- Regional Governance of the Capital Metropolitan Region: A Comparative Study of Berlin-Brandenburg and Beijing    999 kb by    TANG, Yan & XU, Jingquan | swollow999@163.com    Short Outline The paper examines regional governance and institutional changes in the political and administrative structures of two capital metropolitan regions, Berlin-Brandenburg and Beijing. Abstract Berlin-Brandenburg and Beijing provide appropriate examples for the study of capital metropolitan governance in two different political, economic and social systems, e.g. the different federal and unitary institutions, developed and developing economies, polycentric and mono-centric administration. After the reunification of eastern and western Germany in 1990, Berlin has been an administrative island surrounded by the state government of Brandenburg. This administrative territorial separation makes Berlin isolated from its wider hinterland. Although the benefits of the cooperation of these two states are obvious, the concept to merge Berlin and Brandenburg into one state was failed in 1990’s mainly because of historical politic bias and existing institutions which normally encourage localism and competition. Thus the exploration for new governance and institutional reform are underlying. As the third metropolitan region in China, Beijing at present has no actual regional cooperation with its neighbour cities, such as Tianjin and Tangshan, because of the administrative separation. Even inside the territory of Beijing municipality, the city centre and its near suburbs are either relatively separated or have distinct disparity. Now the new 2003 Strategic Plan and 2004 Master Plan of Beijing, which proposes to turn the mono-centric spatial structure of Beijing into a polycentric one, plays an important role on the future development of Beijing city-region. According to these plans, the issue of institutional reform and regional cooperation are not only highlights but also big challenges for this capital region. By using the comparative study method and from the ‘metropolitan region’ and ‘city’ levels, the organizational characteristics and development trends of regional governance and regional cooperation in Berlin-Brandenburg and Beijing metropolitan regions are explored. The reference significance of Berlin-Brandenburg to the regional governance of Beijing metropolitan region is indicated. Keywords Regional Governance, Capital Metropolitan Region, Berlin-Brandenburg, Beijing Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper