EPA 600/5-74-024
January 1974
Socioeconomic Environmental Studies Series
Regional Governmental Arrangements in
Metropolitan Areas: Nine Case Studies
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55
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Office of Research and Development
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460
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RESEARCH REPORTING SERIES
Research reports of the Office of Research and Development, Environmental
Protection Agency, have been grouped into five series. These five broad
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was consciously planned to foster technology transfer and a maximum inter-
face in related fields. The five series are:
1. Environmental Health Effects Research
2. Environmental Protection Technology
3. Ecological Research
4. Environmental Monitoring
5. Socioeconomic Environmental Studies
This report has been assigned to the SOCIOECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
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casting and analysis methodologies. Included are tools for determining
varying impacts of alternative policies, analyses of environmental plan-
ning techniques at the regional, state and local levels, and approaches
to measuring environmental quality perceptions, as well as analysis of
ecological and economic impacts of environmental protection measures.
Such topics as urban form, industrial mix, growth policies, control and
organizational structure are discussed in terms of optimal environmental
performance. These interdisciplinary studies and systems analyses are
presented in forms varying from quantitative relational analyses to manage-
ment and policy-oriented reports.
EPA REVIEW NOTICE
This report has been reviewed by the Office of Research and Development,
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constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.'
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EPA-600/5-74-024
January 1974
REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
IN METROPOLITAN AREAS:
NINE CASE STUDIES
By
C.J. Hein
Joyce M. Keys
G. M. Robbins
Grant No. 801500
Program Element 1HA098
ROAP/TASK 21 AKL-06
Project Officer
Alan Neuschatz
Washington Environmental Research Center
Washington, D.C. 20460
Prepared for
OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402- Price $3.15
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REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
IN METROPOLITAN AREAS:
NINE CASE STUDIES
ABSTRACT
A review of the experience with major forms of regional government in metro-
politan areas. Within four broad categories, case studies were done of nine
different types of regional governmental arrangements: Regional Councils: The
Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (Detroit) and the Twin Cities Metro-
politan Council (Minneapolis-St. Paul); Multi-Purpose Special Districts: Bi-
State Development District (St. Louis) and Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle;
(3) Unified Urban Government: Annexation (San Antonio); Urban County:
Montgomery County, Maryland (Washington, D.C.); Urban County with Some
Second Tier Cities: Metropolitan Dade County (Miami); City-County Consolida-
tion: Metropolitan Davidson County (Nashville); Federation (two-tier): Munici-
pality of Metropolitan Toronto.
Findings were that the core of what is called metropolitan government in the
United States is the county, usually reorganized and given urban powers. There
are no multi-county general purpose metropolitan governments in the United
States. Another frequently suggested model, the multi-county, multi-purpose
metropolitan special district also apparently does not exist in the United States.
Patterns of regional governmental arrangements based on the urban county were
judged more effective in dealing with emerging environmental management prob-
lems than patterns based on special districts and regional councils of government;
the two-tier federation was judged about equal to the best of the urban county
arrangements.
In virtually every case, further state action was needed to make the regional ar-
rangements more effective. Metropolitan regional reorganization has occurred
in over 20% of the states, and therefore should be possible in most urban states.
11 -
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CONTENTS
Page
Abstract ii
List of Figures iv
List of Tables v
Acknowledgments vi
Sections
I Conclusions and Recommendations 1
II Introduction 4
III Southeast Michigan Council of Governments 8
IV The Twin Cities Metropolitan Council 26
(Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota)
V The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle 42
VI Bi-State Development Agency of St. Louis 62
VII Annexation: San Antonio, Texas 90
VIII The Urban County: Montgomery County, Maryland 111
IX The Urban County, Plus: Metropolitan Dade County 125
X Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee 145
XI Metropolitan Toronto 182
XII Evaluation of Case Studies of Regional Governmental 20b
Arrangements
XIII Environmental Protection and Regional Government 216
XIV Some Concluding Observations 224
XV References 227
111
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. List of Case Studies 7
2. Governmental Characteristics Detroit Metropolitan Area . . 11
3. Organization and Functions Southeast Michigan Council
of Governments . . . . , 16
4. Governmental Characteristics Minneapolis-St. Paul
Metropolitan Area . . . 27
5. Organization and Functions Twin Cities Metropolitan
Council . 31
6. Governmental Characteristics Seattle Metropolitan Area . . 45
7. Organization and Functions Municipality of Metropolitan
Seattle 50
8. Original Boundaries of Seattle Metro 53
9. Lake Washington and Green River Drainage Basins 57
10. Boundaries of St. Louis SMSA and Bi-State Development
Agency . 63
11. Governmental Characteristics St. Louis Metropolitan Area . 67
12. Organization and Functions Bi-State Development Agency . 75
13. Governmental Characteristics San Antonio, Texas, SMSA . 93
14. Organization and Functions City of San Antonio ..... 96
15. Governmental Characteristics Montgomery County,
Maryland 113
16. Organization and Functions Montgomery County, Maryland . 117
17- Governmental Characteristics Dade County, Florida .... 127
18. Organization and Functions Metropolitan Dade County . . . 131
19. Governmental Characteristics Nashville and Davidson
County, Tennessee 146
20. Organization and Functions Nashville and Davidson
County, Tennessee 162
21. Service Districts of the Metropolitan Government of
Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee 170
22. Governmental Characteristics Toronto Area 184
23. Organization and Functions Metropolitan Toronto 18?
24. Governmental Boundaries in Toronto Centred Region 198
IV
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Population, 1960 and 1970, in SEMCOG Area 9
2. Population, Seattle-Everett SMSA 42
3. Social Class Indicators, Se aft I e-Everett SMSA 42
4. Local Units of Government, 1957 to 1972 -
Seattle-Everett SMSA 43
5. Population Data for Counties in the St. Louis Area 62
6. 1970 Minority Races, Median Income, and Education,
Counties in St. Louis Metropolitan Area 6
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance given by elected and
appointed .officials and knowledgeable citizens in each of the nine
areas used for case studies. Space does not permit listing each of
them by name. The authors of the report are: C. J. Hein, University
of Missouri at Kansas City; Joyce M. Keys, Institute for Community
Studies, Kansas City, Missouri; and G. M. Robbins, Institute for
Community Studies, Kansas City, Missouri. Project Officer is Alan
Neuschatz, Washington Environmental Research Center, Office of Research
and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
vi
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SECTION I
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Regional governmental structures in the United States in 1973 are governmental
structures still in the process of evolving, even though all of our examples are
over ten years old» Thus it would be unwise to take the present structure as de-
finitive, and plans to establish or encourage a particular kind of regional struc-
ture should consider the need for continued modification.
The core of what are called regional governmental structures in the United States
is the county, usually with a modernized structure and urban powers. There are
no multi-county regional governments. The durability of county boundaries and
the adaptability of the county to urban government appear to be the most practi-
cable basis for metropolitan governmental reform in the immediate future.
Although it has been offered as one model for metropolitan reform for many years,
the multi-purpose rru Iti-county special district does not exist in the United States
for all practical purposes, and we found no example of such a district that was
successfully operating major programs in a multi-county area.
One of the more interesting and innovative developments in government in metro-
politan areas is the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, which is a state agency
with authority pver some multi-county special purpose agencies, but no authority
over local governments in the area. This agency hoJdspromise as a coordinating
and issue-raising mechanism representing state and metropolitan-wide interests.
All of the regional governmental arrangements that we studied have the problem
of not being able to make their boundary coincide with the boundaries of regional
problems. The boundaries are u better fit than they are in those other metropolitan
areas characterized by a multiplicity of municipalities, but the boundary problem
is by no means solved.
Federal agencies interested in adequate regional organization at the local level
shoulcj focus on obtaining a significant local commitment to regionalism. This
requires local governments adequate to perform the functions needed at the local
level. Politically, it appears most practical to build on the base of the urban
county and the larger cities, both of which are structural elements in regional
governmental arrangements accepted by the voters in the past twenty years. The
can be the building blocks for a locqUy based regional council, strengthened by
state legislation. Membership in the regional council would be compulsory; re-
porting of planned local" activities to the council would be required, but partici-
pation in regional programs would be voluntary. Taxing powers sufficient to sus-
tain the council would be granted, so that it would exist independently of local
contributions, and independently of federal funds. Within this framework, a
local commitment to regional activities might become possible. But the final
decisfon on local regional programs must remain with the local governments con-
cerned if the region is to be meaningful to them. The region must be free to re-
ject federal programs that offer support for local activities. The state might use
the regional councils as agents for state enforcement, just as they now use counties
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and cities to enforce state regulations. But in any true local-based region, en-
forcement of federal regulations must work through the state or be done separately
by federal officials.
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REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
»
IN METROPOLITAN AREAS:
NINE CASE STUDIES
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SECTION II
INTRODUCTION
Problems of environmental protection are invariably associated with metropolitan
areas because people are the primary polluters and the metropolitan areas are
where people are concentrated. Thus, these areas are a major focus of efforts to
manage the environment to reduce or prevent pollution.
And since governmental action is required to coordinate environmental manage-
ment, the kindsof governmental organizations available in metropolitan areas for
this effort are a matter of concern to environmentalists.
The study reported on in subsequent chapters is an effort to identify and describe
the present status of regional governmental arrangements that exist in metropolitan
areas, which are often grouped rather loosely under the term "metropolitan govern-
ments." We prefer the term regional governmental arrangements because it de-
scribes more accurately the present state of affairs in the governance of metro-
politan a-eas. In our opinion, true regional government does not exist in metro-
politan areas in the United States. Indeed, we are not convinced that it would
necessarily be desirable given the present situation in no-st metropolitan areas,
where there is a lack of a sense of community and little agreement on common
goals for the area.
Nevertheless, a review of the present status of regional governmental arrange-
ments in metropolitan areas is desirable because in the foreseeable future manage-
ment of the environment will have to work through those regional governmental
agencies that exist or might possibly be brought into existence by local citizens
over the next few years.
In a sense, the present study follows up on a study of governmental aTangements
in metropolitan areas done by Roscoe Martin for the U S Housing and Home Finance
Agency something over ten years ago, published in 1963, entitled: Metropolis in
Transition; Local Government Adaptation to Changing Urban Needs" Fn that re-
port, Mfrrtin identified 16 different adaptations of local government to urban
problems, ranging from informal cooperation to metropolitan government. In 1963
many of these governmental arrangements were relatively new, and Ma^in con-
cluded that they were promising mechanisms but that there had not yet been enough
experience with them to }udge their effectiveness (Martin, 1963, p. 144). In our
case studies, we report on some of the same cases that were studied by Martin; for
each of those, there is now ten or more years of experience since they were studied
by Martin and his colleagues.
More recently, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations has been
engaged in a study of substate regionalism and the federal system which has a
much broader focus than our study (U S Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations, May, 1973). And Melvin Mogulof of the Urban Institute recently
followed up his extensive study of regional councils of qovernment with an
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examination of five examples of metropolitan governments that seemed to him
to be stronger than councils of governments (Mogulof, 1971, 1972). Both of
these recent studies reported on some case studies of regional governmental
arrangements, but both of them tended to focus on the newer efforts at metro-
politan reform such as Jacksonville/Duval County and Indianapolis/Marion
County, which were not included in our stud/.
