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Government of Metropolitan Communities
Government of Metropolitan Communities
Pages 103-132
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From page 103... ...
Generally, the importance of integrating metropolitan institutions and activities has largely escaped those in power at any level. The overwhelming proportion of the population now lives or GOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 103
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From page 104... ...
Meanwhile, metropolitan communities are governed inequitably and inefficiently. Somehow, the nation must find better ways to govern its metropolitan areas.
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From page 105... ...
The federal government has promoted a variety of state and local actions that address the social and technological difficulties within metropolitan areas. Through aid to housing, urban renewal, grants for sewerage and water systems, aid to education and manpower training, aid for mass transit, and other financial assistance, it has attempted to GOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 105
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From page 106... ...
Although the federal government occasionally has sought to influence the structure of local government, its primary efforts to cure metropolitan problems have been financial, and the inflow of federal funds has made, at best, a negligible contribution to overcoming fragmentation and fiscal disparities within metropolitan areas. Today, although state and federal aid support a higher proportion of both central city and suburban expenditures, the suburbs have pulled even farther ahead of central cities in the receipt of aid, except in the Northeast (Table 1)
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From page 107... ...
State funds are now deployed in a manner that reflects the distribution of political power. Cities, because of outward population movement and provincial political characteristics, wield considerably lighter political weapons in state legislatures than do their suburbs.
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From page 108... ...
The states' tendency to assist specific functions results in the creation of special districts or independent islands of authority. Although states have increased their aid to local governments, such aid generally has not gone to the areas of greatest need.
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From page 109... ...
These include the Urban Development Corporation, the Environmental Facilities Corporation, the Job Development Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and four other regional transportation authorities. In heavily populated but geographically small states, such as Connecticut, state government may in effect become the metropolitan governmental unit.
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From page 110... ...
In fact, such agencies act more often as protectors of the present local jurisdictions than as advocates of reform. Findin, Although no coordinated national policy has evolved in to the unfavorable by-products of metropolitanization, all levels < government have undertaken specific programs.
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From page 111... ...
By the time the decisions took effect, however, the population balance had shifted to the suburbs, and they, not the central cities, became the principal beneficiaries of the more representative systems. The Supreme Court, in a recent decision, has to some degree backed away from its one man, one vote dictum by allowing state legislatures more latitude in establishing districts to deviate from strict population equality.5 Finance and Services In 1971, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's system of financing public schools largely by means of local-district wealth violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because such a system "makes the ^Reynolds v.
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From page 113... ...
Kugler, n the circuit court stated: "Because we think that the last vestiges of state-imposed segregation have been wiped out in the public schools of the City of Richmond and Henrico and Chesterfield and unitary systems achieved, and because it is not established that the racial composition of the schools in the City of Richmond and the Counties is the result of invidious state action, we conclude that there is no constitutional violation and that therefore the district judge exceeded his power of intervention." The United States Supreme Court upheld the circuit court's decision in May 1973, making it unlikely that there will soon be any forced consolidation of central city and suburban school districts.12 Findings Of the external forces influencing metropolitan government 1962, none has had a greater impact than the federal courts. Unfortunately, from the central cities'viewpoint, the judicial requirement of one man, one vote representation in state legislatures came after the cities had already lost much of their population to the suburbs.
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From page 114... ...
As larger numbers of local governments are drawn into reorganization plans, 114 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF METROPOLITAN AMERICA
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From page 115... ...
The vast majority of these districts are unifunctional, but a few have been assigned responsibility for the performance of more than one function. In total, there are now over 900 metropoliGOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 115
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From page 116... ...
In HeU\ of reorganization, a large number of special districts have been created to meet the service needs of metropolitan communities. | THE ROLE OF THE URBAN COUNTY The role of the county in governing urban areas is increasing.
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From page 117... ...
Because of governmental fragmentation in metropolitan areas, many units cannot afford to provide such planning and budgeting services themselves. Concern for rationality in public choice GOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 11 7
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From page 119... ...
Moreover, it is possible that, far from being transitional organizations in a course toward unified metropolitan governance, they may become defensive GOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 119
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From page 120... ...
INTERGOVERNMENTAL SERVICE AGREEMENTS •>egmThe number of governmental functions that require or lend themselves to large-scale administration is growing. In the past, intergovernmental service agreements generally related to jails and detention homes, water supply, streets and bridges, and police and fire mutual aid.
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From page 121... ...
The percentages for other services from private firms are 85 for engineering services, 84 for legal services, 79 for street lighting, 67 for public relations services, and 64 for microfilm services. In sum, local governments increasingly are entering into intergovernmental service agreements.
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From page 122... ...
At the same time, it is important to note that not all governmental service problems lend themselves to solution by means of service agreements. The potential of intergovernmental cooperation is limited chiefly to the solution of relatively noncontroversial problems involving a small number of local governments.
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From page 123... ...
increased state and federal aid; (2) development of a single tax base for the entire metropolitan region, from which all units would draw revenue on some basis of need; (3)
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From page 124... ...
State assumption of welfare and education financing could cut fiscal disparities, as could focusing state resources on areas of densely concentrated social ills. In addition to the chronic socioeconomic and financial gaps between central cities and suburbs, there also are growing disparities among suburbs.
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From page 125... ...
Differences among the metropolitan communities, not only in size but in the urgency and complexity of the problems they face, suggest that the instrumentality must be adapted to particulate situations. The fragmented governmental units within the metropolitan community may be more receptive to federal initiatives as the social problems originally concentrated in the central city spread to other jurisdictions.
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From page 126... ...
All are concerned with much larger population groupings. The Committee for Economic Development recently published three policy statements calling for administrative reorganization of state and local governments and the creation of new structures for metropolitan government.
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From page 127... ...
To finance its activities, the council is authorized to levy a tax not exceeding seven-tenths of one mill on each dollar of assessed valuation of all taxable property. The Metropolitan Fiscal Disparities Law, passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 1971, enables all local governments in the seven-county Twin GOVERNMENT OF METROPOLITAN COMMUNITIES 127
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From page 128... ...
URBAN LOCALISM AND SOCIOECONOMIC STRATIFICATION Metropolitan residents pay for the benefits they receive from their local government. Consequently, they seek maximum service at minimum cost.
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From page 129... ...
The interests of minority groups, like those of the majority, increasingly reflect class differences. While there are now middleand upper-income minority residential areas in many central cities, the deconcentrating movement that is under way generally has not resulted in large movements of minorities across the boundaries of political jurisdictions.
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From page 130... ...
Most important, perhaps, local leaders and citizens must recognize the extent to which they live on a metropolitan scale and how metropolitan institutions shape their well-being and the quality of their lives. Finally, as provision is made for better governance of metropolitan communities, continuing work to identify those activities that may lend themselves to more responsive handling at a submetropolitan level will be needed.
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