Cities in old industrial regions between local innovative milieu and urbangovernance-reflections on city region governance

Over the past few years, city regions have received a great deal of attenti on as important policy objects. Documents like Europe 2000+ and the German European Metropolitan Regions are Gases in point. Academic debate has provi ded a number of paradigms which understand city regions as complex structur es. The focal innovative milieu and urban governance represent two of the m ore interesting examples of such paradigms. When applied to a region, evide nce substantiating both paradigms can be found despite reality not simply f ollowing model assumptions. However, both help to get to grips with another layer of interpretation; that of the role of structure and agency in city regions.