The format of our study was a review of the literature on metropolitan govern-
ment, a classification of the existing regional governmental arrangements, and
the selection of nine cases for more extensive study. For each case study, we
read all the studies and reports that we could obtain by both local and outside
authors and study groups, and examined local government documents such as
annual reports and budgets, as well as special studies of governmental functions.
We also sxamined relevant documents and reports on environmental protection
programs of the federal and state governments. We monitored at least one local
newspaper in each of the areas being studied for a period of nine months, and
we interviewed rrom 8 to 10 local leaders in each of the case study areas. In
each case we interviewed elected officials such as mayors or members of the
council, chief administrators and major department heads, and knowledgeable
local citizens such as representatives of the news media, the League of Women
Voters, and university faculties.
The case studies in the next nine chapters are descriptions of the historical de-
velopment and present status of one kind of regional governmental arrangement.
In subsequent chapters we attempt to give our judgement of the present and
emerging patterns of regional governmental arrangements and some of their ad-
vantages and disadvantages as links in the chain of governmental agencies en-
gaged in environmental management.
Given the present state of knowledge and methodology in comparative studies,
our efforts at comparison were necessarily relatively crude. In particular, it
seems to us that the state of the arts in the study of metropolitan political systems
and metropolitan finance is in such disarray that we can make no comment on the
relationship of government structure to costs or to political change in each area.
In addition ^ the state of the art does not permit the examination of a very key
question: would things have been done differently if the regional governmental
arrangement did not exist? We can only speculate on what might have been,
and in some of the final chapters of the report we do engage in some speculation.
Because our study is focused on governmental structure, we feel it is necessary to
call attention to an underlying assumption for which evidence is scanty. The
assumption is that structure makes a difference in the performance of governmental
agencies. As Mogulof pointed out, at one level it is clear that "restructuring
makes a great deal of difference with regard to first tier governments. Metro
Toronto and Dade County have irrevocably altered the circumstances of the
dominant cities in their areas. Consolidated Jacksonville has taken over and
obliterated Duval County" (Mogulof, 1972, p. 135). But at the level of the
effectiveness of their performance of governmental activities, it is much more
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difficult to provide evidence that changes in structure have an effect on per-
formance. One is left with the claim that so many people put so much effort
into changing governmental structure in metropolitan areas, and their efforts
generate so :nuch opposition, that obviously many people believe that structure
does ma'
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REGIONAL COUNCILS
Regular COG Southeast Michigan COG (Detroit)
State-Mandated Council . . . Twin Cities Metropolitan Council
(Minneapolis-St. Paul)
MULTI-PURPOSE SPECIALDISTRICT
Single County Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle
Multi-County Bi-State Development District (St. Louis)
UNIFIED URBAN GOVERNMENT
Annexation San Antonio, Texas
Urban County Montgomery County, Maryland
(Washington, D.C.)
Urban County with So.-ne Metropolitan Dade County, Florida
First Tier Cities (Miami)
City-County Consolidation . . Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee
FEDERATION
Two-tier Metropolitan Toronto
Fig. 1. List of Case Studies
In choosing our case studies, a primary consideration was to have an example that
had been in existence for at least ten years. With one exception, all of the re-
gional governmental arrangements in our case studies have existed for ten years,
and a number of them have existed for fifteen or twenty years. The Twin Cities
Metropolitan Council has existed only since 1968, but it is the only example of
its kind. And it has a considerably longer "prehistory" as a regional planning
council, in which form it was included in Martin's 1963 study.
The order of presentation of the case studies will be first the two regional councils,
followed by the two multi-purpose special districts, the four unified urban govern-
ments, and the federation.
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SECTION III
SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS
Introduction and History
The applied concept of region in governmental structure at the metropolitan
level lacks precision and definitiveness. Councils of government are perhaps
the most obvious examples of what we think constitutes a metropolitan region.
Typically, a COG will encompass the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area as
established by the Bureau of the Census. The SMSA represents the most explicit
set of guidelines for defining the "metropolis" (Executive Office of the President,
Office of Management and Budget, Nov 1971).
The theoretical difficulties of accurately delineating the metropolitan region
remain unresolved; the practical necessity of governmental service areas has re-
sulted in a variety of ways of defining the region. A recent report by a federal
task force studying SMSA's noted the areal differentials for the purposes of ad-
ministering federal multi-jurisdictional programs: "Agencies typically use a wide
range of geographic areas for program purposes, some larger, some smaller than
Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (U S Office of Management and Budget,
1973, p. 159).
Depending on what we expect the COG to accomplish, the federal inconsistency
in regional boundary-setting substantively affects the COG's position as a "clear-
inghouse" for federal grant programs. Melvin Mogulof, in a study of council of
governments, describes the difficulties of realization of regionalism within the
context of the logic of federal grant programs:
... the relative independence of various federal actions from each other
(and at times the relative independence of actions within a federal agency)
confront the COG with a regional terrain which can seem almost impossible
to put in order. These various federal planning grants go to a variety of
forces in local and state government, as well as to independent and quasi-
governmental agencies. Important client/constituency lines develop be"
tween federal agencies and local grantees which impose serious constraints
on the COG as, and if, it attempts to become the super comprehensive
planner for the metropolitan area (Mogulof, 1971, p. 28).
Mogulof concludes that there is little support for the idea that grant applications
are subject to the requirements of a comprehensive regional plan through the A-95
review process. The present activities of the COG are "loose enough" so that
what the region is and can be are subject to a variety of interpretations. The
Task Force report on SMSA's indicates the existing non-threatening kind of re-
gional concept represented by COG and the designation of SMSA's:
The concept has provided a neutral means of specifying interjurisdic-
tional responsibilities for solving areawide metropolitan problems. The
8
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SMSA concept has thereby given impetus to the organization of areawide
planning organizations and councils of government (U S Office of Manags"
ment and Budget, 1973, p. 160).
So long as voluntary participation in a COG facilitates receiving federal funds,
and so long as it is to the advantage of counties to be included within a SMSA
to receive some kinds of additional funds, the definition of region will remain
more a oroblem of theory than practice. But if we start taking seriously the need
for a regional agency with significant powers to insure conformity to a regional
plan, the present looseness of regional definition may prove inadequate.
The Southeast Michigan Region^
The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments provides an interesting grouping
of the different things implied by the term "metropolitan region." Typically,
when the reference is to the kind of metropolitan problems generated by central
city/suburban disparities, the area of reference in Southeast Michigan is the
Detroit SMSA. This urbanized core of the Southeast Michigan Region is com"
posed of three Michigan counties Wayne (Detroit), Macomb and Oakland.
As presently constituted, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments in-
cludes a seven county area. In addition to Wayne, Oakland and Macomb,
SEMCOG includes Washtenaw, St. Glair, Livingston and Monroe counties.
Washtenaw County constitutes the Ann Arbor SMSA, and Monroe County is in-
cluded in the Toledo, Ohio-Michigan SMSA. Livingston and St. Clair counties
are not a part of a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county govern-
ment of Macomb is currently not a member of SEMCOG.
Of the seven counties rn the SEMCOG area, six exceeded the national growth
average of 13.3% between 1960 and 1970.
Table 1
Population, 1960 and 1970, in SEMCOG Area
Population Population % Change % of Total
County ____ 1960 1970 1960-1970 1970
Wayne
Oakland
Macomb
Washtenaw
St. Clair
Monroe
Livingstone'
Total
2,666,297
690,259
405,804
172,440
107,201
101,120
33,233
4,181,354
2,670,368
907,871
625,309
234, 103
120,175
1 18,479
58,967
4,735,272 A vg.
0.1
31.5
54.1
35.8
12.1
17.2
54.1
13.3
56.4
19.2
13.2
4.9
2.6
2.5
1.2
lOO.O
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The proportion of Wayne County to the total area population declined from 65%
to 56% during the decade.
The City of Detroit's population declined by 10% between 1960 and 1970. The
net loss of 159,000 residents during this decade was the result of a loss of 344,000
in the white population and a smaller increase of 185,000 in the population of
Negroes and otner races.
According to the 1972 Census of Governments there were a total of 392 local
governments in the SEMCOG area: 7 counties, 115 municipalities, 124 school
districts, 120 townships, and 26 special districts.
Inter local Agreements
A major response to the need tor area government of the Southeast Michigan area
has been the use of interlocal agreements. In a study sponsored th The Metro-
Fund in 1965, it was reported that there were a total of 1,087 such agreements
to provide services among 221 units of local government in a six-county area.
Of these over 80% were accounted for by six units of government (Wayne 340,
Oakland 206, Detroit 171, Macomb 96, Washtenaw 39, and Pontiac 20). There
were 36 different municipal functions involved in these agreements, the major
ones being fire protection, streets, water supply . and sewage treatment (Metro-
politan Fund, 1965, p. 47).
In terms of service impact, the City of Detroit's water system must be accorded
a significant regional role via its service agreements with other jurisdictions.
Since 1873, the Water Board has been authorized to extend services beyond
Detroit city limits. The water system's 1924 development plan indicated its
ability to build a metropolitan areawide water system. In 1966, the City signed
a contract with the State of Michigan to perform pollution control activities for
southeastern Michigan. Pollution control activities have grown from projects
totaling $13,000,000 prior to 1969 to projects totaling $60,000,000 in 1971.
The Water Department developed the capacity to administer a pollution control
program involving more than 250 units of autonomous governments. In 1972
the Department was providing water and processing sewage for 4,000,000
people in Detroit and 88 nearby communities and for all industry in the area
(Remus, 1972). It is not the major supplier in Washtenaw, Monroe, and St.
Clair counties (Metropolitan Fund, 1973):
The Special District
The special district represents another response to the perceived deficiencies of
general purpose local government. The major ones in the Detroit area are the
Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority, the Southeast Michigan Transportation
Authority (SEMTA), and the Wayne County Road Commission. (See Figure 2 .)
10
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1970 Population (SEMCOG Area).- 4,735,272
Land Area 3,792 sq mi
Total Units - 392
Regional
(Multi-County)
Southeast Michigan
Council of Governments
Livingstone Co.
Monroe Co.
Oakland Co.
St. Clair Co.
WashtenawCo.
Wayne Co.
Board: 100-member
Federation of Elected
Officials
Functions: Regional
Planning & A-95 Review
Huron-Clinton
Metropolitan Authority
Livingstone Co.
Macomb Co.
Oakland Co.
Washtenaw Co.
Wayne Co.
Board: 7-member Bd.,
2 appointed "by Gov.
