Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
functions are still outside its mandate; the provincial government still controls the
Agricultural Districts in the region set up in the 1970s to preserve scarce agricul-
tural land, as well as the new Translink rapid transit system. A sign of the provincial
government's reluctance to give GVRD greater powers or even image is that it still
insists on the original title, although the authority voted to market itself as Metro
Vancouver in 2007 (Hutton
2011
). There seems little doubt that the regional plan-
ning governance has had some successes but it is always going to face problems
because of its advisory nature. So it has not been successful in developing the plan
to create expanded town centres in the region to act as a counterweight to the cen-
tral city—a problem found in most city-regional planning. Despite being activist
in sustainability terms, its ability to progress in this area is limited because it is not
only squeezed geographically between the sea, the mountains, and the U.S. bor-
der—which limits its growth options—but also administratively between provincial
and local municipal power, as well as an often polarized electorate between left and
right wing parties with very different views of planning.
In the United States the Portland Metro is the only true city-regional government
in the U.S.A. This developed out of previous regional co-operation between over
30 municipal authorities since 1966 (Cotugno and Seltzer
2011
). But crucially, the
regional authority had a basis in the previous history of conservation in the area.
For example, the renowned urban scholar, Mumford (
1938
,
1961
), an advocate of
regional planning, created an outline regional plan in the 1930s that recommended
directing growth from Portland into a series of local green belt towns that could
be supplied by energy from the new Bonneville dam and hydro plants (Mumford
1938
). In addition, the creation of the 5000 acre reserve of Forest Park in 1948—
the largest wilderness preserve in American cities—provided Portland with an ex-
emplar of the value of conservationist ideas (Stephenson
1999
). However the real
spark came from an increasing concern about protecting green space and agricul-
tural land that led to the state of Oregon making it mandatory in the early 1970s for
urban centres to create Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB) to reduce sprawl. This
led to the creation of the Metro area in three counties around Portland, a regional
authority that was empowered to not only define the UGB line but to create plans
for land use and transport, as well as running of new transit lines that will eventually
connect the various dispersed settlements in the region. Democratic legitimacy was
confirmed not only by a local vote to approve the creation of a regional government,
but by elections for its 10 member council.
Democratic legitimacy is also a hallmark of the Stuttgart regional authority
(VRS), which has an elected council of 91 members, although many councillors are
also members of other governments, which spreads their contact network widely.
Originally created as one of the state of Baden-Wttenburg's regional planning
agencies in 1992, it was given additional powers as a corporate entity with its elect-
ed council 2 years later. In large part this was because of a severe loss of jobs in the
auto and engineering economy in the Stuttgart region, although manufacturing still
accounts for almost half a million jobs in the region. VRS is still the only compre-
hensive metropolitan government in Germany, with a major role in regional plan-
ning. Basten (
2011
, p. 284) quotes its development plan as ensuring “sustainability
