© EURE.The Brazilian federation and the way in which forms of liaising have been established between political actors -the state, market and civil society- have represented limits to the forming of systems for metropolitan management, and have generated barriers to inter-municipal cooperation. This has led to conflicts of governance. Such limits and conflicts have unfolded as a result of the dismantling of the structures of metro-politan planning, the re-vitalization of municipal planning, and the fragmentation of metropolitan space, with concurrent implications for research on the metropolis. In order to discuss these issues, evidence will be presented regarding the weakening of the Brazilian federation, which is responsible for the dismantling of metropolitan management and planning; the expansion of the system of political and economic actors, in the field of governance, which has led to restrictions on cooperation between metropolitan municipalities; and the interfaces between urban and regional studies in relation to the aforementioned problems.