& 1 by each county
Functions: Metropoli-
tan parks & parkways
Detroit Metropolitan
Water Department
Water to 60 units in
six counties. Sew-
age treatment in
Wayne & Oakland
Counties. Provided
by contract
Department of City
of Detroit
Southeast Michigan
Transportation Authority
Macomb, Monroe,
Oakland, St. Clair,
Washtenaw & Wayne
Counties
Board: 3 members
appointed by Gov.,
6 by counties
Function: public
transit
County
General Purpose County
Governments comprising
3 SMSA's: Wayne,
Oakland, & Macomb;
Monroe, (with Wood Co.,
Ohio); and Washtenaw;
plus 2 (Livingstone &
St. Clair) outside SMSA's
Wayne Co. Road
Commission
Board Org. - 3-mem-
Bd. directly elected
Functions: Roads,
sewage disposal,
Detroit Metro Wayne
Co. Airport, parks &
parkways
OTHER
114 Municipalities
124 School Districts
120 Townships
22 Other Special
Fig. 2. Governmental Characteristics Detroit Metropolitan Area
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The Huron-Clinton Authority, created in 1940 following the passage of state
enabling legislation in 1939, operates and maintains parks and recreational
facilities throughout the five county area. Under the enabling statute, it can
acquire and operate facilities outside of the five-county region. It has the
power to levy a tax not to exceed 1/4 mill on each dollar of assessed valuation.
The Authority is viewed by Detroit interests as having primarily a suburban orien-
tation in its park acquisition and development program. From the point of view
of the Detroit interests, which currently are not represented on the Authority
Board, it is this orientation which accounts tor the lack of Huron-Clinton parks
in the City and only marginal parks in Wayne County. This issue came to a head
recently when the Authority proposed to establish Mill Creek Park in Washtenaw
County which SEMCOG had approved in routine A-95 review procedures.
SEMCOG was placed in the unenviable position of having second thoughts on its
approval particularly when analysis of accessibility revealed that only 10% of
the population in HCMA's 5-county area lived within an hour's drive of the pro-
posed park. As SEMCOG pointed out: . . . "this factor was overshadowed at
the time by the apparently widespread support for the project among Washtenaw
County officials, whose own sizeable constituency would provide by far the
heaviest client group for the proposed facility" (Southeast Michigan Council of
Governments, Spring 1973, p. 5). This admission goes to the heart of a basic
problem faced by COG's in attempting to act as a regional force most loca I
projects will be approved if the local constituent units support them.
Further, the Authority has not accepted the City of Detroit's offer for the
Authority to take over Belle Isle Park, an island in the Detroit River at its con-
fluence with Lake St. Clair. From the standpoint of the Authority, its interests
lie in preventing urban sprawl and in developing large parks of about 3,000
acres with water available. With regard to Belle Isle Park, it would take about
$2,000,000 to upgrade. Further, failure to acquire the park immediately does
not represent a lost opportunity; the Park wjll always be there. It is speculated
also that waiting may bring about a situation where Huron-Clinton could go to
the voters for an increase in its mill levy which it could do with some prospect
for success if it was supported by the Detroit and Wayne County electorate.
SEMCOG finds .itself drawn into this disagreement because of its planning func-
tion and the Detroit and Wayne County representation on its Board and Executive
Committee. This kind of an issue is typical of the problems between special
districts and the COG's which underlie the proposals for the COG's actiny as an
umbrella agency over the special districts and authorities.
SEMTA was created by the State of Michigan in 1967 to operate in a six-county
area. The Board was composed of nine members three appointed directly by
the Governor and six by the Governor from lists of nominees submitted by nSe
boards of commissioners of the six counties. In 1971 the power to appoint the
six members was given to SEMCOG. Such appointment is made by majority vote
of the SEMCOG representatives from the six counties served by SEMTA. SEMCOG
also was given the power to review and comment on the Authority's budgets, audits
and capital improvement plans and it has exercised this power. In addition,
SEMCOG's planning division has assisted SEMTA with data to assist it in corridor
12
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route selection (Metropolitan Fund, 1973, p. IV~9).
The Authority was created to plan, acquire and operate, but it has been con-
fined to the first function for all practical purposes, because of a lack of fund-
ing. Its only funds have been an annual $200,000 from Wayne and Oakland
counties. Although a 1/2 cent gas tax was allocated to SEMTA in 1973 and the
City under a new state law can provide a subsidy to meet operating deficits,
SEMTA is reluctant to acquire the major public transit system, the Detroit Street
Railway, because of a pension fund liability. This type of liability is not within
the power of the City to subsidize. The current Governor has entered the picture
by recommending an appropriation of $3,000,000 from the state's general fund to
help SEMTA buy the DSR (DetroiH^fress, Jan 13, 1974, p. 2C).
The Wayne County Road Commission, governed by a 3-member elected board,
operates in Wayne County outside the City of Detroit, partly as an agent of the
Wayne County Board of Commissioners and partly independently. Acting as Wayne
County's Department of Public Works it is developing a secondary sewage treat-
ment plant on the Detroit River which will be operational by mid-summer of 1974
at a total cost of about $27,000,000, of which $7 million comes from a local
bond issue and $20 million from Federal and State grants. WCRC operated the
County Metropolitan Water Supply System as an agent of the county until 1960
when it was ordered by the County to sell it to the City of Detroit. The Com-
mission retained title to the water system under a lease-purchase arrangement in
order that it could assist municipalities to construct improvements by acting as a
sponsor of bond issues.
Since Road Commissioners act as County Park Trustees under Michigan law, the
Commission operates the Parks and Parkways system in Wayne County. A master
plan was developed in 1966 and is implemented as funds become available. It
is currently operating a nature center, a forest and wild life preserve and 36-hole
golf course totaling approximately 4,279 acres.
The road system operated by the Commission consists of 711 miles of primary
roads, 554 miles of local roads, and 437 miles of state trunklines and freeways
under contract with the State. Ths Commission is also a coordinating agency
for the Federally funded TOPICS (Traffic Operation Program to Increase Capacity
and Safety) which is administered by the Michigan Department of State Highways.
The Commission also operates the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.
It is responsible for the $250 million development program, which is currently in
its rlrst phase and is intended to permit the airport to handle estimated 1990
traffic (Wayne County Road Commission, n.d.).
Other State and Local Responses
The Detroit region has seen the usual kind of reform efforts directed at local
government structure. A 1969 vote rejected a proposal to create a charter
commission for Wayne County. (This issue will be on the ballot again in 1974).
13
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In 1972, a similar effort directed at the City of Detroit also failed.
Partly from the impetus of some studies commissioned in 1965 by SICC and the
Metropolitan Fund, state legislation has been passed which is directed more
toward making it.possible to work toward solutions within present structures.
Michigan's Urban Cooperation Act of 1967 permits any local unit of government,
including school districts, to exercise powers jointly or carry out service func-
tions in cooperation with other local units. The Act also authorized the voluntary
formation of councils of governments, inter-local contractual agreements with
state agencies and with local governments in other states and Canada.
The Transfer of Functions Act of 1967 allows local units to transfer functions by
inter-local contractual agreement. Many of the counties in Southeast Michigan
have assumed some urban functions, particularly in water and sewer system mainte-
nance, water billing and collection, and preparation of tax rolls and tax bills.
That is not to suggest that there are not some serious impediments to local govern-
ments transferring to, or merging functions with the county. A recent news story
from Detroit indicated that the merger of health services for Wayne County and
Detroit was something "every man" on the negotiating committee thought was
desirable (DetrcJiJNewj>, March 2, 1973). However, the cost to the county,
and the city*s comieTn mat the existing quality of Detroit's programs be main-
tained, created a stalemate, despite the essential merits of the merger (as de-
termined by a $168,000 two-year study project financed by private and state
grants).
In 1970 the Michigan state legislature created the State Boundary Commission
to review petitions for incorporation of new cities and villages, and for consolida-
tion of two or more cities, villages or townships as a new city. In 1971 the
annexation law was changed from the freeholder petition-dual election system
to a system which executes annexation to home rule cities by order of the State
Boundary Commission.
<
State law in Michigan has broadened the potential for intergovernmental coopera-
tion, but negotiation and execution remain a local prerogative, .subject to the
give and take of local interests.
Origins of SEMCOG
The rapid growth of the area was causing severe problems in such areas as'water
supply, sanitation and drainage, and in the movement of traffic. Initiated in the
early 1950's by Edward Conner, the Chairman of the Wayne County Board of
Supervisors, conferences were held by the chairmen of several counties and a
committee was formed to discuss inter-county affairs. The counties involved ini-
tially were Wayne, Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Monroe; a year later
Monroe County joined as the sixth and final member.
The committee was named the Supervisors Inter-County Committee. It had no legal
14
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status until legislation passed in 1957 recognized such agencies and permitted
them to receive funds from counties and other public bodies and from private
sources.
Although only counties were represented on the Committee, county boards of
supervisors under Michigan law were composed partly of representatives of in-
corporated municipalities and the cities were, thus, indirectly represented to
some extent on the Committee.
The Committee operated with a limited budget and small staff. Technical-assist-
ance was provided by local units of government and by such agencies as the
Detroit Metropolitan Regional Planning Commission, with which it maintained
a close working relationship.
During its existence, SICC focussed on problems of water supply, sewage treat-
ment, drainage, roads, and air transportation. Its accomplishments include:
1. A study of water supply which was a factor in the decision to con-
tinue using the Detroit Water Department as the basic supplier of
water and a broadening of its 4-member board to include 3 members
from outside the City of Detroit. (The Mayor of Detroit continued
to be the appointing authority.)
2. Creation of an inter-county Sanitation Council of Southeastern
Michigan which carried out studies to develop a sewage grid for the
region.
3. Formation of the Southeastern Michigan Inter-County Highway Com-
mission for highway planning.
4. Compilation of the first inventory of public works needs for a metro-
politan area.
5. Participation in the formation of a research agency, originally the
Southeastern Michigan Metropolitan Community Research Corporation,
and later The Metropolitan Fund.
6. Helped secure legislation helpful to county governments: it was not
successful however, in getting legislation for region-wide programs,
except that permitting its own formation.
i
After a decade of formal operation, SiCC and the other major regional body
the Detroit Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Commission appeared to have
major limitations in their ability to "get on tpp of"^the metropolitan problems.
The SICC represented only one unit of government, the county; the Mayor of
Detroit, for example, had no formal voice in SICC. The planning agency,
DMARPC, was entirely separate from SICC, the program development agency.
Finally, there was no authority by .these bodies to coordinate the programs of
the special purpose authorities.
15
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I
1972 General Assembly
107 members: 7 at-large public members and 100 elected officials
representing 90 units of government in four categories: Counties - 6;
Cities - 50; School Districts - 9; and Townships - 25
1972 Executive Committee
37 Members of General Assembly, as follows:
Area County Cities School Dist. Townships
Livingstone 2
Macomb
Monroe 1
Oakland 3
St.Clair 3
Washtenaw 2
Wayne 5
Totals 16
1
5 Safety Health Housing
1
2
1 1
2
1
1
3
1C 2
Executive Director
1
1
1
1
4
1 Adm . Support Services
Minority Program
Environmental
Total
4
3
3
6
4
3
9
32"
Advisory
Committe
Council on
Regional
Developm
Council or
Environme
Strategy
Council on
Criminal
Protection
Transportation
Water, Sewer,
& Storm
Drainage
A-95 | I Land Use Transportation
Fig. 3. Organization and Functions Southeast Michigan Council of Governments
-------
The Metropolitan Fund Initiated in 1964 a three-year study discussion process
which resulted ultimately in SEMCOG. The Citizens Research Council of
Michigan, a private research organization, was asked to develop a number of
background papers on governmental organization for the area. A policy com-
mittee after study of these materials posed two alternatives: 1) a multi-county
government, which was discarded as unfeasible, and 2) a continuation of the
present system of local governments and interlocal agreements supplemented by
a council of governments representative of all units of government. The latter
alternative was accepted. The proposed council would be a forum for discussion,
evaluation, and prepa.-ing proposed solutions. It would have neither taxing nor
bonding powers. SICC and DMARPC would be merged into the council.
