since they provide a clear separation of most, if not all areawide and local functions.35

The several federation proposals that have been considered in the United States have required special constitutional authorization, the drafting of a local charter, and the approval of the charter by more than a simple majority, usually dual if not multiple majorities.36 Two federation governments in Canada were put into effect by acts of provincial legislatures without popular referendums.

Although authorities in the field of local and metropolitan government for many years have considered the federation form an attractive approach to the problem of government organization in metropolitan areas, no federation types have been adopted in the United States. The Dade County metropolitan government in Florida is similar in sevaral ways, however. The first federation to come into being in North America was the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto in 1954. In 1960 Winnipeg, Manitoba, also adopted a federation plan.

In the Toronto federation, the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto supplanted the county and has jurisdiction over 13 municipalities, with responsibility for water supply, sewage disposal, housing, education, arterial highways, metropolitan parks, certain welfare services, and area planning. A 25-member metropolitan council is the governing body, consisting of 12 ex officio members from the city, the council chairman of each of the 12 suburbs, and a chairman elected annually by the metropolitan council. Schools remain a responsibility of the local governments, but a metropolitan school board is set up on a pattern similar to the metropolitan council, with responsibilities for providing basic financial aids, planning and reviewing construction needs, and reviewing local school borrowing. Other major functions left to local governments are police and fire protection, water distribution, sewage collection, most of the public health services, local streets, libraries, direct public relief, local parks, building inspection, and local planning. The existing Toronto Transportation Commission was continued and given expanded jurisdiction.

Since adoption of the Toronto federation plan in 1954, the assessment of property for tax purposes has been transferred to the metropolitan government. Local police forces have been amalgamated and transferred also, and similar consolidation of the municipal fire departments has been under discussion.37

The assignment of each governmental function to its appropriate level is a great strength of the Federal approach and facilitates optimum handling of each function, from the point of view of most effective planning, decision, and scale of operation. Retention of the identities of local governments preserves the focus of local civic pride, interest, and participation. It also encourages diversity and experimentation in government performance.

See W. W. Crouch, "Federated Local Government: One Approach to Metropolitan organization," Metropolitan California, the Governor's Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems (Sacramento, Calif.: 1961), pp. 97-101; and Government Affairs Foundation, Metropolitan Communities: A Bibliography (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1956), p. 226. Council of State Governments, The States and the Metropolitan Problem, op. cit., pp. Government Affairs Foundation, Metropolitan Surveys: A Digest (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1958), pp. 235-239; W. W. Crouch, Metropolitan California, op. cit., pp. 97-99.

93-96.

Federation permits coordinated areawide approaches to area wide problems, and a closer relating of taxing areas to benefit areas. By assigning area wide problems to the metropolitan government and local problems to the municipalities, it keeps officials at each level from being overwhelmed by details.

The federation approach has less political feasibility than a stepby-step approach, such as the piecemeal transfer of functions to an urban county. Also, the federation is a new political entity, not foreseen at the time when most State constitutions were prepared; as a result, constitutional revision is invariably needed. The relationship to county governments must be worked out, and this may become especially difficult if the new unit lies in more than one county.

Further, a key question in political feasibility is the requirement for voter approval. Commonly local approval requires separate majorities in different subunits within the area of the contemplated federation, and sometimes it involves majorities in each of the political subdivisions affected. This amounts to giving each unit a veto over the whole, and is a particularly difficult obstacle to overcome.

Finally, there is little evidence that urban civic and political leadership in the United States is as yet favorably disposed to the concept of "metropolitan government" as such, which is embodied in the federation plan. The conceptual ties to traditional forms of local government are very strong, and the image of a single new form of general government covering an entire metropolitan area is distasteful to

many.

