Being metropolitan: the effects of individual and contextual factors on shaping metropolitan identity

Abstract

While the single institution of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB) is a recent creation, some form of institutional cooperation among most of metropolitan municipalities has been functioning over the last 40 years. However, despite there is ample evidence about municipal and national patterns of identification in Catalonia, no data about political orientations or patterns of identity toward the metropolitan area among the metropolitan population have been gathered so far. Using new survey data we explore two main features of the metropolitan identification among the Barcelona metropolitan population. First, we analyze the relationship between municipal attachment and metropolitan identification. Second, we explore the shaping of citizens’ orientations regarding the governance structure of the MAB, with particular interest in the central role of the city of Barcelona.