The scale of the century? – the new city regionalism in England and some experiences from Liverpool

Attention to the city regional scale has fluctuated over time as governments in different countries have sought new ‘territorial fixes’ to respond to changing systems of production, flows of goods, capital and information, environmental challenges, and demands for renewed political legitimacy of collective action. In England, there have been successive cycles of rescaling, particularly since the 1970s when metropolitan governance structures were created only to be abolished the following decade. Larger regional territories were favoured in the 1990s and 2000s, however, from the mid-2000s onwards the city-regional scale again rose to prominence. The 2010s saw attention shift back to sub-regional territories with the creation of ‘Combined Authorities’ for ‘larger than local’ but ‘smaller than regional’ areas, including for many city-regions. This paper considers the new city regionalism in England and the experience of the Liverpool City Region (LCR). It concludes that whilst exogenous political economic factors and state strategies may stimulate rescaling of territorial governance, it is important to recognize that it is also shaped by distinctive local contexts and practices.