An implementing body, the Committee of 100 consisting of elected and appointed
officials, was appointed in late 1965. By early 1967, a number of governing
bodies had passed the appropriate resolutions of intent and the prospective mem-
bers of the proposed council convened in May, 1967, to begin formal organiza-
tion. SEMCOG was formally created on January 1, 1968, SICC was disbanded,
and the Detroit Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Commission became the
planning division of SEMCOG.
Structure and Function
There are two policy bodies: the General Assembly and the Executive Committee.
(See Figure 3 .) The General Assembly consists of:
1. One voting member selected by each of the member governments in
the seven-county area. Such member must be an elected official.
(Presently about 100 of the 400 eligible units of government are
members of SEMCOG.)
2. Alternates to the voting member who do not have to be elected offi-
cials.
3. As an exception to the above, the City of Detroit and Macomb and Oak-
land counties each have one additional voting representative and Wayne
County is allowed three additional representatives.
4. Seven "regional statesmen," citizens recognized for their "civic or
public interests and accomplishments" who serve as at-large non-voting
representatives. In 1972, the individuals holding these positions were:
a county director of public works, the Secretary of State, a professor
of political science, a utility board chairman, president of a chamber
of commerce, a realtor, and a labor official (Southeast Michigan Council
of Governments, Jan 1973, & SEMCOG, By Laws, n.d.).
In the 1972 General Assembly the total number of members other than the at-large
was 201, representing each county, as follows:
17
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Wayne 66
Oakland 53
Macomb 26
Washtenaw 21
St. Clair 13
Livingstone 12
Monroe 10
201
The number of governmental units represented in the 1972 General Assembly
totaled 90, as follows:
Type of Government
Cpunty_ County City Township School District TotaT
Wayne 1 17 7 4 29
Oakland 1 16 7 1 25
Macomb 6 6 1 13
Wash ten aw 144 1 10
St. Clair 131 - 5
Livingstone '11- 1 3
Monroe _I _^ __I _! _£
Total 6 50 25 9 90
The total number of members and the total number of governmental units in Wayne
County amount to approximately 30% of the total. This contrasts with the 56%
that Wayne County population constitutes of the total. Thus SEMCOG has not
achieved complete one-man-one-vore, but it is doubtful that any other COG has
either. That this may be an issue in Detroit is indicated in the fact that the pro-
posed charter requires a one-man-one-vote on any board on which the City is
represented.
The Executive Committee is made up of members of the General Assembly. Total
membership is allocated among the various counties according to the following
formula:
From Cities From Co. From School From
Area & Villages Govt Districts Townships Total
Livingstone 1 ' 1
Macomb 2 2
Monroe 1 1
Oakland 2 2
St. Clair 1 1
Washtenaw 1 1
... Outcounty 2 A
Wayne- Detroit _2_ _ J. _
Total 12 12 8 7 39
1 4
1 6
1 4
1 6
1 4
1 4
1 11
18
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Membership is granted on the Executive Committee when 1/3 of the local units
in a bloc within a county are members of SEMCOG. The 1972 Executive Com-
mittee had a total of 32 members. Ex-officio, non-voting membership on the
Executive Committee is given to representatives of the State and Federal govern-
ment, SEMTA, Detroit Water Board, the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Park Au-
thority, and to various other functional planning groups.
The responsibilities of the Executive Committee are to propose an annual budget
and membership fee schedule to the General Assembly; appoint, fix salary of,
and remove the Executive Director; accept funds; serve as financial control body
for all budgeted items; appoint special committees; and handle all routine matters.
The principal responsibilities of the General Assembly are to adopt the Council
budget and membership fee schedules; adopt or amend the bylaws; resolve any
membership question; and review any action of the Executive Committee. For
certain types of actions the General Assembly has a special voting procedure
whereby each of the four basic forms of constituent governments cities and
villages, counties, school district and townships vote as a bloc with a con-
current majority in three of the four blocs required for determination of an issue.
This procedure is required:
to override any action of the Executive Committee
to amend the by laws
to propose amendments to the intergovernmental membership agreement
on any other matter when 10% of the membership of any one of the
four blocs requests the procedure
On all other matters, voting requires a simple majority of those present. The
organizational structure is intended to insure the optimum application of techni-
cal skills in behalf of the body politic. Data gathering and its interpretation are
carried out by professional staff technicians. The data and recommendations are
then submitted to a screening group of elected officials, other technical staff, and
citizen group representatives.
The recommendations of the screening groups are then transmitted to one of three
councils created in 1972 the Council of Regional Development, the Council
on Environmental Strategy, and the Council on Criminal Justice.
These councils are a "mix" of elected officials, appointed officials, and citizens.
Various committees and task forces (sub-program elements) relate to these three
major components of SEMCOG's programs.
The Council of Regional Development encompasses the Transportation Task Force,
the Housing Committee, and the Recreation and Open Space element. Related to
the Council on Environmental Strategy are the Sewer-Water-Storm Drainage Com-
mittee, the Solid Waste Disposal Committee and the Task Force on Air Pollution.
During 1972 a special ad hoc committee on Polluted Dredgings functioned in this
latter area.
19
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In 1971 the internal organization was revamped and the fee structure modified to
bolster an inadequate financing base. Major administrative divisions were
abolished and a program oriented structure created in their place.
Under the revised fee structure, the six participating county governments would
guarantee SEMCOG funds equal to .0016% of each county's assessed valuation,
which would raise the level of funding from the current $200,000 to approximately
$367,000 annually. The obligation of each county would be reduced by the
amounts paid in by cities, school districts, and townships, within that county
thus providing a direct incentive to the counties to solicit memberships from other
units of government.
Affecting SEMCOG's financial viability was a decision by the General Assembly
in 1973 that it would not apply for revenue sharing funds.
Accomplishments and Problems
The major accomplishments of SEMCOG during its four years of operation are
summarized below (SEMCOG, "Tomorrow Today," 1973).
Acted as a clearinghouse for federal grants in performing sign-offs on
application for federal funds in terms of the conformity of the proposed
project or facility with the regional plan.
Carried out responsibilities for comprehensive criminal justice planning
as the state-designated LEAA regional agency. The criminal justice
region was coterminous with the SEMCOG's seven-county region.
Helped create Southeast Michigan's Comprehensive Health Planning
Council.
In the field of education, beginning in 1970 provided on-the-job ex-
perience for university-1 eve I minority group students in urban planning.
In 1971 a program was added whereby University of Michigan graduate
level minority students could obtain training in municipal management
as an entry into City Hall positions in administration. In 1972, de-
veloped a proposal for university-level training in transportation for
minority group students at the University of Michigan's Transportation
Institute.
Developed and currently implementing the Governor's Comprehensive
Manpower Plan and Ancillary Manpower Planning Boards in Planning
District 1 the seven counties of Southeast Michigan. Under considera-
tion is the creation of a Regional Manpower Planning Council to analyze
more definitively manpower delivery services and to develop plans.
Operated the Census Service Center, designated by the Bureau of the
Census as the 1970 Census Tape Processing Centers for the State of
20
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Michigan for the sale and dissemination of census data.
Completed over ninety study and planning reports and technical manuals.
Major examples are (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, June
1973);
Completion of TALUS (Transportation and Land Use Study) begun
under the sponsorship of the Metropolitan Detroit Regional Planning
Commission and inherited by SEMCOG when the Commission was
assumed.
Housing Needs of Southeast Michigan, 1970-1980.
A report on the problems, goals, programs, and projects in the field
of criminal justice planning.
Studies on solid waste, water, sewerage, storm drainage.
An inventory of programs to combat drug abuse in 1970.
A report on community antenna television in Southeast Michigan.
SEMCQG and Environmental Programs
> *
SEMCOG's involvement in EPA programs is indirect and advisory. The regional
point of view exists because the Council is there, but the operation of environ-
mental programs are conducted by the Federal, State and local governments in-
dependently of SEMCOG.
Air pollution control is basically the responsibility of the county, although
Wayne County is the only county actively involved. SEMCOG is interested in
establishing standard indexes (aggregate measures of all pollution) throughout
the seven counties, but has been unable to obtain funding.
i
The major water pollution control activities are by the City of Detroit. Problems
have arisen recently in SEMCOG's denial of A-95 clearance for separate treat-
ment plants proposed by the City of Warren in Macomb County (which is not a
member of SEMCOG) and the City of Ann Arbor in Washtenaw (which is a mem-
ber). The proposed treatment plants would have discharged effluent into the
Clinton and Huron Rivers which do not have the capacity of the Detroit River.
Supported by the Federal government in the case of the Warren proposal, SEMCOG
took the position that these systems should hook into the City of Detroit system.
The outcome of the Warren issue was that that City was able to obtain voter ap-
proval of an $8,000,000 bond issue which eliminated the need for Federal assist-
ance. The Ann Arbor issue is as yet undecided. Aside from this kind of involve-
ment, SEMCOG is interested in obtaining measures of quality at predetermined
points in the waters of the area, but again have not been able to obtain funding.
There is also an issue with the State Department of Natural Resources which has
the power to apply for ainds for sewer lines and treatment plant in the out county
areas. SEMCOG claims that there is not only the problem of straightening out
21
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procedures for clearinghouse review involving themselves, the State, and the
Chicago regional office of EPA, but that the State is applying for treatment
plants in excess of the population forecasts by SEMCOG.
Flood plain zoning is the responsibility of the minor civil divisions including
the townships, and there are zoning ordinances, but no region-wide flood
plain regulations.
Solid waste disposal is currently handled by various sub-regional authorities
through 39 sanitary landfill operations and 3 incinerators (the latter accounting
for only 2,500 tons of the estimated 34,000 of refuse produced daily). The daily
production is estimated to increase 43,000 tons in 1980 and 54,000 tons in 1990.
The Solid Waste Management Committee of SEMCOG is developing a plan of
action for dealing with the solid waste problem on a regional basis.
The "Umbrella"Proposal
"Our dilemma is to retain local home rule while combining our total resources
for regional challenges beyond our individual capabilities." That dilemma ar-
ticulated by the Committee of One Hundred in 1965 remains the major obstacle
to the development of a regional governing capacity for metropolitan areas.
Despite the emphasis on an "umbrella" or "split-level" concept that preserves
local government and establishes regional powers, there will continue to be pain-
ful conflicts over the division of authority and powers.
In May of 1972 at a government-business conference in Detroit, former Michigan
Governor and Secretary of HUD, George Romney, made a plea that leaders in
Southeast Michigan coordinate their ideas on what needed to be done. Romney
labelled this search for a better way "The Option Process."
