Recent discussions on urban governance regularly emphasize a trend towards an “entrpreneurialization” which is said to be reflected in a growing importance of local and regional scales, an increased relevance of partnerships and the strategic positioning of localities in an environment of intensified place-competition. Building a case study in six medium-sized German cities that are characterized by economic losses and population decline, the article discusses different trajectories of local governance. First, it shows that the actual modes of local governance gain importance. Second, it shows that the actual local modes of governance are fairly different among the cases studied. Therefore, many localities are more dependent on resources from the national government than on private investment, lending more significance to public-public cooperation than to public-private cooperation. Third, the paper argues that the ability to implement long-term local development strategies is severely complicated by a de...