Metropolitan Spatial Planning for Functional Urban Areas in Europe

Since the publication of the Torremolinos Charter in 1983, metropolitan areas have increasingly consolidated as catalysts and drivers of global development, as a consequence of complex processes of socioeconomic reorganisation and rescaling. These heterogeneous and context-dependent processes make metropolitan challenges hard to define and address from a univocal perspective. The metropolitan conundrum has gained attention in the agenda of EU institutions, acknowledging the fact that to leave this process ungoverned could pose serious threats to social, economic and territorial cohesion. At the same time, it puts traditional spatial governance and planning models into crisis, with existing territorial units that are challenged by spatial development dynamics are hardly manageable through rigid administrative boundaries. Despite the efforts dedicated to adapting the EU action, however, introducing suitable multi-scalar institutional arrangements aimed at metropolitan development and governance remains a challenge.