Thomas Perrin is Associate Professor in Regional Planning and Social Sciences at the School of Architecture of Montpellier (ENSAM), Research Centre TVES-Lille, France. His research and teaching deal with regions, regional planning and territorial cooperation on the one hand, and with cultural policies and cultural relations on the other hand. He has contributed to several international research projects and publications.

• Introduction: The bigger the better? The new ‘macro’ regions in France in the lens of territorial changes in Europe 1. The road to ambiguity: the axiological construction of the regional tier in France 2. The territorial big bang: which assessment about the territorial reform in France? 3. Conflicts, competition and cooperation between territorial self-government units after the administrative reform in 1999: Wielkopolska 4. Merging regions in contemporary France: a policy perspective 5. Exploring the creation of the metropolitan city-region government: the cases of England, France and Italy 6. The making of the Bydgoszcz-Toruń partnership area as an example of a bipolar conflict 7. The scale of the century? – the new city regionalism in England and some experiences from Liverpool 8. The ‘Alsace European Authority’: a new step in the ‘territorial differentiation’ in France

Thomas Perrin is Associate Professor in Regional Planning and Social Sciences at the School of Architecture of Montpellier (ENSAM), Research Centre TVES-Lille, France. His research and teaching deal with regions, regional planning and territorial cooperation on the one hand, and with cultural policies and cultural relations on the other hand. He has contributed to several international research projects and publications.

• Introduction: The bigger the better? The new ‘macro’ regions in France in the lens of territorial changes in Europe 1. The road to ambiguity: the axiological construction of the regional tier in France 2. The territorial big bang: which assessment about the territorial reform in France? 3. Conflicts, competition and cooperation between territorial self-government units after the administrative reform in 1999: Wielkopolska 4. Merging regions in contemporary France: a policy perspective 5. Exploring the creation of the metropolitan city-region government: the cases of England, France and Italy 6. The making of the Bydgoszcz-Toruń partnership area as an example of a bipolar conflict 7. The scale of the century? – the new city regionalism in England and some experiences from Liverpool 8. The ‘Alsace European Authority’: a new step in the ‘territorial differentiation’ in France

Thomas Perrin is Associate Professor in Regional Planning and Social Sciences at the School of Architecture of Montpellier (ENSAM), Research Centre TVES-Lille, France. His research and teaching deal with regions, regional planning and territorial cooperation on the one hand, and with cultural policies and cultural relations on the other hand. He has contributed to several international research projects and publications.

• Introduction: The bigger the better? The new ‘macro’ regions in France in the lens of territorial changes in Europe 1. The road to ambiguity: the axiological construction of the regional tier in France 2. The territorial big bang: which assessment about the territorial reform in France? 3. Conflicts, competition and cooperation between territorial self-government units after the administrative reform in 1999: Wielkopolska 4. Merging regions in contemporary France: a policy perspective 5. Exploring the creation of the metropolitan city-region government: the cases of England, France and Italy 6. The making of the Bydgoszcz-Toruń partnership area as an example of a bipolar conflict 7. The scale of the century? – the new city regionalism in England and some experiences from Liverpool 8. The ‘Alsace European Authority’: a new step in the ‘territorial differentiation’ in France