Metropolitan Governing: Canadina Cases, Comparative Lessons

Metropolitan reforms have been implemented in Canada at a scale and frequency greater than anywhere else in the democratic world. Recent Canadian metropolitan reforms are setting precedents and could influence metropolitan agendas worldwide. This edited collection deals with the recent local government reforms in major Canadian cities—Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver—and provides comparative insights from other countries—Britain, the United States, Korea, and Israel. Steps undertaken by Canadian provinces have seemingly preferred in some cases ‘old regionalism' territorial reforms over 'new regionalism' horizontal networks of governance. Canadian experiences indicate that both weak metropolitan mechanisms and neighborhood-level governments tend to be unstable, often not fulfilling expectations. Moreover, it seems that only old regionalism deals effectively with sharing fiscal burdens, whereas new regionalism approaches can be effective in development. The cross-national case studies provide a perspective on the role of different political systems and political cultures in determining the metropolitan governance agenda and the reforms undertaken, revealing considerable similarities in the agenda and diversity in responses.