Mariona Tomàs

University of Barcelona | UB · Department of Political Science

In the last decades the global tourist industry has been transformed by rapid growth, resulting in many destinations reaching a state of touristification. This phenomenon is a socioeconomic and spatial transformation process that can contribute to the creation of a tourism monoculture. This study aims to measure the level of touristification found...

In this chapter, we challenge the concepts of urbs, polis and civitas as they have been traditionally applied to the city. Our exploratory analysis is an invitation to a discussion on the different forms that “urbicide” takes place. Indeed, we argue that we need to analyse this phenomenon with a metropolitan perspective, since cities cannot not be...

Since the beginning of the 2010s, the existence of widespread shared workshops has enabled access to digital manufacturing tools. Mainly located in urban areas, these facilities seek to make means of production, to design, prototype and repair all kinds of objects available to the citizens. These practices have been supported by activists of the “d...

Cet article analyse l’impact de l’arrivée à la mairie de Barcelone de Barcelona en Comú (BeC), la plateforme citoyenne dirigée par l’activiste Ada Colau, par rapport à l’enjeu de la gouvernance métropolitaine. Cette plateforme a surgi comme alternative au gouvernement conservateur de Xavier Trias lors du mandat antérieur (2011-2015), qui avait lui-...

Metropolitan areas have become the battleground for human rights, particularly the “right to the city”. The New Urban Agenda (NUA) recognises this principle as an ideal way to build a city for all. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present a sustainable (also urban) development model with multiple economic, social and environmental aspects....

The development and change of metropolitan institutions have been at the heart of political and theoretical debates for decades. However, given the widespread path dependency of institutional development, we may ask what has really changed over time? The aim of this chapter is to evaluate recent institutional developments that have come to be seen...

p>La sociedad europea es mayoritariamente urbana. A pesar de ello, las áreas metropolitanas no gozan de reconocimiento político a escala europea y, en la mayoría de los casos, tampoco a escala nacional. En este artículo hacemos un análisis comparado de los modelos de gobernanza metropolitana en Europa a partir de cuatro variables: la fragmentación...

En este presentación analizamos las características del proyecto de ciudad digital de Barcelona en el mandato 2015-19 y especialmente el caso de los Ateneus de Fabricació. Como explicamos en la primera parte del artículo, el modelo de ciudad digital que se está implementando en Barcelona tiene unos antecedentes claros. La ciudad digital no se limit...

At a time when metropolitan policies seem to follow a course more and more convergent, we analyse forty years of urban policy in the city that has long been considered a specific model : Barcelona. To examine these policies over time is to test this notion of model. Our analysis of the development of the city is based on two parallel studies : that...

This article analyses Spanish Mayors' perceptions on three areas of possible reforms that are currently on the local government agenda: re-scaling, amalgamations and metropolitanization. This study shows two main features: On the one hand, a relative homogeneity regarding mayors' perceptions of reforms and, on the other hand, a consistent differenc...

Metropolitan governance arrangements and their policy purposes have been a matter of debate among researchers and practitioners around the globe. While we may trace three broad schools of metropolitan governance – reform school, public choice theory and new regionalism – with each still having its proponents, we are interested to learn whether ther...

This article aims to explain the evolution of urban governance in Spain during the last 40 years as a product of different waves of state rescaling. Historical, political and economic specificities shape the evolution of Spanish urban governance, especially because of the recent process of democratic transition, regional decentralisation and the sp...

In this paper I examine the characteristics of metropolitan governance in Spain. In the first part, I briefly analyse the different theoretical conceptions and the existing models of metropolitan governance in Europe. I argue that metropolitan governance is explained by the interrelations between the specific institutional context (intergovernmenta...

Este trabajo analiza la evolución de la gobernanza urbana en España desde los 1970 hasta la actualidad teniendo en cuenta tanto su evolución general como las dife-rencias entre las ciudades. Desde la restauración de la democracia los municipios, con-juntamente con los gobiernos autonómicos, han sido un pilar para el desarrollo del siste-ma de biene...

While the single institution of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB) is a recent creation, some form of institutional cooperation among most of the metropolitan municipalities has been functioning over the past 40 years. However, despite the ample evidence about municipal and national patterns of identification in Catalonia, no data about polit...

