to mitigate the intensified competition between two understandings of regionalism, but the real question is who is in control, who shapes a region beyond its symbolic dimension: the actors behind a collaborative urban network seeking greater international competitiveness, or the institutional and democratic mechanisms based on territorial subunits of the nation-state? Concerns by the two central states about losing control over regional politics have resulted in a rather limited interest in harmonizing differences in regulation between Denmark and Sweden, such as taxation, for instance. Both are national responsibilities and demonstrate the continued presence of the territorial state and its respective governmental control as a condition for, and underpinning of, regionalization.4.3. Recent bottlenecks and unexplored alternativesStill, explicit and dominant metropolitan competition interests are the drivers and raison d’être of this region-building project. With no formal arrangement for inclusion, developing and sustaining sufficient own agency is needed (Nauwelaers et al., 2013). But the scope and capacity for such agency varies according to internal and external factors, some of which smaller cities and rural areas simply cannot access. The resulting inequality has been a delicate political issue for some time. In Skåne, the new Skåne Development Plan Open Skåne 2030 (Region Skane, 2019) tentatively acknowledges this challenge, while admitting that different opportunities across a state territory harbor political pitfalls. Cities have different responses to this variation. Some, as Malmö, quite openly follow their own interests as a form of “Malmö First”. Others, such as Helsingborg, try to downplay their stronger position vis-à-vis the surrounding municipalities through collaborative engagement to minimize tension, while also boosting its status through a larger municipal “sounding board”. But the crucial question is how the interests and prospects of Helsingborg, Malmö, Lund or Copenhagen can be reconciled with those of the wider region, especially the peripheral municipalities outside the main axes of physical and political-economic communication. Given the competitive pressures in a globalized economy, nobody would want to be “burdened” with having to carry the whole region economically, limiting their own drive for greater competitiveness and international success.The important political task is to find alternative ways to the conventional approach in the regional policy of merely redistributing economic growth potential and services. The ultimately economically more successful option may be to manage, rather than to stem, the division of pathways and spatial orientations of the different parts of the Region. This means going further in the integration of the Øresund region to strengthen its competitive advantages across its territory. This may lead to a further move toward a city region with growing urbanization, while also seeking alternative connector and development platforms for the rest of Region Skåne. Should strategic options be developed through democratic decisions “from above” – taken care of by those in power, including the nation-state? Or, instead, “from below” by the cities and municipalities, where there is more emphasis on self-organized responses involving a range of different and changing alliances and co-operation? The latter would encourage a more explicit consideration of the role of places and geography for the perceived efficacy of democracy and its ability to represent diverse interests. Different localities or regions, as well as states, produce particular milieux for evaluating the need for, engagement with, and expectations from, democratic processes (choices) and outcomes. This includes degrees of openness of decision-making, local and regional political autonomy, as well as, more generally, the role of civil society as politicized expression of the demos, and the access to democratic institutions. It is here that the sense of satisfaction or disappointment with democratic structures and outcomes is shaped. On that basis, some places are more likely to identify scope and mobilize capacity to act than others, which may be used to a more passive role under the assumption of state support.5. Concluding observationsThis paper examined two types of regionalization, and their potentially competing and conflicting relationship: network-defined regions led by large cities and metropolitan areas seeking international competitiveness, and traditional, clearly bounded territorial entities shaped by the administrative organization of the nation-state. Network regions are shaped by relationships between distinct nodes forming a network based on shared interests and opportunities, where geographical proximity plays only a limited role. They are inherently variable, fragmented and selective, as they require membership of the relevant network to be an integral part of the virtual regional space. Administratively defined regions, by contrast, represent the “container logic” of the territorial order of the state (Taylor, 1994). They are well-defined entities of a state hierarchy, with powers and responsibilities attached, and serve as vehicles for equal engagement between state and population – both for the delivery of state responsibilities and access to democratic representation and “voice”. Both follow their own geographical logics and policy agendas, which may lead to potential mismatches in shape, scale and development.The paper argued that rather than a linear shift from “containers” to “flows”, as, e.g. suggested by Beck (1992) as an expression of “reflexive ”, there is a concurrent existence of both, each following their respective rationales and thus producing varying degrees of congruence and resulting tensions. This notion of overlap of different processes is an argument also discussed in the concept of “metropolisation” (Cardoso, 2016; Meijers et al., 2014) as well as in the concept of “urban fields” as peripheralized spaces between urban cores (Miller and Friedmann (1965). Coexistence and tension suggest the need to combine and connect the levels of structure (spaces) and agency (actors) of territory and network rationales, rather than placing them as irreconcilable opposites. This may help produce a new, more flexible and “de-structured” understanding of state territoriality, where institutionalization is less rigid and prescriptive, and, instead, the societal-political dimension deserves greater weight, such as in regulation theory (Aglietta, 1998; Tickell & Peck, 1995).Importantly, discrepancies between the two types of regions covering part of a state territory raise questions about the legitimacy of resulting policy agendas, either driven by urban individualism or collective territorial belonging. Cities, both participants in networks and drivers of their shape and reach, as well as parts of a state territory concentrating added agency and resources, are thus in a potential bridging position to connect the network and territorial logics. They may do so and reconcile their two roles – wearing two hats – by participating in competitive network spaces of shared purpose among collaborating urban actors, but whose interests also include the larger territory, as a source of political legitimacy, resources and identity. The higher the congruence between both roles, the greater the degree of inclusion toward those that might be excluded from the network. However, as administrative re-organizations – one form of reaching congruence – are often contested and cumbersome, collaborations between territorial entities may be the most effective way of matching state territoriality to network-defined spaces.The Øresund example demonstrated that peripheralisation and marginalization are not simply a linear function of geographic distance from a core. Rather, they result from a more complex and less predictable communicative and participative distance to relevant functional networks between policy-making actors and their strategic alliances, driven by a pursuit of individual economic (and political) opportunism. While infrastructure is important for communication and de facto reachability, just as important is an individual agency of places to counteract this distance, in the form of building networks and alliances to further their own interests (Payre, 2010). Some actors may participate in different networks for different agendas at the same time, boosting their presence, voice and influence. This raises questions about the realistic opportunities for less well-connected and “attractive” localities and actors vis-a-vis the more experienced and institutionally capable larger cities. What is their scope to self-empower through collaborative engagement? Some may be only able to engage with single relations while others attract whole bundles of them and thus boost their influence and opportunities in a pro-cyclical process. Metropolitan centers benefit from their generally greater capacity to shape and offer greater “utility” for, a network than smaller locales with more limited political and institutional resources and imaginations. And this unevenness is likely to translate into different roles and positions in collaborative networks. So it is not surprising that this may result in accusations of elitist self-serving behavior.The problem then is the legitimacy of such actions. Whose interests are furthered, and who was involved in framing strategies and agendas? It is here that the role of the (democratic) state comes in as an agent of its territorial manifestation. This involves securing its functional and ideational integrity, while simultaneously permitting responsiveness to changing internal and external circumstances in the interest of competitive, urban-centric economic foundations that may also serve the interest of all. The highly political nature of this balancing act between structure-based territorial, institutionalized power, and network-based, relationally defined economic opportunity is clearly illustrated in the rationale for rebranding the Øresund Region as Greater Copenhagen and Skåne in 2016. National regulations and political agendas have had an impact, as well as distinct metropolitan and wider regional interests and expectations. Differences in interests and perspectives between the metropolitan claim of competitive preeminence and thus economic and political “weight” will surface. 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