Minor Cities in a Metropolitan World: Challenges for Development and Governance in Three Hungarian Urban Agglomerations

Minor cities represent urban centres on a sub-metropolitan scale which are struggling to integrate into competitive city networks characterized by intense, worldwide agglomeration processes. Lacking sufficient mass and often situated on Europe's geographic or socio-economic peripheries, they must balance specialization and diversification agendas, and develop effective urban governance to remain viable economic centres. This paper investigates ongoing urbanization processes and their effects on minor cities, illustrated by three case studies from Hungary. Findings suggest that development cooperation and the foundations of 'urban regimes' emerge even in small and institutionally weak city-regions, although the content, as well as organization of the resulting arrangements exhibit differences from the base model.