This essay contributes to the current debate in the field of critical urban and regional studies on the meanings of the ‘regional’ and the ‘urban’. From a political science perspective, we focus on the European case. Firstly, we argue that the conception of the regional scale is not the same in various languages and traditions. Regions in Europe ca...

Previous research has emphasised that residential mobility, especially the suburbanisation of metropolitan regions, is a key factor in understanding the social and institutional context that shapes local political dynamics. Recent studies show that local communities with high rates of recent population growth show lower levels of turnout than other...

http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-489.htm

The goal of the article is to analyze the features of the policy making process in Catalonia, embedded in a complex multilevel system of governance. Firstly, we describe the capacity of Catalonia to exercise authority over those who live in the region (or capacity to self-rule) and to exercise authority in the country as a whole (or capacity to sha...

Dans cet article, notre propos est de cerner l’influence de la variable politique dans la production d’une solidarité métropolitaine. Nous l’abordons selon une double comparaison entre la France et l’Espagne qui ont connu des phases de centralisation et de décentralisation de la question métropolitaine. Une première comparaison nationale nous fait...

This article compares the approach to metropolitan governance of Catalonia and Quebec. In the first part of the article we analyze the three main approaches to metropolitan governance (reform school, public choice school and new regionalism). Each theoretical school proposes a model of dealing with metropolitan challenges according to a different d...

Quels sont les facteurs qui expliquent la construction des modèles de gestion métropolitaine et quelle est la contribution des acteurs locaux à ce processus ? À la croiséedes études urbaines et de la science politique, ce livre traite de la dimension politique de la métropolisation à partir d’une étude de cas : le modèle de gestion mis en place à M...

El principal objectiu de la recerca era explorar les possibles relacions entre les economies d’aglomeració, el creixement econòmic i les diverses fórmules de go- vernança metropolitana i l’impacte del canvi econòmic a les regions urbanes que no estan en el cor de la UE. També era important valorar els potencials de desen- volupament de les regions...

This article analyses the normative dimension of metropolitan governance in the case of Montreal. According to the main schools of thought (the reform school, the public choice school, new regionalism and the rescaling approach), there is an ideal scale at which to achieve specific goals such as equality, efficiency, democracy and economic competit...

Résumé Ce texte propose une lecture critique de la théorie du rescaling à travers le cas de Montréal. Les auteurs soulignent l’importance du contexte institutionnel pour analyser le processus de construction et de légitimation d’une institution métropolitaine dans le cadre de la restructuration entre échelles. L’exemple montréalais illustre la forc...

Ce texte propose une lecture critique de la théorie du rescaling à travers le cas de Montréal. Les auteurs soulignent l’importance du contexte institutionnel pour analyser le processus de construction et de légitimation d’une institution métropolitaine dans le cadre de la restructuration entre échelles. L’exemple montréalais illustre la force des i...

Cet ouvrage aborde de façon exhaustive la question métropolitaine et notamment les dimensions politiques des changements d’échelle. À l’appui de plusieurs études de cas nationales et internationales, Emmanuel Négrier examine la nature de l’inadéquation entre les espaces fonctionnels des agglomérations et les espaces politiques qui se recoupent très...

Review of the work of Bernard Jouve and Philip Booth (dirs.) published in 2004, Démocraties métropolitaines. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec. 335 p.

In this article, we explore the main features of metropolitan governance in Canada. The first part of the paper is devoted to a brief overview of the characteristics of metropolitan areas in Canada and the system of local government. Secondly, we focus our analysis on the leading metropolitan areas, paying special attention to the reforms that they...

Time, power, and space. The metropolization of Barcelona The economic and social appeal of Barcelona was responsible for its having become one of Europe’s major urban centers. However, it was only in the mid-19th century that the city began to spread beyond its medieval walls. Although this belated expansion can be explained in economic terms by th...

Actualment, no existeixen les ciutats en el sentit weberià, és a dir, com a entitats socioeconòmiques territorialment integrades. El fenomen urbà es descriu millor amb la noció d'àrees metropolitanes: regions urbanes amb diversos centres relacionats mitjançant xarxes funcionals i superant els límits institucionals definits. La manera com governar l...

Residential mobility is a relevant factor to understand the social and institutional context that shapes local political dynamics. There is ample and geographically varied evidence of the impact of residential mobility--e.g., due to metropolitan suburbanization--on electoral turnout at the local level. Recent work (Magre and Tomàs 2011) shows that...