Integrated Urban Governance: A New Paradigm of Urban Economy

Along with the emergence of globalisation, cities, in particular, have been confronted with two vital problems that can be approached only in interdependence: How to reduce, even prevent, social and spatial disparities as well as the related societal and spatial fragmentation? How to stabilize or to ensure local economic growth, international and interregional competitiveness as well as the labour market insertion? Confronted with these challenges, the traditional sectoral approaches prove to be onerous and ineffective and, consequently, new forms of governance acquire importance. Among them, integrated urban governance - a new concept - (i)mplies a change in the administrative situation and the way of thinking of decision-makers in formulating and implementing territorial development policies. Integrated urban governance, having both a vertical dimension and a horizontal dimension beyond the administrative borders of the cities, requires that the identification of the actors should be based on these dimensions. And the solution is not to plan and to implement projects involving possible stakeholders. It requires selecting and analysing the actors who could provide a real support. As integrated urban governance is, in fact, a managerial approach to interdisciplinary problems during the formulation of policies beyond the limits of the established political areas. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.