The Regional Studies Association Research Network on Bridging Governance Gaps in City-regions Addressing Land Take and City-Region Building through Comparative Research
Policy goals of social-ecological transformation and sustainability place a strong focus on cities (like SDG 11). A most representative indicator of these policy goals, land take, highlights a shortfall when not addressing city-regional functional interdependencies: land take is not limited to core cities but results to a much greater extent from social and economic dynamics in the functional urban region, including peripheral areas. The policy and planning ambition of no-net-land take-take will therefore be decided on the city-regional scale. However, many urban actors encounter institutional and imaginative hurdles when perceiving and shaping city-regions as one space for action.
Against this background, the proposed network has two objectives: (1) challenges and solutions are developed at the intersection of the research on city-regional governance and land take as well as for the intersection of the research fields of city-regional imagination and city-region building; and (2) methodological innovations for comparative city-region research will be developed.
Future Events
Roundtable: Rethinking City-Regional Planning: Perspectives on Land Take, Planning Cultures, and Education
6th World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC)
29 June – 3 July 2026, Helsinki-Espoo.
Organisation: Anna Growe (Kassel University, Germany) and Chen Chen (Tongji University, China).
Building one Space for Action: City-Regional Imaginaries and the Reduction of Net Land Take
International Workshop, University of Kassel, Germany
4–6 November 2026
Organisers:
Prof. Dr. Anna Growe (University of Kassel)
Dr. Simin Yan (Chongqing University)
Lukas Häfner (University of Kassel)
The workshop brings together research addressing the institutional, spatial, and discursive challenges involved in perceiving and shaping the city-region as a shared space for action. It contributes to current debates in regional and planning studies by examining how city-regions are constituted and governed through the interaction of territorial imaginaries, governance arrangements, and material spatial processes.
See the CfP here. Deadline for abstracts: 27 July 2026.
Past Events
CS04. Beyond Fragmentation: New Institutions and Strategies for Urban–Rural Linkages
2026 RSA Annual Conference Special Session
15-18 June 2026, Gothenburg, Sweden
Organisation: Lukas Haefner (University of Kassel, Germany), Simin Yan (Chongqing University, China) and Alois Humer, (TU Wien, Austria).
Kick-off event: Special Session CS2: Governance and Imaginaries of Sustainable City Regions
RSA Regional Futures Conference, London
13–14 Nov 2025
Session Organisers:
Anna Growe, Kassel University, Germany
Eva Purkarthofer, Aalto University, Finland
This session explores a research triangle:
➡️ Identifying city-regions as functionally integrated spaces
➡️ Governance & planning for sustainable land use strategies
➡️ Imaginaries of city-regions as political–planning spaces for action
Session Highlights:
Session 1 – Governance and Imaginaries (5 papers, 16 contributors)
Session 2 – Net Land Take & Urban–Rural Interrelations (5 papers, 6 contributors)
Altogether, 10 contributions by 22 scholars worldwide! Welcome to join and connect with our Research Network.
🔗 More details can be found here
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