From Cities to (Multi) City-Regions: The Future of Urban Life
By Federico de Arteaga Vidiella – Tequila Inteligente Head of the project
Federico de Arteaga Vidiella – Tequila Inteligente Head of the project
For centuries, the city was understood as a bounded space, with walls, clear perimeters, and jurisdictions. But today that idea has become obsolete. Urban life no longer fits within municipal boundaries: commuter mobility connects distant territories, environmental issues cross shared watersheds, supply chains extend across metropolitan corridors, and digital networks blur the concept of borders. As Ignacio Alcalde reminds us, urban intelligence must be exercised at the metropolitan scale, because it is there that complexity becomes opportunity.
Gracia Cid puts it in complementary terms: The contemporary city “overflows its physical and political limits; it can only be adequately planned with a regional approach.” Thus arises the city-region, the polycentric metropolis, a territory where several cities cease to be isolated units and become a system.
Euskadi is a revealing example. Bilbao, Vitoria, and San Sebastian form an urban triangle that has reinvented itself through complementarity. Bilbao, after its post-industrial transformation, acts as a cultural and service engine; Vitoria supports institutional balance as the administrative capital; and San Sebastián showcases its tourist and creative prestige. Igor Calzada points out that Euskadi has succeeded in building “a regional narrative in which cities work in synergy, not isolation.” Therefore, the success of a city-region lies not in fragmented competition, but in weaving networks of collaboration.
The network logic goes beyond the economy or politics. It is also reflected in tourism. Smart Tourist Destinations (DTI), like Tequila in Mexico, show that competitiveness does not come from a single attraction, but from the ability to integrate infrastructure, services, communities, and technology into an innovation ecosystem. A smart destination, like a city-region, is not a point on the map, but a network.
Parag Khanna takes it even further with his concept of «connectography:» The world is no longer organized around political borders, but around networks of flows — of energy, goods, data, capital, and people. In this scenario, isolated cities lose relevance, while connected city-regions become strategic nodes. In short, future competitiveness lies not in size, but in the capacity to integrate into metropolitan and regional networks.
And what about governance?
How is a territory governed when it does not coincide with political boundaries? Who makes decisions in a distributed metropolis? The lack of formal metropolitan governance structures can create voids that hinder territorial potential.
The answer lies in imagining regional governance that doesn’t replace municipalities but coordinates them — governance capable of setting joint strategies in mobility, sustainability, innovation, and tourism, while respecting local autonomy. This requires institutions that think in supra-municipal terms, as well as flexible cooperation mechanisms, shared projects, and a common narrative.
Euskadi offers an example of how this is possible. There, regional governance is articulated through multiple layers: the Basque government, with competencies in territorial planning and economic development; the provincial councils, with management capacity in their provinces; and the municipalities themselves, which retain local autonomy. This system, far from simple, is balanced by a solid institutional framework and the conviction that the Basque project needs regional cohesion. Public policy is supported by strategic plans that integrate the three main cities and promote shared infrastructure — like the high-speed rail or technological innovation policies. In this way, Basque governance combines institutional levels with a shared narrative that legitimizes cooperation.
However, there are factors that work against this planning. Political rivalries between parties can block regional projects. Rigid bureaucracy creates delays and duplications. Territorial inequalities breed resentment between wealthier areas and less developed peripheries. Financial limitations hinder large-scale projects if there is no joint funding framework. And cultural resistance, tied to localist attachments, makes it difficult to accept a supra-municipal narrative.
Still, the benefits of regional governance are undeniable. Economically, costs are reduced by avoiding duplication and international funding opportunities are opened. Socially, cohesion improves and opportunities are better distributed. Environmentally, shared ecosystems are managed more effectively, and sustainability advances. In tourism, integrated territories with strong global brands are projected. Politically, legitimacy and negotiation capacity in the international arena are enhanced.
The risk of not moving forward with this logic is clear: cities trapped in sterile localisms, duplicated infrastructure, unnecessary costs, fragmented policies, and loss of competitiveness compared to better-organized regions. The world, as Saskia Sassen reminds us, functions in networks of global cities beyond national borders. And as Calzada insists, the future does not belong to solitary cities, but to city-regions capable of connecting to global networks.
The lesson is clear: Municipalism was key for the locality, but the 21st century belongs — or will belong — to metropolises and city-regions. Regional governance, far from being a utopia, is the condition to reduce costs, ensure economic sustainability, improve social cohesion, and project territories as relevant nodes in global connectography.
The City-Region Is Not a Mirage is not a lab concept — it’s a realistic response to a world organized not by borders, but by flows, networks, and synergies. However, this model is not imposed top-down: it is built from the ground up, from the everyday life of territories that learn to cooperate, share, and project themselves together.
On this path, it is essential to distinguish between two emerging models:
- The City-Region arises when a main city expands its functional influence and connects peripheral cities or municipalities into a coordinated metropolitan system. The dominant urban center articulates mobility, economy, governance, and services networks. Example: Mexico City and its metropolitan area.
- The Multi-City Region, on the other hand, is a more balanced system, where several mid-sized cities interact without one clearly dominating. Urban functions are distributed and complementary among the different centers. Example: Euskadi, with Bilbao, Vitoria, and San Sebastián.
In Latin America, where large metropolises coexist with vibrant intermediate cities, the potential of both models is immense. But geographical proximity or historical ties are not enough: a common narrative, strategic vision, shared governance, and political will are required.
Thematic routes, such as the Tequila Route, are much more than tourist circuits: they are experiments in territorial integration. By connecting towns, histories, products, and services, these routes weave the invisible thread of a new territoriality. One that understands that development is not achieved in isolation, but through networks. They are the spearhead for articulating intelligent, sustainable, and competitive regions.
Now more than ever, the 21st century demands a shift from fragmented municipalism to regional orchestration. Not to suppress the local, but to empower it through collaborative systems. Because only then can cities effectively respond to global challenges — climatic, economic, social — without losing their identity or roots.
It’s time to act. Governments, businesses, universities, communities: the call has been made. Let’s envision vibrant, fair, and connected city-regions. Because the future is not written in solitude, but by many walking together in harmony toward a common destiny.
