JLGC’s Andrew Stevens has an article at the Guardian‘s Local Government Network site, looking at the lessons English cities could learn from Japan in terms of devolution of economic development powers. The article looks at the designated cities system of Japan, where cities of 500,000 or more residents have enjoyed a greater degree of autonomy from upper-tier prefectural governments, also looking at the current debate in Japan about metropolitan government and what both sides could learn from each other.
