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In this paper, we consider the implications of applying the city region concept to a medium-sized city and whether such an application of a spatial and governmental policy is appropriate when the central city in question is also not necessarily economically dominant or connected to its wider city-region. This gives a deeper understanding to the process of subnational restructuring of the UK state via the production of city regions which has now been in progress since the 2010 Coalition Government. The primary focus governmentally and in academic literature has been on larger (English) city regions, but here we highlight how this has been applied in distinctive ways in devolved nations of the UK. To this end, we focus upon the case of the Swansea Bay City Region, based in South West Wales, looking through the lens of Welsh devolution and through the concept of the city-region as a scalar narrative for the delivery of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the creation of a growth deal for North Wales (The North Wales Growth Deal – NWGD). North Wales is primarily a rural region within the UK, without a core-city or large metropolitan centre. The paper examines how this urban dynamic, fostered around a pushing of the agglomerative growth model out of the city-region, is being transferred largely across rural space and place in terms of how growth is envisioned and how policy is implemented. It contributes to regional studies knowledge by raising the importance of the non-metropolitan city-regional alternatives in the context of the (academic and policy) city-regional debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of localism and spatial delineation of the 'city region' have seen a renaissance as the de facto spatial political units of governance for economic development. One articulation of this has seen the creation of Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) to potentially enhance Wales's poor economic performance and secure democratic forms of social cohesion. City regions have been vaunted as the 'spatial imaginary' for engendering economic development, but there are considerable state spatial restructuring tensions. The paper discusses these by following the development of city-regionalism in Wales and specifically the unfolding of the 'elite-led' CCR City-Deal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]