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Chapter 3 Metropolitan Governance in the United States Is Fragmentation an Effective Strategy? r o b e r t h . w i l s o n As cities grow larger, the nature of demand for public services changes dramatically. During the urbanization process in the United States new forms of local government emerged to meet these demands. The federalist system of government formed by the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1788, has proven remarkably flexible in addressing the problems and challenges arising from urbanization. State governments, in particular, have facilitated the emergence of new forms of local governments and themselves have expanded into new policy arenas relevant to urban populations (Elazar 1987). Today, the United States is fundamentally a metropolitan nation, with over 80 percent of the population living in what are designated as metropolitan areas (Frey et al. 2004). The spatial organization of metropolitan areas emerging after World War II has presented challenges to the provision of services and governance. Rapid suburbanization during this period has had a significant socioeconomic and racial dimension, with central cities exhibiting higher levels of poverty and minority population than suburban areas in the same metropolitan area. The socioeconomic disparities embedded in the spatial organization of metropolitan areas 65 66 robert h. wilson and the political representation shaped by the highly fragmented local government systems create significant impediments to metropolitanwide governance initiatives. State governments hold critical authority over local governments and thus represent another potential source of approaches and policies addressing metropolitan challenges. But this authority is only rarely exercised, and states, in general, have been indifferent to concerns of large cities with relatively high levels of poor and minority populations. Although examples of innovative responses have emerged, the patterns of metropolitan governance are far from uniform, and the wide range of approaches emphasize local control, that is, control by local governmental jurisdictions within metropolitan areas, with little authority ceded to metropolitan-wide initiatives. In some instances citizens have approved new forms of specialized (especially single-purpose) governments , while elsewhere the federal and state governments have encouraged collaboration and coordination. Concerns over efficiency and service provision play a leading role in most initiatives. But broadly speaking, metropolitan polities, institutions, and governing bodies that focus upon a metropolitan policy agenda are rare in the United States, and the metropolitan challenge is met largely through fragmented, ad hoc initiatives. The practice of fragmented governance is proving to be both a pragmatic and a reasonably effective response—at least in the U.S. case. This chapter will explain why this pattern of ad hoc metropolitan initiatives has emerged as the dominant form. It will be found that the significant socioeconomic disparities in the country’s metropolitan areas and the fragmented local government structure with great value placed on local control contribute to this outcome. The chapter will also assess the ability of this unique governmental framework and its policy-making capabilities to address metropolitan issues. Metropolitan Areas in the United States: Historical Origins and Contemporary Profile The United States became an urban nation as it industrialized. Prior to the second half of the mid–nineteenth century, cities and towns largely served as trade and supply centers for a natural resource–based, largely agrarian, economy. Cities such as New York and New Orleans grew to significant size as a result of critical trade functions. With industrialization, urban growth followed a new dynamic and a new set of cities emerged. Rapid population growth followed, and by 1900 one-half of the country ’s population already lived in cities. The development of the industrial city can be separated into two distinct phases, the first based on centercity growth and reinforced by railroad networks and the second defined by suburbanization and transportation systems relying on the internal combustion engine. The initial movement of manufacturing and residential population to the suburbs, following the appearance of trams, the omnibus, and automobiles, began in the early decades of the twentieth century, but by midcentury it had become the dominant pattern and had established the geographic foundation of metropolitan America. The suburbanization process was further encouraged by public policy that supported the housing industry, home ownership in particular, and the underlying infrastructure (Jackson 1985). As we observed in chapter 1, a later and equally dramatic change took place in the urban structure of the United States during the 1960s and 1970s with the rapid growth of cities and the formation of metropolitan areas in the so-called Sunbelt, a region stretching from the South through...

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