Problems of Metropolitan reform

Question 1

Driving forces

Answer 1

• Disproportionate increase of suburban residential population
• Slow diffusion of industry and large commercial activities throughout the area
• Gradual spread of metropolitan ethos into hinterland

Question 2

Consequences

Answer 2

• Resources: fiscal mismatch that unfairly burdens the central city; mismatch of public services; inefficiency
• Current urban policies tend to reproduce the image of the ‘old’ core-centric city and pay little attention to the merging urban landscapes (Dembski,2015)

Question 3

Wood’s one governance theory

Answer 3

• Emergence of metropolitan communities’, but no shared political institutions; lack of metropolitan level in most administrative
• Idea that too many governance makes effective governance impossible
• Recently a private sector company provided it’s alternative vision of city regionalism, which tried to connect Liverpool and Manchester and the spaces between in the Northwest called ‘Ocean gateway’ (Dembski,2015)
• Large forms of government have a larger territory and larger pop and so benefit from Economies of scale (Lefevre,C.1998)
• Large governments are more democratic as they are more open to the political game (Lefevre,C.1988)
• Would provide a one community - one government idea, would align the values of both Manchester and Liverpool and prevent intra region competition
• Los Angeles is an example of the difficulties imposed by a fragmented metropolitan region (Musso,A.2016)
• Wood observed that the expansion of the suburbs lead to small autonomous local governments throughout metro areas. Which he argues were insufficient to that task of governance (Norris.2016)
• Research had found that more government fragmentation leads to a less productive the entire economy is (Badger,2015)
• Multiple different government eventually result in conflicting, competing, inefficient and redundant organisations (Florida,R.2015)
• Example of this, Numerous cities where certain transport modes end at administrative borders e.g. Atlanta’s mass transit system doesn’t extend far enough into the suburbs where the worker’s live (Badger,2015)
• Too many jurisdictions overlapping and subverting each other (Coenen,C.2017)
• Local governments would only act in their own interests (Coenen,C.2017)
• Many metro scale governance bodies are not able to make binding decisions, without this exclusive and binding nature it’s very difficult to make solutions. (Hatch.2017)

Question 4

Public choice

Answer 4

• Rejects the claim of metropolitan reformers of too many governments and not enough government
• Institutional fragmentation of metropolitan areas into a multitude of autonomous local jurisdictions is beneficial to effective and efficient metropolitan service delivery (Kubler,Heinelt.2002)
• Public choice scholars believe the existence of a variety of autonomous local constituencies allows metropolitan citizens to choose the jurisdiction with the tax/service package that responds best to their personal preferences (Kubler,Heinelt.2002)
• A focus on enhanced cooperation and collaboration among the small repucibles (Zimmerman.2016)
• The system of overlapping domains is described as a positive by public theorist, stating that different scale units, from small to large scales are necessary to solve action problems (Ostrom.2010)
• The system of multiple units and overlapping jurisdictions, allows the region to find the right scale (Savitch,Vogel.2009)
• The competition between local governments to attract new residents leads to effective matching of urban service demands but also to efficiency in the allocation of public resources used to produce the services (Kubler,Heinelt.2002)
• Some services are easier to produce on a smaller scale therefore suiting multiple (Ostrom.1972)

Question 5

Definition

Answer 5

• The term metropolitan government refers to the structure which is responsible for governing a metropolitan area (Lefevre,C.1998)