As argued in the introduction, one key dimension of cities is the extent to which various sorts of actors – more or less organised social interest groups – are brought together in processes of governance. If the approach put forward in this volume makes sense, it is necessary to look at the ways in which various interests exist, the extent to which they are organised within cities and how interests and institutions interact. This chapter is a limited contribution to the debate which focuses on private sector actors and interests and the ways in which they partake in processes of urban governance.

It is generally argued that although cities and states were highly interdependent in Western Europe, and to some extent are becoming more and more so, many cities (in the sense of collective actors) have acquired an increasing role in political and economic terms (Le Galès and Harding 1996). The restructuring of nation-states and of the economy has created space for subnational mobilisation, especially at city level. Evidence of cities' economic strategies and of increasing political autonomy has been put forward in various comparative pieces of research in the past ten years (for instance, Judd and Parkinson 1990; Harding et al. 1994; Heinelt and Mayer 1992; Dunford and Kafkalas 1992; Le Galès 1993; Harding 1996). In most of the research in comparative urban politics, it has been argued that urban governance is moving towards serious changes in various European countries, the analysis of which requires a better understanding of interests in cities.

In this book, we have tried to analyse the environment in which urban interest groups operate, which has changed significantly in recent years.