APPLICABILITY OF REORGANIZATION METHODS

This review of alternative approaches leads to no easy generalizations about the best way to reorganize governments in the metropolitan age. All the approaches surveyed are useful in some circumstances, and they are not mutually exclusive. Many are closely related in their use and impact, such as extraterritorial powers, intergovernmental service contracts, and annextion. Different approaches can supplement one another, such as the use of service contracts in California to facilitate the development of urban counties. Also, one approach may serve as a steppingstone for later and more significant structural changes. Thus voluntary metropolitan councils may help create area wide agreements to undertake joint approaches to service problems. In fact, the likelihood that further modifications will always be needed argues against undertaking any governmental approaches that will make future adaptation more difficult. The diverse approaches described here suggest that the governmental structure in metropolitan areas is rich in possibilities for change to cope with new conditions. Yet in many areas, these approaches are theoretical possibilities rather than realistic alternatives. to the present system. In particular, State restrictions on local governments block the more widespread use of these reorganization devices. In recognition of the urgency of adjusting local government structure to handle today's needs, the Commission has called for State action to unshackle the metropolitan communities so that they can have a freer hand in reorganizing their governments. The Commission's proposal is that the States provide an "arsenal" of remedial weapons that metropolitan areas can draw upon, consisting of author

ization for a wide variety of approaches to metropolitan organization, supplemented by appropriate State assistance and regulation. These recommendations, as well as Commission suggestions for Federal measures to facilitate governmental adjustment, will be described in chapter VII.

THE POLITICS OF REORGANIZATION

Efforts at governmental reform must sooner or later pass the test of political acceptability. Most proposals for major reorganizations are decided by the voters directly through a popular referendum in the areas affected, often with a requirement for separate majorities in each jurisdiction. To identify the main political factors affecting reorganization efforts, the Commission studied the fate of 18 proposals that were submitted to popular referendum between 1950 and 1961.38 Six of these proposals were for city-county consolidation and one involved the merger of two adjacent cities. Another four, calling for changes in county charters, exemplified the urban county approach. Another involved a four-county sales tax for financing public improvements throughout the area. Two proposals were for metropolitan special districts, and four involved adjustments between county and municipal governments. Of the 18 attempts, only 8 were successful; another (Nashville-Davidson County, Tenn.) was later adopted with some modifications. This choice of examples is not intended to imply that the reorganization plans were necessarily desirable or that progressive reformers confronted an unenlightened opposition. All the proposals embodied various compromises; all contained both advantages and disadvantages for the people who had to make a choice. Despite differences from one area and proposal to another, certain common themes emerged from a study of the 18 cases.

In almost all cases, the proponents of reorganization focused strongly on two issues: the faultiness of existing local government structure or operations, and the need for urban services in outlying areas. The issue of services most commonly involved water and sewage disposal, but fire protection, rural zoning, police protection, and traffic control were also mentioned. Financial considerations were cited as major proreorganization arguments in 10 of the 18 areas, with emphasis on both the area wide totals of local government costs and taxes and the allocation of government costs within the area.

The opposition to reorganization also concentrated heavily on a few key points. Financial arguments were used against reorganization in all but two cases, with the allocation of costs to specific areas partly involved in most instances. In two-thirds of the cases, opponents claimed that the proposal was too drastic or too sweeping. Interestingly, this charge was made against the modest county charter proposals as well as against more ambitious reorganization efforts. In about half the cases, detrimental effects of reorganization upon local government employees or elected officials were major factors cited by the opposition. In five cases, the implications of reorganization for Negroes in the central city emerged as a negative factor, in that the

For a fuller description of this study, see Factors Affecting Voter Reactions to Governmental Reorganization in Metropolitan Areas (Washington: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, May 1962).

proposed plan threatened to reduce their representation or influence within a reorganized local government.

Certain interest groups tended to appear with some consistency either among the proponents or among the opposition. Those favoring reorganization typically included metropolitan newspapers, the League of Women Voters, the central city chamber of commerce, commerical and real estate interests in the central city, radio and television stations, banks, central city officials, academic groups, manufacturing industry, utilities, and central city homeowners. The opposition often included farmers, rural homeowners, county employees, suburban newspapers, employees and officials of outlying local governments, and suburban commercial interests. Conflicting views of central city and suburban groups are evident in this lineup. A number of potentially powerful political actors-labor unions, taxpayer groups, neighborhood improvement groups, racial minorities-do not appear with any consistency on either side of the argument.