Growing out of this conference in Detroit, Governor Mi I liken appointed a Task
Force to "examine the problems of the Detroit Metropolitan area and to recom-
mend effective approaches to solving them" (St«te of Michigan, 1973, p. 1).
The essence of the recommendations are that "a regional body, such as SEMCOG,
must be continued and must be substantially strengthened and extended in function
to meet the compelling need for improved coordination of regionally significant
governmental services, functions and resources in the seven counties of Southeast
Michigan "(State of Michigan, 1973, p. 8).
The authority of the regional agency would rest on a much more substantial base
than the existing A-95 review process, positing the special district as an opera-
tional arm of the regional agency. The recommendations of the Task Force were
that:
(1) The Agency exercise A-95 review process for all state and federal
programs within the region.
22
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(2) The Agency appoints the governing bodies for all regional single-
or multi-purpose authorities (unless specifically exempted).
(3) State legislation to enable the Agency to approve the budgets of
these regional authorities.
(4) Federal, state and local governments comply with regionally
adopted plans and program priorities, with state legislation re-
quiring that local comprehensive land use plans be consistent with
the regional plan, with the provision for an appeal procedure.
Those authorities recommended to be contained in the "umbrella" powers of the
regional agency would unquestionably give the regional agency a significant
governing capacity. Included in the Task Force recommendations were three
new authorities: an Economic Expansion and Employment Authority; Regional
Multi-Service Centers and Coordinating Office (for poverty areas); and, a
Criminal Justice and Manpower Institute.
The existing authorities to be brought under the "umbrella" include: The South-
east Michigan Transportation Authority, Detroit Metropolitan Water Board, the
Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority, the Comprehensive Health Planning
Council, and the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Planning Council.
It would be difficult to characterize the recommended regional agency as volun-
tary, since the proposal suggests that local government financial participation
should be required by State legislation.
The Task Force recommendations waffle somewhat on membership of the Agency,
settling for a somewhat ambiguous "at least 50% elected officials from general
purpose local governments" should constitute its members (State of Michigan,
1973, p. 9). Given the substantial policy-making capacity of the proposed
Agency, representation is one of the thornier issues. Most of the section on
"Comments by Task Force Members" in the report focuses on concern about the
method of selecting the regional representatives of such a body. In fact, the
number of dissenting opinions on this issue in minority reports would call into
question the extence of a majority opinion on the subject.
Predictably, the Task Force representative from the Clinton-Huron Metropolitan
Authority took issue with the 'umbrella" concept (State of Michigan, 1973, p. 31);
The Agency as stated above is going beyond the limits of comprehensive
planning as its major function. It is bordering on a form of regional govern-
ment in the form of veto power much the same as a city council would have
over the various city departments.
The change from the present operations of SEMCOG to the Agency recommended
by the TOP Task Force has not been accepted thus far by the state legislature.
There appears to be very little support, if any, by the legislative representatives
from the area. The only concrete outcome to date from the Task Force studies has
been the creation of 14 state planning regions and the designation of 11 agencies
23
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out of 14 possible as the regional planning commission, and the appropriation
of $750,000 by the State legislature to help start the commission. (SEMCOG
received $100,000 from this appropriation.)
i
Conclusion
The basic dilemma of SEMCOG, as with any council of governments, is that it
does not have the resources to enable it to have any significant regional impact,
although that is the purpose of its existence. Being advisory, it cannot impo'se
its recommendations on the operating agencies. The construction of facilities
that breed development, for example water and sewer lines and freeways
are under the control of separate agencies with no formal linkage to SEMCOG
(SEMTA excepted). These agencies tend to be expansionist, and each operates
independently of the others, unemcuvnbered by accountability for their combined
impact upon the region's environment. The "umbrella" proposal was intended to
strengthen the COG in this regard, but it runs so counter to our political tradi-
tions that it cannot be regarded seriously at the present time.
The effectiveness of the clearinghouse function as a mechanism for enforcing a
regional plan is well summarized by Melvin Mogulof in his recent study of councils
of government (Mogulof, 1971, p. 28).
The essential structural problem for the COG is that it is pulled in two
directions: (1) to protect and serve its member governments, and (2) to
make judgments and take actions which may be perceived as harmful by
the COG's member governments. As a result the COG finds it extremely
difficult to do things such as make critical comments about applications
of member governments for federal funds, establish priorities which affect
member governments, or influence local governmental actions in an attempt
to make them consistent with regional planning.
The voluntary nature of COG membership adds to its problems. In Southeast
Michigan, one of the more populous counties and its principal city Macomb
County and the City of Warren have opted not to join SEMCOG. When the
returns are finally in on the decision of Warren to use local financing for its
sewage treatment when SEMCOG refused to approve its application for federal
funds, we will be better able to judge the strength of the clearinghouse mechanism
to encourage membership in the regional agency. With only 25% of the eligible
units now members of SEMCOG, it would appear that an A-95 review has little
potential in this regard.
Funding of the COG is primarily Federal and State derived; less than 25% of
SEMCOG's budget comes from membership fees. This kind of financial structure
must be viewed as possessing neither: (1) a significant local commitment to re-
gionalism; nor (2) a future stability in view of the tenuous nature of federal grant
programs.
24
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Another problem hindering the effectiveness of COG's is the fragmenting effect-
that Federal categorical grant programs have upon the kind of overall regional
coordination that the COG is supposed to achieve. These separate programs bear
varying degrees of relatedness to the COG depending upon the particular one in-
volved, but they do not have the organic relationship that would make them sub-
ject to the decisions of the COG.
The combination of: (1) the separation of planning from operations; (2) policy
control by a federation of local government officials protecting their own
interests; (3) the voluntary character of membership; (4) an inadequate financial
structure; and (5) the divisive effect of federal grant programs contributes to ths
COG's assuming a role which must be preoccupied with survival and a great
reluctance, therefore, to become engaged with sensitive issues such as low
income housing dispersal which might produce local disagreements and possible
disengagements. The COG must, therefore, be viewed as ineffective as a re-
gional force or as an embryonic stage in true regional government. Its transition
to a stronger position would appear to depend upon State government.
25
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SECTION IV.
THE TWIN CITIES METROPOLITAN COUNCIL
(MINNEAPOLJS-ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA)
Introduction.and History
The Metropolitan Council is a state administrative agency whose jurisdictioh
covers the seven counties of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The
members of the Counci I are appointed by the Governor, with the consent of the
Senate, from districts of equal population within the seven county area. Council
members must be residents of the district they represent, but are not elected offi-
cials of local governments within the area. From 1967 through 1973, appoint-
ment as members has tended to go to community leaders and influential who hold
no local elective office. In the earlier part of the period, appointments were
made from the business community, and more recently prior service to the
Democratic-Farmer-Labor party is a common characteristic of Council members.
Thus, the Council represents a new and different kind of regional agency, one
that reflects the strong interest of the state legislature in the development of the
metropolitan area, and at the same time represents the interests of local citizens
and community leaders.
Like the other agencies described is this report, the Twin,Cities Metropolitan
Council is still in the process of development, and the filial form it will take is
not yet clear (Kolderei, May 1973, p. 136)* However, it appears that it will
retain its primary characteristic of an agency responsible to the state legislature.
1 r. ', .
The seven counties designated by the legislature as the metropolitan area are
Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey,. Scott, and Washington. Until 1973,
only 5 of these counties were included in the Standard Metropolitan Statistical
Area designated by the federal government. In 1973, the SMS A was expanded
to include ten counties, including one in Wisconsin. The Metropolitan Council
made several efforts to get the federal designation of the SMSA to coincide with
the state designated seven county region, but the federal government obviously
does not give much weight to state preferences. The lack of comparability of
boundary lines appears to be a minor inconvenience for the Council. However,
as state designated planning areas come into greater prominence, the federal
policy of ignoring state designations should be reexamined.
Characteristics of the Minneapolis-St^ Paul Metropolitan Area
- '- " I
The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan region, as designated by the state legis-
lature, consists of seven counties including and adjacent to the central cities of
Minneapolis and St. Paul. The total population of the seven counties in 1970
was about 1.8 million; the population of Minneapolis was 434,400, and that of
St. Paul was 309,900. Thus, about 40% of the metroppjitan residents resided in
the two central cities. In common with most central cities elsewhere, the
26
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1970 Population (7-county Area) - 1,875,000
Area (7-county) 2,842 sq mi
Total Units - 199
MultKounty
Transportation Planning
Program Management
Committee
Twin Cities
.Metropolitan
Council
Metropolitan
Sewer
Board
Metropolitan
Transit
Authority
Metropolitan
Airports
Commission
ro
Metropolitan Mosquito
Control District
Metropolitan Inter-
County Council
County
7 Counties
Gen. Purpose Co. Government
Other
133 Municipalities
57 Townships
49 School Districts
30 Special Districts
Fig. 4. Governmental Characteristics Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area
-------
population of these two cities decreased by 6% from 1960 to 1970, while the
population of the remainder of the seven counties increased by 55%.
Because of decisions made decades ago by the central cities not to annex adja-
cent areas, the two central cities are completely surrounded by incorporated
municipalities, which in turn are usually surrounded by one or more outer tiers
of incorporated municipalities. Beyond the outermost tier lies open country, in
which are located a few smaller municipalities.
Of the two central cities, Minneapolis is the larger, perhaps a bit wealthier, and
is more inclined to be aggressive in attempting to assert leadership of the area.
But St. Paul is large enough and economically strong enough to provide an effec-
tive alternative. Over the years, this has resulted in the two cities often acting
as rivals, and occasionally acting together in matters of joint interest.
Because of the rivalry, the other municipalities in the metropolitan area have a
more complicated problem of relationships with the central city than in those
metropolitan areas with only one major central city. Because either central city
can start activities aimed at its own advantage, smaller cities can be adversely
affected by action of either of two central cities, and can also be adversely
affected by actions taken in concert by the two central cities. This is counter-
balanced by the fact that since Minneapolis and St. Paul often do not see eye to
eye, the smaller cities can sometimes get support from one of the central cities in
opposition to some course of action proposed by the other central city. But con-
versely, the smaller cities also have the problem of needing to get support from
both central cities for courses of area-wide action proposed by the smaller cities.
On balance, it is difficult to say whether it is easier for smaller suburban cities
to deal with one central city than with two, but at a minimum there is one more
major actor to keep track of in metropolitan areas with two central cities.
While the suburban areas have a majority of the population of the area, they have
been able to achieve little unity because of widely varying interests. The chief
differentiating factor seems to be their degree of development. Many of the
inner ring suburbs are almost completely built up, have an adequate tax base, and
are not primarily concerned with how to promote development. The next group
is partly built up and partly open for development, while the outer group of
municipalities are primarily open land in the early stages of development. The
stage of development of each municipality can affect its perception of the proper
role for the Metropolitan Council, which has as a major responsibility the prepa-
ration of a development guide for the entire region.
Historical Development of the Metropolitan Council
The Metropolitan Council did not grow out of a major crisis or breakdown in
local government services in the area. But it did develop during a period in
which the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was experiencing problems of urban de-
velopment and local government services similar to those experienced elsewhere.
