LAUSR

Abstract In this article we examine city-regionalism as a powerful spatial-political imaginary through which state territorial strategies and the associated policies are increasingly evaluated, drafted and put into practice around the western world. By analyzing the material and discursive constitution of city-regionalism in Finland, the article illustrates that city-regionalism has provided a framework for highlighting the nationally-important economic role of the main metropolitan area, and for questioning the legitimacy of the “State” as a territorial entity and as a political actor. The article also brings to the fore that the city-regionalist imaginary relies heavily on a particular kind of economic geographical reasoning as well as on the politics of depoliticization. The article also demonstrates that city-regionalism is an internally heterogeneous imaginary which provides frames for a range of differentially scaled, policy debates and discourses. Consequently, more nuanced and comparative studies on the context-specific national and regional adaptations of city-regionalism are needed along with the current academic research which has paid considerable attention in to studying how the city-regional scale is politically orchestrated by states in order to bolster international economic competitiveness.