Management of metropolitan areas – foreign experience and their Polish implications. The aim of the article is to present problems of development of metrotopolitan areas as premises for creating various forms of territorial integrated management. The reference point is the Report “The OECD Metropolitan Governance Survey” (2014). The models of metropolitan integration were analyzed in both: “the top-down” legal and political solutions of European countries as well as “bottom-up initiatives” of building local government partnerships. The metropolitan reforms in Germany, France and Italy were discussed as good solutions. Against this background, the dilemmas of managing metropolitan areas in Poland, implementation of EU instrument – ITI and possible direction of metropolitan reform are presented.