Metropolitan planning, sewage collection and disposal, airport locations, free-
way locations, open space acquisition, and the zoo were all subjects of concern
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and controversy in the metropolitan area during the period preceding the estab-
lishment of the Council in 1967.
During the preceding ten years, the state legislature, local officials, and citizen
groups had been increasingly dissatisfied with the ways in which existing agencies
in the metropolitan area were dealing with these controversial problems. The
immediate predecessor agency of the Council, the Twin Cities Metropolitan
Planning Commission, was viewed as unable to do what was needed to effectively
control regional development. In part, it did not have the necessary powers, and
in part it was viewed as being unresponsive and too unwieldy to develop policies
for metropolitan-wide application.
Despite its lack of powers, however, the Metropolitan Planning Commission was
active in the process of alerting and informing area citizens of the need for co-
ordination of the process of development in the metropolitan area. In cooperation
with the State Highway Department and the local governments of the region, the
MPC undertook a major transportation-land use study, which the MPC developed
into a series of reports on alternative patterns of development. The MPC also
played a leading role in the discussion of alternative governmental structures for
dealing with metropolitan development, and prior to the 1967 legislative session
the MPC developed a position paper that called for its own replacement by a
metropolitan body with stronger powers (Baldinger, 1971).
A major cause of increased interest in 'an effective metropolitan policy and plan-
ning dgency was the inability to resolve a growing controversy over sewage dis~
posal problems in the metropolitan area. An earlier problem had been dealt with
in part in 1933 by the creation of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District,
which constructed and operated interceptor sewers and a single treatment plant,
which by 1965 serviced the two major cities and also serviced a substantial num-
ber of suburban municipalities on a contract basis.
Over the years, however, there had been continuing controversy on the part of
some of the suburban municipalities over the costs of these contractual services,
and many municipalities had sought what they viewed as less costly alternatives.
One type of solution was to build their own treatment plants which discharged
into either the Minnesota or the Mississippi river, usually upstream from Minne-
apolis or St. Paul, which led to further controversy. The other common type of
solution was for developers to build houses with individual water and sewage dis-
posa'l facilities, which was possible because of the soil conditions and water
table. Because there was no effective means of control over this development,
by 1959 a State Board of Health study showed that nitrates and detergents from
the sewage systems were to be found in the water supplies of many suburban
households. This resulted in increased efforts on the part of suburban municipali-
ties to find ways to collectively dispose of sewage, bringing on renewed inter-
municipal conflicts and increased understanding of the need for metropolitan-
wide solutions to the sewage problem.
Out of the dissatisfactions rand controversies over planning, sewage disposal,
airports, freeways, open space> the zoo, and other regional problems, there
wepe developed a number of proposals for more effective regional policies for
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urban development. In addition to the Metropolitan Planning Commission, other
groups^studying and making recommendations were the Minnesota League of
Municipalities, various local associations of local officials and some individual
officials, the Citizens League of Hennepin County, the various local Leagues
of Women Voters, the local Chambers of Commerce, and the Upper Midwest
Research and Development Council.
Many of the leading figures of the Minneapolis and St. Paul business communities
participated actively in the development of the proposals, and a number of them
subsequently accepted appointment as members of the Metropolitan Council.
A common characteristic of these various proposals was the need for an area-
wide agency whose members were directly elected by the people of the seven
county area, and which had powers to plan and operate a variety of service
activities.
Jhe local opposition to this developing consensus was limited, and late in appear-
ing. It consisted of two groups of local officials and the local suburban press.
County officials were concerned that the development of a regional agency would
leave the counties with no role in regional development. Municipal officials of
Bloomington (the third largest city in the area) and of many of the outlying sub-
urban municipalities were concerned about domination of the regional agency by
the central cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Suburban newspapers expressed
general concern for local control and general opposition to big, metropolitan
government.
A second major viewpoint on the kind of metropolitan agency needed had been
developing over the years among the members of the state legislature. Like the
local groups, they were concerned with the effective solution to area-wide
problems. But legislative leaders were also concerned about the place of the
state government, and particularly the legislature, in the development of poli-
cies for the growth of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, which,was
the growth center and economic center of the entire state. Policies for the
metropolitan area, they reasoned, would affect the entire state, and thus
should not be left entirely to locally elected officials.
The major difference in how the new Metropolitan Council would be chosen was
resolved by a very close vote: they would be appointed by the Governor, with
the advice of the Senate, from districts composed of two adjacent state senatorial
districts. With this problem settled, the legislature enacted the statute establish-
ing the Metropolitan Council, to become effective in July, 1967.
The Metropolitan Council Experience: 1967-1973
Organization and Powers of the Council
The Metropolitan Council consists of fifteen members, of whom one is the Chair-
man, who serves at the pleasure of the Governor. The other fourteen members
are appointed for six year overlapping terms by the Governor, with the consent
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Governor of Minnesota
J_
Council
14 Members appointee*
from equal population
districts
State Legislature
Senate
House of Representatives
Council Committees
Referral
Development Guide
Personnel and Work
Program
1
Metropolitan
Sewer Board
Advisory Boards
Metropolitan Health Board
Metropolitan Open Space
Advisory Board
Criminal Justice Advisory
Committee
Housing Advisory Committee
Cable Television Advisory
Committee
Metropolitan
Transit
Commission
MTC Advisory
Committee
Metropolitan
Airport
Commission
Fig. 5. Organization and Functions Twin Cities Metropolitan Council
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of the Senate. Each represents a geographic district of the seven-county area,
a district composed of two adjacent state senatorial districts, thus representing
approximately equal numbers of residents of the seven counties.
The Council has established three committees: (1) the Physical Development
Committee, (2) the Human Resources Committee,, and (3) the Personnel and
Work Program Committee.
The Council has the general powers of a typical state agency. It may hire an
Executive Director and staff who are part of the unclassified civil service of the
state. It may enter into contracts, and accept gifts and appropriations; it also
may levy a tax of 7/10ths of a mill on all property in the seven counties, an un-
usual power for either a regional council or a state agency. It may issue rules
and regulations in accordance with the state administrative procedures act. The
Council is charged with the duty of preparing a development guide for the seven
county area, which serves as a guide to all future development in the seven
counties.
The Council reviews all municipal and county comprehensive plans, and local
government proposals that have significant impact on metropolitan development
(significant impact is a determination made by the Council). The comprehensive
plans cannot be implemented for 60 days after they are filed with the Council.
During this period the Council informs all adjacent local governments of the pro-
posal, and such other units and agencies as may be affected by the proposal.
The Council makes suggestions, holds hearings, and mediates disputes.
The Council also reviews all applications for federal and state funds by local
governments and other agencies within the seven county area, and may recom-
mend approval or disapproval of the request. In practice, the Council often
returns a request to the originating unit with suggestions for changes needed to
obtain Council approval.
The Council is the regional criminal justice planning agency and the regional
comprehensive health planning agency. For these purposes, it has established
a 33 member Criminal Justice Advisory Committee and a 19 member Metropoli-
tan Health Board, which review programs and proposals and advise the Council.
The Council has three other advisory committees: the Metropolitan Open Space
Advisory Board, the Housing Advisory Committee, and the Cable Television
Advisory Committee.
The Council prepares the sewerage plan for the metropolitan area, and has ap-
proval powers over the budget of the Metropolitan Sewer Board. The Board con-
sists of 7 members appointed by the Council, and the Board is the governing body
of what is essentially a seven-county special district that owns and operates the
sewage collection and disposal facilities. Some of the relationships between the
Council and the Board are still in the process of being worked out.
The Council reviews long term plans of independent single purpose agencies such
as the Metropolitan Airports Commission and the Metropolitan Transit Commission,
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and reviews the MTC capital budget and improvement program. It has the power
to indefinitely suspend (veto) any part of these plans or programs. The affected
agency may request a hearing by the full Council. If agreement is not reached,
the Council prepares a record of the disagreement which is then submitted to
the next session of the state legislature.
The Council also works with the State Highway Department and the local govern-
ments in the area, as well as with the Metropolitan Transit Commission, in trans-
portation planning for the region. There is a Transportation Planning Program
Management Committee of five members, representing the Council, the highway
department, the MTC, and the cities and counties respectively of the seven
county area.
Experience with the Council, 1967-73
In general, the activities of the Metropolitan Council during the first six years of
its existence have met with approval in the metropolitan area, and in the state as
a whole. Governments and agencies in the seven-county area now receive timely
information about plans and projects of other units and agencies that may affect
the other units. Consultation occurs, and at least some potential problems are
avoided. The Council provides a voice for area-wide interests that previously
were not very often considered by local units.
A major problem is the continuing feeling of city and county officials in the area
that their views should have more direct representation in the council. In a sense,
the local units feel that they should have control of the area-wide decision mak-
ing process, and they resist efforts to add to the powers of the Council. For
example, an effort by the Council in 1971 to have the legislature establish an
area-wide board under its jurisdiction to operate an area-wide park and open
space program (comparable to the existing Sewer Board) was trimmed back by
the legislature as the result of pressures from local officials who wanted operat-
ing responsibilities to remain in the hands of local governments.
A second problem area is the relationship of the Council to the state government,
and especially to the legislature. The legislature has thus far been willing to go
only part way toward establishing the Council as a state agency with adequate
powers to coordinate regional governmental activities in the metropolitan area.
At the same time, it has been less willing to go part way toward establishing the
Council as a regional unit of government with powers to engage in municipal
activities on a region-wide basis. While the Council has more powers than the
Metropolitan Planning Commission that was its predecessor, the legislature pre-
fers a Council with limited powers that refers most controversies to the legislature
for final decision. The legislature's preference is reinforced by the demands of
the local governments for limitations on the powers and activities of the Council.
Thus, like its predecessor, the Council must rely heavily on its ability to educate
and persuade citizens and local and state officials.
A third problem has been the relationship between the Council and the various
metropolitan special districts and boards and commissions. This has two aspects,
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one internal and the other external. The internal aspect is exemplified by the
relationship between the Council and its subordinate agency, the Metropolitan
Sewer Board. Although appointed by the Council, and subject to its approval
for operating budget and capital expenditures, the Board was explicitly given
ownership of the sewer and disposal system, and tends to view itself as a quasi-
independent operating special district. The Council has the duty of preparing
the sewerage plan, which suggests that the Board must follow the plan in develop-
ing the metropolitan sewer system. There has been a continuing disagreement be-
tween the Council and the Board over who makes the major decisions about the
specific location of new collector mains and disposal plants, which culminated
in late 1972 in a reported statement by a Council member to representatives of
the Board that "... you'll build where and when we tell you to, and nothing
more" (Vanderpoel, 1972, p. 21). Presumably this is one of those disputes that
will be referred to the legislature for final decision, but the necessity for this
referral clouds the authority of the Council to plan and supervise the operation
of the metropolitan sewer system. Because the location of collector mains and
disposal plants has a direct influence on the direction and pace of urban develop-
ment in the area, any diminution of the power of the Council will make it a less
effective agency for controlling metropolitan development.
