Where now for the great cities of England? You will have heard little about the role of town halls over the past week but plenty about the state of parties in Britain and their fitness to govern – in Westminster, of course. Strange, really, because local elections, essentially run as a national contest, should have galvanised debate about the functions of a once-powerful institution called local government. For many, it has become a contradiction in terms – apart from Greater London, of course, where a mayoral administration enjoys growing power and prestige. But elsewhere? Are we really governed locally?

Thankfully, a few cities and surrounding conurbations – notably Greater Manchester, with its new "combined authority" – have shown remarkable initiative to develop new forms of governance across council boundaries and between parties to drive forward local economies without any prompting by central government. They remain the exception.

Ministers were placing great faith in nine referendums in major cities to gain approval for directly elected mayors, with the promise of full-blown elections in November. But only Bristol, a "hung" council with six leaders in 10 years, said yes.

The problem, acknowledged by Liberal Democrat peer Lord [John] Shipley, former Newcastle city council leader and cities adviser to the government, is that voters were unconvinced by the case for an elected mayor – because no one had explained what problem needed solving.

In fact, the wider problem – articulated best by Darren Johnson, a Green party member of the London assembly – is that the government's focus was too narrow. Rather than mayors for single councils, why not conurbation-wide mayors with powers similar to those enjoyed by Boris Johnson over transport, strategic planning, housing, policing and, increasingly, the economy?

When it comes to city-regional governance, England (London apart) is truly in the slow lane. One of the best examples of such governance is a 1 hour 42 minute train ride from London, the Lille Métropole Communauté Urbaine in northern France.

In the Town and Country Planning Association journal, the planner Sir Peter Hall recounts that in 1966 a law in France required its 14 largest provincial cities to establish a new kind of metropolitan authority to overcome the fragmentation of local power. A political consensus across council boundaries was hammered out to propel the once-depressed Lille city-region, with a population of 1.1 million, on to the European stage. With a mixture of local taxes and government grants, its economy was transformed.

In France today – with strong mayors or city regions, often both – the national economy is proving more balanced than in Britain, with wealth and power spread more evenly across the country, rather than concentrated in one capital. As Hall points out, the moral is that UK city mayors have to embrace a much wider area if they are to prove successful.

All of which raises the issue of how the government responds to the resounding no votes in nine mayoral referendums. David Cameron recently promised a mayors' cabinet to drive forward a new policy for cities. Will it still function? And, crucially, where now for urban policy?

For that, we will have to wait for the likely departure of the local government secretary, Eric Pickles, in a forthcoming reshuffle. Step forward cities and planning minister Greg Clark. Who knows?