METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

This paper explores the role and importance of the four, closelocated, metropolises of south-eastern Europe (Skopje, Sofia, Thessaloniki and Tirana) and proposes a strategy that promotes metropolitan growth and development, maximizes spread effects to national hinterlands, and advances cross-country cooperation between cities in the area. These metropolitan centres play a significant role within both their respective countries and the whole region, because of their function as political/administrative centres and economic/growth poles and their dominance over the other national urban centres. In addition, their relative proximity permits the development of networks of cooperation and the gradual formation of a polycentric regional structure in south-eastern Europe, which will progressively embrace all the important cities, to increasing regional integration and enhancing economic development.