All of you who are concerned about growing inequality in Pennsylvania really must read Cities Without Suburbs and Little Boxes, Limited Horizons (PDF) by David Rusk. But in the meantime, you should read this pair of articles in Governing magazine, How Well is Power Spread Across Metro Areas? and Governments Resisting the Urge to Merge.
The political cost of PA’s balkanized system of 2562 municipal governments (not even counting school districts or special authorities) is severe segregation by race and income, huge disparities in public service quality and access, and an unequal distribution of political power:
But are all these distinct units of local government necessary? Myron Orfield, who leads the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota Law School, doesn’t think so. Divided regions often experience disparity in quality of services. One of the most prominent such examples is the long-running statewide battles over education that pit cash-strapped school districts against their more affluent neighbors. Similarly, government fragmentation contributes to racial segregation in urban areas, Orfield says.
Another consequence of fragmented government is that competition among municipalities potentially hinders land use and economic development. “You have a lot of warfare between units of government to move shopping centers,” Orfield says. “They spend a lot of time fighting with each other.” By comparison, consolidated governments, such as the city-county systems of Indianapolis and Lexington, Ky., create more effective incentive packages to lure employers.
David Miller of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at University of Pittsburgh has created a Power Diffusion Index to measure how fragmented political power is within metro regions. In this post, there is a table ranking 942 metro areas by diffusion of political power. Four of Pennsylvania’s top 5 largest metros were in the top 20 (bad!), and when you include Harrisburg, all 5 are within the top 30.
Balkanized local government isn’t just a government efficiency problem, it’s also a huge problem for equality.
Until you address the problems, merging accomplishes nothing.
Example – out of control teachers unions who sacrifice kids for their own profit.
“Throwing more money at it” is not a solution Jon.
Jon,
I found it an interesting paper with some thoughtful recommendations on how to improve Pennsylvania’s municipal code. Good food for thought.
He seemed to make a point that those who suffer most under the current system are not big cities, but the people of the small boroughs whose “raison d’etre” faded long ago.
Like many products of this kind, the paper suffers from an over emphasis on political science and “design” at the expense of historical nuance. Most critically, while the author declaims any attempt to identify fragmentation as a cause (rather than as an effect) of PA’s decline–he nearly totally drops business as a factor in urban health. The study becomes almost ahistorical at points, as if urban planning is the key to everything (something that may surprise a Bostonian).
Business had a lot to do in the development of PAs urban/township mix. In Pittsburgh, where rivers and hills limited the communication between nearby communities, separate towns grew in response to the establishment of industrial concerns. The Lehigh Valley was similar. Patterns of life emerged over time and make habits hard to break long after the industries left.
By comparison, in the South, the County had long been the agency of local government for many regions, so it was well suited to adopt the (often sprawling) Sun Belt development of recent decades. His ideal wealthy “regional” city (Charlotte) has some of the worst sprawl in the south combined with some nice Allentown West End-like neighborhoods and a small pocket of density. It also has some very vibrant businesses for a city of its size–which helps pay the bills!
The tiresome bit about the twin blows of suburbanization and deindustrialization is far more nuanced than he claims. Many people wanted out of the city because city life had, in recent decades, been abysmal and technology/GI Bill made it possible to move. The loss of American industry in Eastern cities (in particular) is a complicated phenomenon with worldwide causes. It had little to do with city planning.
Lastly–its sloppy to compare incomes in vastly different regions without adjusting for cost of living or purchasing power.
But thank you again for an interesting set of articles!