The growing process of metropolization has revealed its flip side in the last decade in the form of increasing social problems in peripheral regions. Through a comparative study of two structurally similar small cities in the Czech peripheral region, this paper explains different population trajectories as well as diverging competitive and foundational economies. Based on the original data collected during extensive fieldwork in the Moravian-Silesian Region, the paper uncovers a dualistic relationship between different types of human agency and its structural context as the key determinant, explaining the different developments. The agency of public providers (in contrast to private providers) in the foundational economy has buffered the impact of peripheralization on the well-being of residents, while the agency of companies in the competitive economy has had a major impact on path development and demographic change.

Europeanization affects policies in much of Europe, but has uneven impacts in different regions. The aim of this paper is to causally explain how and why actors reacted to the European Union (EU) policy. We tested the presence of social learning and coercion mechanisms and how their operation was conditioned by policy capacities (contextual factors). Europeanization is traced through integrated territorial investment (ITI) implementation, a new EU Cohesion Policy tool. The Ostrava Metropolitan Region case study in Czechia revealed that national-level actors had responded dominantly to ITI by social learning and local actors with coercion.

Třebaže je Velká Británie institucionálně odlišná od kontinentální Evropy, dlouhodobá historie managementu center měst poskytuje hodnotnou inspiraci pro český kontext. Tato kapitola je rozdělená do dvou komplementárních bloků. První blok popisuje a analyzuje model managementu center měst od jeho historie a definice, přes aktéry a organizační formy, po přehled možných opatření a nástrojů. Druhý blok představuje implementaci modelu na příkladu třech konkrétních měst – Wiganu, Doncasteru a Rotherhamu. Na závěr jsou diskutovány výzvy, kterým v současnosti městská centra ve Velké Británii čelí.