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In their 1986 book Goldberg and Mercer find institutional and structural differences between Canadian and American cities attributable to the different ways that political culture has affected the evolution of urban regions. The American preference for individualism and competition, for limited government intervention and for local autonomy have all contributed to a political climate that encourages local government fragmentation and renders formal metropolitan restructuring difficult. This phenomenon is institutionalized in the principle of home rule. These features of the American system are widely cited to explain the relative rarity of metropolitan forms of government. But what of metropolitan governance? New regionalism emerged in response to the challenges of formal government reorganization and is based on the principle that metropolitan coalitions are easier to establish and more flexible than metropolitan reform. This form of regional coordination is more compatible with local autonomy. However, in theory metropolitan collective action may also be more difficult to establish in the American context that privileges individualism and competition. This article is structured around a series of questions: First, is metropolitan governance more difficult to establish in the American context? Second, are certain forms of metropolitan governance more common in each country, reflective of their political cultural and institutional differences? Finally, what do these findings suggest for theory building? Is one theory about the sources and determinants of metropolitan collective action sufficient? This article hypothesizes that despite important differences it is possible to explain the emergence and form of metropolitan governance with a single theoretical framework.

The policy actions of senior levels of government can often be important catalysts to collective action for metropolitan governance. This article compares the challenges that actors in metropolitan Detroit have faced in attempting to establish metropolitan transit governance in response to the promise of federal funding for regional transit in 1967 and the grants announced in the 2000s. How has the region responded differently to the challenge of regional transit in the most recent wave of funding? What accounts for governance failure even when, at various points in the historical debate, local actors have been in agreement on a metro transit agenda? What has changed since the 1960s and will these differences empower the metro region to finally establish metropolitan transit governance? Finally, what can the lessons of these two periods teach us about governing regional transit in fragmented political contexts?

AbstractScholarship abounds on the importance of city‐regions to regional and national prosperity, and to the wider global economy. But little is known about their capacity to function as effective, legitimate and robust policy actors. This article begins to address the important question of what determines the governance capacity of city‐regions by unpacking the concepts at the core of this research. It focuses on sources of horizontal capacity as a function of the strength of intermunicipal partnerships. Research suggests a variety of determinants of the strength of inter municipal partnerships, from rational choice to institutional perspectives. This article acknowledges the contribution of these approaches, but argues that none of the approaches presented to date can alone explain observed variations in the strength and capacity of city‐regional partnerships. Instead the article presents an alternative theoretical framework that reimagines and combines existing approaches, and introduces the concept of civic capital as a critical determinant of governance capacity.RésuméDe nombreux travaux de recherches soulignent combien les régions métropolitaines sont importantes pour la prospérité régionale et nationale, et pour l'économie mondiale en général. Pourtant, on en sait peu sur leur capacitéà opérer comme acteurs efficaces, légitimes et solides des politiques publiques. En revenant sur les concepts fondamentaux de ces études, l'article traite d'abord un point important: les facteurs déterminants de la capacité de gouvernance des régions métropolitaines. Il s'attache aux sources de capacité horizontale en fonction de la solidité des partenariats intercommunaux. Les études suggèrent tout un éventail de facteurs de cette solidité, allant du choix rationnel aux perspectives institutionnelles. Toutes les approches présentées à ce jour contribuent au débat général, mais aucune ne peut expliquer à elle seule les variations observées dans la solidité et la capacité des partenariats des régions métropolitaines. Un cadre théorique alternatif est présenté dans cet article, permettant de réimaginer et de combiner les approches existantes, tout en introduisant le concept de capital civique comme facteur essentiel de la capacité de gouvernance.

Much of the coverage surrounding the relationship between Indigenous communities and the Crown in Canada has focused on the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Yet it is at the local level where some of the most important and significant partnerships are being made between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. In A Quiet Evolution, Christopher Alcantara and Jen Nelles look closely at hundreds of agreements from across Canada and at four case studies drawn from Ontario, Quebec, and Yukon Territory to explore relationships between Indigenous and local governments. By analyzing the various ways in which they work together, the authors provide an original, transferable framework for studying any type of intergovernmental partnership at the local level. Timely and accessible, A Quiet Evolution is a call to politicians, policymakers and citizens alike to encourage Indigenous and local governments to work towards mutually beneficial partnerships

"Much of the coverage surrounding the relationship between Indigenous communities and the Crown in Canada has focused on the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Yet it is at the local level where some of the most important and significant partnerships are being made between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples."--

In the absence of consensus about which organizations matter or are the "right" manifestations of American regional intergovernmentalism scholarship has had to develop an imprecisely defined and tacitly circulated perception of regions and the cross-boundary organizations that embody them. Even where effort has been made to establish a broad and consistent definition for regional cross-boundary organizations these standards have been applied loosely and with notable exceptions. We argue that the lack of conceptual precision and consensus, to date, makes large-scale comparative research difficult and prone to potential blind spots. We offer a framework within which we can unify these different pieces. Rather than focusing on organization type, or geographical scales, we propose a system of identifying and studying regional organizations by five core attributes. We submit these regional intergovernmental organizations (RIGOs) as a conceptual lingua franca that transcends organizational nomenclature and statistical constructs and enables broad, methodologically rigorous, comparative research.