The growing concentration of production and population in capital cities in Europe is accompanied by metropolitan governance reform with two policy objectives in mind. Firstly, capital cities are promoted as ‘national champions’ in the context of global territorial competition. Secondly, metropolitan regions are characterised by recurrent crises of ‘governability’ as economic, social, environmental and infrastructural interdependencies escape existing jurisdictional scales. However, this process is highly uneven, reflecting the ways in which cities are embedded in their national contexts. Drawing from the literature on varieties of capitalism, and in particular O’Riain’s perspective on the Irish case, we suggest that in an era when cities are claimed to be acting as ‘national champions’, territorial politics need to be more strongly foregrounded in these discussions. Through an in-depth qualitative case-study of Dublin (Ireland), we argue that while government power may be strongly centralised in the city of Dublin, the spatial entity of Dublin is relatively powerless. Despite a number of recommendations since the 1970s, there has been little will or action to meaningfully devolve power to the city-regional level in any way, contrary to comparative European experiences. The paper illustrates how a central state stranglehold over the Dublin metropolitan area is hampering the efficient governance and sustainable development of the city. These governance constraints at the sub-national level with significant planning implications indicate a reluctance to engage with the metropolitan as a particular territorial scale in Ireland – and a profound fixity in the architecture of the state. We term this metro-phobia.

中文翻译：

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欧洲的空间规划、大都市治理和领土政治：都柏林作为都市恐惧症的一个案例？

欧洲首都城市的生产和人口日益集中，伴随着大都市治理改革，并考虑到两个政策目标。首先，在全球领土竞争的背景下，首都城市被提升为“国家冠军”。其次，由于经济、社会、环境和基础设施的相互依存关系超出了现有的管辖范围，大都市区的特点是反复出现“治理能力”危机。然而，这个过程极不平衡，反映了城市融入其国情的方式。借鉴关于资本主义多样性的文献，特别是奥赖恩对爱尔兰案例的看法，我们建议在一个城市被称为“国家冠军”的时代，在这些讨论中，领土政治需要更加突出。通过对都柏林（爱尔兰）的深入定性案例研究，我们认为虽然政府权力可能强烈集中在都柏林市，但都柏林的空间实体相对无能为力。尽管自 1970 年代以来提出了一些建议，但与欧洲的比较经验相反，几乎没有意愿或行动以任何方式有意义地将权力下放到城市-区域一级。这篇论文阐述了中央国家对都柏林大都市区的控制如何阻碍了城市的有效治理和可持续发展。这些具有重大规划影响的次国家层面的治理限制表明，爱尔兰不愿意将大都市作为特定的领土范围参与进来——以及国家架构的深刻固定性。我们称之为都市恐惧症。