The external aspect is exemplified by the relationship of the Council and the
Metropolitan Airports Commission in the consideration of alternative sites for
the proposed second major airport for the area, and the prior decision of whether
two major airports are needed. The Metropolitan Airports Commission is a
special district established by the legislature to operate airports within a 35
mile radius of the Minneapolis and St. Paul city halls. The Commission has 3
members from Minneapolis and 3 members from St. Paul, plus a tie-breaking
member appointed by the Governor from outside the area. Suburban citizens
feel they should have more representation on the Commission.
After considerable travail, the Commission in 1969 announced it had chosen a
site North of the Twin Cities for a new major airport, and submitted its plan to
the Council for approval as required by law. Major opposition to the site had
existed during hearings held by the Commission prior to its decision, and did
not subside while the Council was considering the proposal. After a few months,
the Council decided to suspend (veto) the proposal, on the grounds that there
were enough doubts about the chosen site to warrant a re-examination by the
Commission. The Council also expressed doubts about the need for two major
international airports in the metropolitan area.
The Commission voted to resubmit its proposal to the Council and request a
hearing, evidently with a view to passing on the site dispute for settlement to
state officials. After some consultations among the interested parties, the Com-
mission decided to withdraw its request for a hearing and requested the Council
to choose the site for the new airport. A few weeks later it was announced that
the Council, the Commission, and the major air carriers using the airport would
engage in a joint study to select the site for the new international airport.
Meanwhile, the legislature in 1969 had enacted legislation bearing on the
responsibilities of the Council with respect to the new airport. The legislation
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authorized the Council to control zoning around the new airport by establishing
criteria for land use and development within three miles of the airport (or up to
five miles if an important natural resource was affected). Municipalities in the
affected area were required to revise their land-use plans, and zoning and build-
ing code ordinances to reflect these criteria, and submit the plans and ordinances
to the Council for approval. Any local controls not in conformity with the cri-
teria could be amended by the Council, and must then be put into effect by the
municipality. The Council was also to develop criteria for noise zones, which
must be put into effect through municipal land use and development controls.
Both of these are a substantial limitation on the previous freedom of municipali-
ties to determine their own zoning and land use regulations, but evidently the
legislature felt that area-wide controls were necessary to satisfy some of the
interests that were objecting to the new airport.
The legislation also requires the Metropolitan Airports Commission to purchase
property near the airport when a court has determined that application of the
criteria of the Council constitutes a taking of property, if the Council determines
that the acquisition of the property is necessary to proper development of the
area. The Commission must then prepare a plan for the use of the area in
accordance with the criteria of the Council, and may then dispose of the land
to private owners in much the same way as do municipal agencies engaged in
urban renewal.
This legislation enlarges the responsibility of both the Council and the Commis-
sion in the development and regulation of the new airport and the surrounding
property. It tends to bring an independent special district, the Commission, into
much the same relationship with the Council as the Council's subordinate agency
the Metropolitan Sewer Board, but only for certain activities of the Commission.
Whether conflicts between the Council and the Commission can and will develop
under this legislation remains to be seen, but meanwhile some necessary controls
for the establishment of a new airport have been established.
The outcome of the search for a site for the new airport is still in the future. It
appears that when a second major airport is needed, the site will be in the por-
tion of the metropolitan area originally favored by the Airport Commission. But
Council review of the site problem brought out the fact that the specific location
favored by the Commission was over the recharge area of the major aquifer of the
region, and an alternative site without that undesirable characteristic will be
used.
There appear to have been some additional political repercussions from the
Council intervention in the search for an airport site, in that a major opponent
of legislation requested by the Council from the 1973 session of the legislature
was the mayor of St. Paul, who was also a St. Paul member of the Airport Com-
mission. Given the other kinds of legislative opposition to the 1973 council
legislation, it is not clear that the mayor's opposition was decisive, but it is
illustrative of the kind of political problem that can arise from the relationship
of the Metropolitan Council to the other regional agencies.
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The two examples of the relationships with the Sewer Board and the Airport Com-
mission illustrate problems that exist also in the relationship of the Council with
the Metropolitan Transit Commission. There is surface agreement among regional
agencies that the Metropolitan Council does overall planning while the special
purpose agencies do functional planning; some people use the terms system plan-
ning versus development planning. Despite the surface agreement, the imple-
mentation of the roles is a matter on which there is little agreement at present.
When disagreements exist on specific actions, the problem may be referred to the
state legislature, which thus far tends to settle differences on an ad hoc basis,
leaving the basic relationship between the agencies not clearly defined. To
those who prefer clear lines of relationship, this is an unsatisfactory situation.
But it seems likely that the nature of the kind of basic decision to be made by
each agency will continue to be a matter of dispute. What the Council views
as a planning decision may be viewed by the regional special purpose agency
as an operating decision, and therefore as an invasion of the prerogative of the
special purpose agency. It appears that the legislature will continue to prefer
this kind of arrangement, since it then can intervene to settle major disputes if it
wishes to do so.
Another facet of this problem is the tendency of regional planning and coordi-
nating agencies, such as the Metropolitan Council, or the Regional Council of
Governments in other metropolitan areas, to want to assume operating responsi-
bilities. Planning and coordination are unsatisfactory roles, apparently, and
the role of decision-maker is more attractive. But decision-making without
implementation powers apparently also seems to be an empty role for many
regional councils. There is considerable pressure from the staff members, also,
for the regional agency to take on responsibilities for implementation, because
staff members are frustrated by the lack of implementation of their plans.
Finally, this tendency toward implementation is encouraged by agencies of the
federal government, which offer grants for demonstration projects for such things
as solid waste disposal or regional emergency medical care to the regional plan-
ning or coordinating agency. Thus there are many pressures on the coordinating
council to move into substantive programs. But any change of role in this direc-
tion brings the coordinating council into conflict with operating agencies, whether
regional special purpose districts, or cities and counties. The Twin Cities Metro-
politan Council is caught up in this problem, and no clear decision about its role
has yet been made.
One perceptive observer of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council has advanced
the view that what now exists in the metropolitan area is a number of special
purpose regional governments for sewers, transit, and airports (Kolderei, Apr
1973, p. 4 ). He suggests placing all the regional operating agencies in the
same relationship to the Regional Council that the Sewer Board now has. This
would give the Council more control over these agencies, and will probably be
strongly resisted by the agencies unless the role of the Council can be more
clearly defined. And since this would be a move in the direction of regional
government, it is not clear that either the legislature or the cities and counties
are yet ready to accept this alternative. But the proposal has the merit of re-
moving much of the present ambiguity in the relationship.
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One other problem that has received widespread attention must be mentioned.
This is the question of direct election of the members of the Council by the voters
of the districts which they represent. It is often alleged that the appointment of
the members of the Council by the Governor with the consent of the Senate (and
after consultation with local interests) is not a proper way to achieve representa-
tion of metropolitan residents. But it is a difficult task to demonstrate that direct
election from districts would achieve the kind of metropolitan representation de-
sired.
Nor does the selection process for members of the governing body of voluntary
councils of government in metropolitan areas necessarily achieve adequate repre-
sentation for citizens of the metropolitan region. Decisions are made by majorities
that do not contain anyone for whom many of the citizens of the region had the
chance to vote.
Thus, the lack of direct election of the members of the Council does not seem to
be a fatal defect. Because the Council engages by necessity in a process of
interaction with local elected officials, members of governing bodies of area-
wide special districts, and state legislators from the metropolitan area and from
outside the metropolitan area, the total process includes the representation of
many different views of citizens of the metropolitan area.
Finally, one accomplishment of the Metropolitan Council that has received
widespread attention must be mentioned. In 1971 the Council proposed, and
the legislature enacted, a statute to reduce the inequity of the property tax
base of the local governments within the metropolitan area. The statute provides
that 40% of the assessed value from new commercial and industrial property com-
ing onto the tax rolls after 1972 goes into a special pool which is then divided
up among the local governments in the region on a per capita basis (Gilje, 1971,
pp. 49-50).
This innovation has been widely and justly heralded as a major step in the direc-
tion of reducing the inequities of the property tax base between local governments
of a metropolitan region.
In general, the local governments in the Twin Cities region have viewed it as a
desirable development. But in 1973 some latent dissatisfaction surfaced. The
City of Minneapolis asked for special legislation to exempt new commercial
development in its downtown area from the redistribution requirement. And the
suburban city of Bloomington, the fourth largest city in the state, also requested
special legislation to exempt commercial development in its downtown area
from the redistribution requirement. Bloomington leaders are disturbed by the
fact that so large a city does not have a real downtown, and hope to develop
one, apparently containing high rise office buildings and other downtown type
structures. And they do not want to share the revenues from this development
either with the central cities or with their suburban neighbors. Neither of the
attempts in 1973 was successful, but the fact that local governments representing
nearly half the population of the metropolitan area would suggest this change
indicates some erosion of support for the redistribution measure.
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Council Activities with Respect to Pollution Control
The Council has adopted or was in the process of adopting in late 1973 a num-
ber of development guides that were concerned with environmental pollution.
In these development guides, the Metropolitan Council is primarily concerned
with attempting to influence future development to reduce pollution, rather than
with the problem of how to regulate existing polluters.
In Minnesota, there is a State Pollution Control Agency that has primary re-
sponsibility for controlling existing pollution and developing plans and programs
for regulating pollution. The Metropolitan Council and its staff work closely
with the Pollution Control Agency in the planning process, and present pro-
posals and testify at PCA hearings on proposed regulations and plans.
Local observers point out that the Metropolitan Council and its staff bring a
more environmentalist point of view to most of the planning done in the metro-
politan area than is brought by most other agencies, including most state and
local officials.
Air Pollution Control Activities
The Metropolitan Council does not engage directly in air pollution control activi-
ties in the way that some of the other regional agencies do. The Council in 1973
was in the process of preparing an air quality development guide for the metro-
politan region. Since no final action had been taken, copies were not available
for this study. If other guides already in existence may be taken as typical, the
proposed guide would use the standards established by the state Pollution Control
Agency as the basis for the guidelines to be established.
Water Pollution Control Activities
The Council also had a water supply development guide in the process of prepara-
tion which was not available to us. However, much of the activity of the Council
and the Sewer Board is related to pollution control, and can be examined in that
context. In addition, the Council has taken other actions related to control of
water pollution, for example its role in relocating the site of the proposed major
airport away from the recharge area of the major aquifer. The Council open space
development guide also indicates a concern for preservation of wetlands through-
out the area, which is related to one aspect of control of water pollution.
The Council has been directly involved in water pollution control in its early
efforts to deal with the sewage problem, and in its continuing relationship with
the Sewer Board as the plans for an area-wide sewage disposal system were imple-
mented.
Throughout this process, the Council has attempted first to plan development of
the sewer system to serve built up areas in need of this service, and secondly to
use extensions of the sewer system to guide development into those areas that the
38
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Council felt should logically be the next ones opened to development.
In doing this, the Council has on occasion found itself forced to take action to
achieve one of these goals that was in conflict with the possibility of achieving
the other goal. And in some instances, it has encountered activity on the part
of other organizations and agencies that has made the task more difficult.
