Metropolitan governance: The challenge for the metropolitan area of Mexico City

The obligations of the state include designing, building, and implementing quality infrastructure and public services for its citizens. However, there are large urban areas where fulfilling these responsibilities is a complex issue; as they depend on several actors and different levels of government, confusion regarding their jurisdictional scope can lead to omissions or overlaps in their actions. The functioning of the area is often achieved through metropolitan management based on collaboration agreements, but it does not contribute enough to its economic and social growth. This text addresses the concept of metropolitan governance and how it has helped, but could, above all, help many large cities to continue growing and functioning under a plan that allows the proper management of infrastructure and equipment. After addressing the basic concepts to understand it, the government models of three cities are described: Tokyo, Japan, and London, UK, which have implemented a metropolitan governance model; and the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City, which has achieved its operation through a metropolitan management scheme, although this has not been enough to improve its productivity.