The event was held on 8, 9 and 10 March at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona The Barcelona Economics Institute (IEB) and the Forum of Federations organized the seminar “Governance and Finance of Large Metropolitan Areas in Federal Systems”, which took place on 8, 9 and 10 March, 2011 at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona (UB).

Over these three days, participants at the seminar analysed and compared different models of funding and governance in metropolitan areas all over the world and propose alternatives. They also discussed the chapters of the book to be published by the Forum of Federations under the same title as the seminar, “Governance and Finance of Large Metropolitan Areas in Federal Systems”, coordinated by Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the University of Toronto (Canada) and Rupak Chattopadhyay, vice-president of Governance Programs at the Forum of Federations.  

The objective of this book is “to examine the finance and governing structure of large metropolitan areas in nine federal countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. The emphasis of each chapter will be on how the delivery of services is coordinated across municipal boundaries, the extent to which land use planning is coordinated on a metropolitan-wide basis, how costs are shared throughout the region, the extent of citizen access to local government decisions, and the presence of local government accountability. Each chapter will also examine the role of the federal and provincial or state governments in these large metropolitan areas”, explained Enid Slack.  

The seminar was attended by experts who presented studies on metropolitan areas in all this countries. The IEB researchers and UB lecturers Núria Bosch and Joaquim Solé Vilanova presented papers.

The event was supported by the Consortium of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (CAMB).