Regionalism and Metropolitan Government

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Regionalism and Metropolitan Government

• Dr. Joseph Stefko
• Department of Political Science
• University at Buffalo, SUNY
• Spring 2007

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Thinking Regionally

• Regionalism or metropolitan reform
• Growing in importance for two reasons
• Many policy issues transcend local boundaries
• Too many governmental units yields inefficiency

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Historical Origins of Regionalism

• Dates back to 19th century
• First efforts to annex, merge and consolidate
• View of the city as the primary local government
• Examples of annexation and consolidation
• Working models for what could be done

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Fundamental Problem of the Metro

• Political fragmentation
• Division of metro area into numerous overlapping
  units with fragmented decision-making authority
• Numerous taxing entities
• Autonomous municipal responsibilities
• Implications of fragmentation

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Parochialism

• Focusing exclusively at the most local level
• Interests, policies, values that meet localized
  objectives, regardless of whether they are
  consistent with regional objectives
• Fragmentation begets parochialism
• How?
• Examples

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Externalities

• Where costs/benefits resulting from a market
  transaction or policy are not confined only to
  those directly involved in it
• Secondary effects
• Costs/benefits reach others
• Examples

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What enables parochialism?

• Federated system of government
• History of home rule
• Legitimate claim to zoning/planning power

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Rusk and Orfield on Fragmentation

• Greater levels of residential segregation
• Social and fiscal instability in cities
• Concentrated need v. Concentrated resources
• Zero-sum competition for econ development
• Growth of parts at the expense of the whole
• Weak city schools

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How Fragmented are We?

• Average U.S. metropolitan area
• 2 counties
• 24 cities/villages
• 16 towns
• 19 school districts
• 43 special districts
• 104 total government units

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How Fragmented are We?

• Buffalo Niagara Metro Area
• 2 counties
• 26 cities/villages
• 37 towns
• 39 special districts
• 37 school districts
• 141 total government units

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The Fundamental Problem

• The metropolitan problem
• Holden This is a problem in democracy
• Has fragmentation worsened?
• Parochial institutions act parochially!
• Orfield quote (p 10)
• The absence of regional institutions

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Fixing the Problem

• Historically, annexation has been the solution
• But not so much recently
• Creating regional institutions
• But its extremely difficult Why?
• Consolidation
• Often attempted, rarely implemented

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City-County Consolidation

• Combining the two largest govts in a region
• Long history (NYC, Boston, Phila, New Orleans and
  St. Louis all in the 1800s)
• Lots of interest since WWII
• 32 consolidated city-counties today
• Lots of attempts since 1970 since 1990

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Consolidation is Difficult

• Majority of attempts at city-county consolidation
  are rejected by voters
• Reasons for the difficulty
• Built-in opposition
• Suburban separation
• Fragmentation is exaggerated
• Does it really save money
• Democratic preference

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Charles Tiebout

• 1956 A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures
• The fundamental problem isnt a problem
• Choice among communities is good
• Individuals vote with their feet
• Citizens can choose what community they want
• Variety among communities is good

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Benefits of Cooperation

• Economic growth
• Lower racial/class segregation
• More equity
• Correlation between city/suburb/metro economies

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Walkers Regional Approaches

• Informal cooperation
• Service contracts
• Joint powers agreements
• Extraterritorial powers
• Council of governments
• Single-purpose regional bodies

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Walkers Regional Approaches

• Local special district governments
• Transfer of functions
• Annexation
• Regional special districts
• Metropolitan multipurpose districts

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Intensive Regional Approaches

• City-county consolidation
• Two-tier restructuring

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Orfields Metropolitics

• Background
• Redundancies with Rusk
• Concentrated need v. Concentrated resources
• Indirect relationship btwn social need tax base
• Failure of urban schools
• Suburbs (w/o affordable housing) dominate job
  growth
• Spatial mismatch results

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Orfields Metropolitics

• Building a coalition (key lesson of the book)
• The schools as a warning sign
• Affordable housing and the tax base
• Regional Fair Share Housing
• Fiscal Disparities System
• Metropolitan Council

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Lessons of Metropolitics

• Understand regional demographics, and map it!
• Reach out and organize on a personal level
• Build a broad, inclusive coalition
• Its the older suburbs, stupid!
• Make sure the city understands the message
• Seek out the religious community

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Lessons of Metropolitics

• Use philanthropic community, business groups
• Draw in distinct but compatible issues, orgs
• Seek out the media
• Prepare for controversy
• Move on several fronts and accept compromise