Urban governance of megacities: searching for the collective actor

The governance of megacities has been significantly transformed by four processes: globalization, decentralization, liberalization and European integration for European cities. These processes have produced a more complex governance system that has made the constitution of a collective actor capable of producing policies and strategies to tackle challenges and problems that these cities face more difficult. This has been so because the major impact these processes have had on the governance of megacities has been to increase the number of players, their diversity, and their conflictuality in the absence of a major player able to regulate the whole system. With this background, the chapter investigates three major issues regarding the governance of megacities : (1) the important role of the state in spite of the globalization and decentralization processes; (2) the arguably increasing role of private players, notably big firms; and (3) the place given to citizens in this process.