Local observers of the reorganization efforts identified a number of factors in each case that either aided the campaign for voter support or worked against it. Among the factors favoring reorganization efforts were support from State legislators representing the area, the use of locally knowledgeable individuals as staff to conduct background research and develop recommendations, the extensive use of public hearings by those responsible for the plan, and careful concern in designing the proposal to deal with problems involving representation of various districts and minority groups. On the last point, it is worth noting that several reorganization proposals were able to overcome the fear of reduced representation for central city Negroes by including appropriate safeguards in the plan.

The most significant factor working against adoption of reorganization proposals was the absence of a critical situation to be remedied, or absence of widespread popular recognition of such a situation. John C. Bollens has noted:

Experienced observers of the metropolitan scene may be acutely aware of the defects and potential dangers that lie in the present system, but the average citizen has little such consciousness. He may be dissatisfied with the performance of certain functions, he may desire better or additional services, he may wonder at times where all this explosive growth is leading and what it means in terms of his daily living, but he is not deeply troubled. He feels no impelling need, no urgency, for any major restructuring of the governmental pattern of the

Another unfavorable factor cited by local observers is the prevalent fear that reorganization will lead to higher taxes, and the inability of the proponents to allay this fear. Voters in both central cities and suburbs often assumed that a change in the status quo would mean higher taxes, though they sometimes arrived at this conclusion for very different reasons. Thus in one area, central city opposition was based largely on concern about the cost of extending city services to unincorporated areas, while rural opposition stemmed from fear of higher taxes in these same fringe areas.

It is clear from the 18 cases that were studied that reorganization proposals face a largely apathetic public. In 14 areas, less than 30

30 John C. Bollens, ed., Exploring the Metropolitan Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), p. 70.

percent of the voting-age population even bothered to vote on the proposal. A larger turnout, of course, does not necessarily change the balance for or against a proposal; but a very small vote suggests that many people are not actively concerned one way or the other. A more troublesome problem inherent in reorganization proposals is that whichever plan is put forward must compete for public favor not only against the status quo but against other potential approaches to governmental reform. Thus the opposition in several cases argued successfully that the proposed change would be less desirable than other kinds of structural adjustment.

Finally, it is evident from the experience in these 18 cases that reorganization proposals necessarily involve "political" issues and cannot win voter support solely on such grounds as economy, efficiency, and "good government." Reorganization plans do jeopardize the positions of elected officials, Government employees, neighborhoods and communities, and various interest groups. They raise questions about the representation of different constituencies and the impact of taxes and services. Genuine conflicts of interest are bound to arise. The political feasibility of a reorganization plan will depend to a large extent on the way in which the proponents take account of these conflicts both in developing the plan and in organizing their campaign for voter support.

In a similar review of nine cases of governmental reorganization efforts in metropolitan areas, Roscoe Martin has suggested a number of hypotheses on the nature of metropolitan action.40 These hypotheses appear to be supported by the 18 cases reviewed by the Commission, and they extend the range of experience covered here. First, Martin suggests that action to reorganize government in metropolitan areas "normally results from a particular problem which requires solution, not from considerations of logic or doctrine." The lengthy and involved history of most reorganization efforts suggests that "adaptive action normally will be taken only after an extended period of incubation, including frequently a history of prior attempts and failures. It is not realistic to expect quick action even in response to demonstrated need." Delays in developing and implementing reorganization plans result in part from a lack of areawide institutions, and from the dispersed nature of political power in metropolitan areas. A related hypothesis is that "without skilled and experienced political leadership a proposal for metropolitan action, no matter how meritorious, is not likely to be brought to successful issue."

The 18 cases surveyed by the Commission all involved direct voter approval of reorganization proposals. Martin suggests, however, that "a campaign of civic education resulting in public acceptance is necessary to the success of an adaptive course, whether or not popular approval is required for adoption of particular proposal." The voter turnout indicated in the Advisory Commission study lends additional weight to the hypothesis that "citizens generally fail to respond to reorganization campaigns with any marked show of interest." The conflicting interests affected by reorganization proposals have already been noted. Martin observes that "almost every local adaptation to changing needs results from compromises designed to satisfy the parties, and particularly the governments, affected by the action."

40 Roscoe C. Martin, op. cit., pp. 129-133.