Making sense of leadership in urban and regional development

TLDR

Place leadership offers an agential lens to examine structure‑agency dynamics in urban and regional development, helping to make sense of leadership in these contexts. This editorial introduces place leadership as reflexive agency and sets the stage for articles exploring contemporary sub‑national leadership experiences across England, Australia, Finland, China, the Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Denmark, and Sweden. The authors present place leadership as a mode of reflexive agency and discuss its value, difficulties, and limitations for study. Regional Studies.

Abstract

Making sense of leadership in urban and regional development. Regional Studies. This editorial paves the way for the articles addressing several contemporary sub-national leadership experiences in England, Australia, Finland, China, the Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Denmark and Sweden. It introduces place leadership as a mode of reflexive agency in urban and regional development, and discusses the value as well as the difficulties and limitations of studying it. Place leadership has the potential to provide an additional 'agential' lens through which issues and relationships of structure and agency can be explored in urban and regional development.