Recent decades have been dominated by discourses describing a resurgence of regions. Yet despite its prominence the region remains a largely Delphian concept. In the period of new regionalist orthodoxy, for example, while it was recognized that regions take various forms, the normative claim that we were living in a ‘regional world’ became narrowly focused on regions as subnational political units. Nevertheless, the emergence of city-regions, cross-border regions, and European Metropolitan Regions is leading some scholars to suggest the formation in this century of a brave new ‘regional world’. With economic, social and political activity increasingly orchestrated through regional spaces that cross-cut the territorial map that prevailed through much of the twentieth century, the literature is adorned with accounts advancing the theoretical and policy rationale for relational approaches to regions and regionalism. Yet far less has been written on the struggle to construct these spaces politically, thereby neglecting questions of territory and territorial politics. With this in mind, our paper draws on the experience of Germany to consider the political struggle to overcome the contradictions, overlaps, and competing tendencies that result from new regional spaces appearing alongside, rather than replacing, existing forms of state scalar organization. In particular, we observe how the Federal State is using the ambiguity of the regional concept to present territorial and relational approaches as complementary alternatives. The paper concludes by relating these findings to ongoing debates on how we, as ‘regional’ researchers, should approach the analysis of regions and regionalism; speculates on the degree to which they form progressive and effective spatial policies; and asks what lessons can be learnt about contemporary state spatiality more generally.

In recent years, research and publication activity in the field of small and medium-sized cities (SMSCs) in an international context has been increasing. However, a survey of extant research remains missing. To bridge this gap, this paper presents a systematic and comprehensive review of the relevant literature revealing how various disciplines, from geography to economics, approach the topic from different perspectives, which can be related to various foci of sustainability. Empirical results show that the development and significance of SMSCs are influenced by spatial location and innovative activity, networking, and the intensity of cooperation with other cities. Additionally, transport infrastructure connections, control through network-related spatial planning approaches, and exceptional positioning of individual architectural buildings can play a decisive role. However, there is no singular understanding of SMSCs, with many different research perspectives distinguishable.

Global food production is facing increasing uncertainties under climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, provoking challenges and severe concerns to national food security. The role of global agricultural trade in bridging the imbalance between food supply and demand has come to the fore. However, the impact of multifaceted and dynamic factors, such as trade policies, national relations, and epidemics, on the stability of the agricultural trade network (ATN) needs to be better addressed. Quantitatively, this study estimated grouping characteristics and network stability by analyzing the changing global ATN from 1986 to 2018. We found that the evolution of global agricultural trade communities has gone through four stages: the dominance of the US–Asian community, the rise of the European–African community, the formation of tri-pillar communities, and the development of a multipolar community with a more complex structure. Despite witnessing a progressive increase in the nodal stability of the global ATN during the decades, particular gaps can still be found in stability across countries. Specifically, the European community achieved stability of 0.49 and its trade relations were effectively secured. Meanwhile, the remaining leading communities’ stability shows a stable and upward trend, albeit with more significant challenges in trade relations among some of them. Therefore, how to guarantee the stability of trade relations and strengthen the global ATN to resist external shocks has become an essential question to safeguard global food security.

The objective of this paper is to understand the reasons for creating temporary spatial proximity in work processes of knowledge-intensive business services. Obligations to create temporary special proximity are linked to developing processes of interpersonal trust. Based on qualitative interviews, focusing and showing appreciation are identified as drivers to create temporary spatial proximity as ‘valuable moments’ throughout project work. Undivided attention in a special and, therefore, valuable moment is created through insulation (outward effect) and bonding (inward effect), which are to be understood as two sides of the same coin and as supporting the development of cognitive trust and affective trust.

Going beyond the territorial/relational divide in regional studies requires researchers to do more than examine the extent to which territoriality and relationality are complementary alternatives. The variety of networked regional spaces means it is intellectually unsustainable to simply relate a single networked regional space to territory–scale without first considering how networked regional spaces interact. Illustrated through the experience of Germany, our paper demonstrates that interaction between different networked regional spaces (eg, city-regions and cross-border regions) is resulting in new networked regional imaginaries (eg, cross-border metropolitan regions). Its overall aim is to show that the production of entirely new networked spaces can assist in overcoming the contradictions present in one configuration of regions, but this only serves to create a new ‘regional problem’ requiring ever more complex configurations of regions.