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Free keywords:
megacities, constitutional law, urbanization, multilevel governance,federalism, state theory
Abstract:
Extensive urbanization and the consequent rise of megacities are among themost significant demographic phenomena of our time. Our constitutionalinstitutions and constitutional imagination, however, have not even begunto catch up with the new reality. In this article, I address four dimensions ofthe great constitutional silence concerning the metropolis: (a) the tremen-dous interest in cities throughout much of the social sciences, as contrastedwith the meager attention to the subject in constitutional theory and prac-tice; (b) the right to the city in theory and practice; (c) a brief account ofwhat national constitutions actually say about cities, and more significantlywhat they do not; and (d) the dominant statist stance embedded in nationalconstitutional orders, in particular as it addresses the sovereignty and spa-tial governance of the polity, as a main explanatory factor for the lack ofvibrant constitutional discourse concerning urbanization in general and themetropolis in particular
