Towards the new "regional world"?

There is no denying the resurgence of regions in globalisation. Nonetheless, accounts professing to explain the resurgence of regions in globalization have been inferring transition from "old world" territorially embedded politico-administrative regions to a brave "new world" of more relationally networked city (or metropolitan) region. With particular reference to the discursive frame of European Metropolitan Region in Germany, this article briefly outlines the purported transition at hand, explores the argument that new regional spaces are, in fact, emerging to sit alongside and complement, more than replace, inherited forms of state scalar organisation, before looking at the implications for future research offering perspectives on the contemporary metropolitan regional challenge.