A case in point was an early Council decision involving the sewage plant at
Forest Lake, which was discharging sewage with only primary treatment into a
chain of lakes that were part of the St. Paul water supply system. The Council
opted for a new tertiary treatment plant that would discharge into a small creek
that ran into another watershed, into the St. Croix river. The environmentalists
opposed this on the grounds that the creek was also one of the state's best trout
streams. The State Pollution Control Agency then required the Sewer Board to
run an interceptor line several miles through undeveloped land from Forest Lake
to connect with an existing major sewer system in St. Paul. The existence of the
interceptor encouraged developers to try and get sewer permits in this undeveloped
area which the Metropolitan Council felt should not yet be developed.
In an effort to control development in this and similar areas, the Council and
the Sewer Board have developed a system of charges which attempts to assess the
cost of future use as a part of the cost of the original sewer connection by the
developer. In this way they hope to limit the number of connections and there-
by the Council hopes to limit development of the area which it believes should
not currently be developed. A number of developers have brought lawsuits
against this kind of charge, and it seems possible that the ruling will go against
the Council, thus opening these areas for development.
Here we have the anomalous situation of the efforts of the Council to prevent
premature development of one portion of the metropolitan area coming into con-
flict with other values of the Council which are concerned also with protecting
the environment.
Solid Waste Pollution Control Activities
One of the development guides issued by the Council is the Solid Waste De-
velopment Guide, issued in 1970. The guide assumes that solid waste disposal
operations will be handled on a county-by-county basis because state law says
the county is to be the implementing agency in the solid waste program.
The guide also assumes that counties in the area will develop solid waste disposal
programs within the regulations established by the State Pollution Control Agency.
The guide then goes on to establish basic policies for solid waste disposal in the
metropolitan area. For example, it specifies that sanitary landfills shall be the
disposal method used. It then goes on to amplify some of the state regulations.
For example, the state requirement that disposal may not take place on "shore-
land" is, for the metropolitan area, specified to mean the prohibition of sanitary
landfills within 1,000 feet of the normal high water mark of a lake, pond,
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reservoir, or impoundment, or within 300 feet of a river or a stream or the land-
ward side of a floodplain designated by ordinance for such river or stream
(Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities, 1970, p. 7).
The Council required the counties to present solid waste disposal plans for the
approval of the Council. After approval, the plans were submitted to the State
Pollution Control Agency. Thus, the development guide coordinated the plan-
ning of the seven counties for solid waste disposal within the regulatory frame-
work of the State Pollution Control Agency.
Nuclear Pollution Control Activities
There is no major nuclear plant within the metropolitan area, and the Council
has thus far undertaken no activity in nuclear pollution control.
Noise Pollution Control Activities
The Council had not felt the need for a development guide for the prevention of
noise pollution. But it did consider noise impact as one factor in the highway
and transportation development guide, and they cooperated with the State High-
way Commission and the Metropolitan Transit Commission to establish standards
of noise impact for highways in the region.
In addition, as already mentioned, the Metropolitan Council was given specific
power to require local governments to prohibit development in areas affected by
the noise from airport runways at the proposed new major airport. The power,
exercised through the Airports Commission and the local governments, is suffi-
ciently strong to prevent development in areas of heavy noise pollution from the
airport. However, until an airport site is officially designated and plans are
begun, the power remains unused. There is every reason to expect that the
Council will make vigorous use of the power when specific planning for the air-
port is begun.
Summary
The Metropolitan Council is, as its advocates claim, a considerable advance over
voluntary councils of government in the sense that it has some powers of coordina-
tion and control given to it as a state agency. Its existence demonstrates that a
state government in the United States can impose some controls over a metropoli-
tan region if it wants to. But the council is not yet a new kind of metropolitan
unit of government, as is sometimes claimed for it0 The legislature has obviously
not yet decided that it wants to have the Council displace the local units of
government in the seven-county area; nor has it decided that the Council will
be the upper tier of a two tier system of regional government such as Metropoli-
tan Toronto.
40
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The term umbrella agency has sometimes been applied to the Council in its rela~
tionship with other regional agencies, and its relationship with the Metropolitan
Sewer Board is viewed as the proper way to provide coordination of special pur-
pose regional agencies. The Council appoints the Sewer Board, and must
approve both the operating and capital budget. The exact line between the
powers of the two agencies is unclear, and will probably change from time to
time. The Council's relationship to other regional special purpose agencies is
less close, with the Council having only powers of approval of their capital
budgetso Major disagreements between the Council and other regional agencies
are reported to the state legislature. The umbrella analogy is a fuzzy one at
best, and in the case of the Metropolitan Council, it is clearly an umbrella
whose handle is held by the state government
As the experience with the Metropolitan Council continues, the evolution of its
relationships with municipalities and counties and area-wide special districts
should be watched closely by those interested in alternative ways to organize
government in metropolitan regions. The Council may develop as a kind of "half-
way house" that is a viable alternative to complete local control or comprehensive
metropolitan government. It may be a way in which the interests of the local
governments, of the region, and of the state can engage In dialogues and trials
of strength from which a mixed form of effective government of the metropolitan
region can emerge 0
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SECTION.V
THE MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN SEATTLE
Introduction
"Metropolitonization" was not apparent in the Seattle region until the post-
World War II period. Prior to this era, the urbanized area was fqirly well con-
tained within the city and its immediate vicinity, because of the confining
effects of Puget Sound on the west and Lake Washington on the east. However,
in 1941 a landmark floating bridge was constructed across Lqke Washington
and the Lake's east side quickly attracted a substantial portion of suburban
growth.
The central city has declined in population relative to the res,t of the metropolitan
area. Seattle contained 73% of the total population of King County in 1940,
64% in 1950, and 60% in 1960. (In 1962 the Standard Metropolitan Statistical
Area was redefined to include Snohomish County to the north of King County and
labeled the Seattle-Everett SMSA.) In the I960 census over hqlf of the populq-
tion of the Seattle-Everett SMSA lived in Seattle; by 1970 this proportion had
dropped to only 37%.
Table 2
Population, Seattle-Everett SMS A
Counties
King
(Seattle)
Snohomish
(Everett)
Total
1970 % Increase
_Popu lotion 1960 to 1970
1,156,633
(530,813)
265,236
(53,622)
1,421,869
23.7
(-4.7)
54.0
(33.0)
28.4
% of Total
Population
81.3
(37.3)
18.7
(3.8)
100,0
Source: 1970 Census of Population .
The large increase in Everett's population occurred as the result of annexation of
an area containing 13,029 residents.
There was a 64.3% increase in the 1960-1970 period in population living outside
of the area's two central cities. Both King and Snohomish counties are outpacing
42
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the national average growth rate of 13.3% for counties.
Social class indicators shown below indicate little differentiation between the
two counties and their principal cities, except in the percentage of minority
group residence.
TableS
Social Class Indicators, Seattle-Everett SMSA
Counties and Family Median % Minority Average
Mgjor City Income Races Education
King
(Seattle)
Snohomish
(Everett)
Total SMS A
$11,886
(11,037)
11,897
(10,176)
$11,676
7.0
(12.6)
1.7
(2.2)
6.0
12.5
(12.5)
12o3
(12.2)
12.5
The minority areas are divided almost equally between Negroes and all other
races,predominantly Japanese and Indian. The population of the minority races
increased from 102,000 in 1960 to 158,000 in 1970, or by 56%.
The acceleration of urbanization during the post-war period resulted in numerous
incorporations and an increase in the number of special districts,, In King County
the number of municipalities increased from 8 in 1940 to 24 in 1957, most of
which incorporated in the decade from 1947 to 1957. Thereafter, the pace of
incorporation slowed, with the 1972 Census of Governments recording 28 munici-
palities in King County. As shown in table 4 , the major changes occurring in
the number of local units of government during the past 15 years have been an
increase in the number of special districts and a decrease in the number of
school districts.
Table 4
Local Units of Government, 1957 to 1972- Seattle-Everett SMSA
Type of
Unit
Cities
School dists.
Special dists.
Total
King Co.
1957
24
25
116
165
1972
28
21
129
178
SnohomoishCoo Total
1957
15
23
47
85
1972
18
14
57
89
1957
39
48
163
251
1972
46
35
186
267
Source: 1972 Census "of Governments.
43
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Figure 6 shows the principal county and multi-county agencies operating in the
Seattle-Everett SMS A.
The growth in the Seattle area concentrated around Lake Washington. As a
consequence, it became increasingly polluted from the effluents of the sewage
disposal plants of the urbanized areas. Measurements began in 1949 traced the
chronology of a "dying" lake as the algae grew and multiplied. Yet no local
government responded to this problem and it was not deemed subject to the dis-
cretionary powers of either the State or Federal governments. Ultimately, this
problem provided an outlet for the efforts of those groups in Seattle pressing for
the regionalization of urban services, which resulted in the formation in 1958
of the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle.
The Response of Metropolitan ism in the Seattle Region
Seattle civic leadership (concentrated within the Municipal League of Seattle
and King County) was not unaware of the effects of dynamic urban growth on
static governmental structures. In 1948 a constitutional amendment authorized
the consolidation of King County and Seattle. The 1948 amendment was not
self-executing. In 1971 the legislature adopted a self-executing amendment
providing for consolidation. A report of the King County Metropolitan Study
Commission sees the need for some functional consolidations within the county,
and recommends "the reduction in the number of actual units of government
within King County" (Metropolitan Study Commission, Nov, 1972, p. 15)
In 1952 a home rule amendment for King County was defeated. A young attorney
active in the municipal league and the campaign for the home rule amendment is
credited with initiating metropolitan reform in the Seattle area. (King County did
become a home rule charter county in 1968.)
Roscoe Martin begins the chronology of events that led to the creation of Seattle
Metro with a 1953 speech by James Ellis, "A Plan for Seattle's Future." Ellis's
activism and tenacity in civic leadership for the Seattle metropolitan area is a
recurrent element in the developmental history of Seattle Metro.
By 1954 Ellis's somewhat visionary approach to Seattle's future helped in moving
the municipal league to appoint'a metropolitan problems committee. Originally
the league had hoped to involve representatives from the city and county and
develop legislative proposals for the 1955 Washington state legislative session.
Thwarted in that ambition, the league instead focused its efforts on an examina-
tion of the utility of differentiating metropolitan and local governmental functions.
In 1955 the league issued the findings of the committee in the report: "Metropolitan
Seattle: The Shape We're In. "
By 1956, the municipal league made its recommendations more explicit and de-
cided to push for state legislation to implement its proposals. The second "Shape"
report of 1956 recommended a metropolitan level of government to perform
specified metropolitan functions: comprehensive planning; sewage disposal an
44
and
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1970 Population (SMSA) - 1,422,000
Land Area 4,226 sq mi
Total Units - 269
Regional
(Multi-County)
Puget Sound
Governmental Conference
King County
Snohomish County
Pierce County
Kitsap County
Board Org: Federation of
Elected Officials
Functions: Regional Plan-
ning & A-95 Review
Puget Sound Air Pollution
Control Agency .
King County
Snohomish County
Pierce County
Kitsap County
Board Org: 9 member
Fed. of elected officials
State Districts for Federal
Categorical Programs
01
County
2 General Purpose
County Govts.
SMSA
King County
Snohomish County
Municipality of
Metropolitan
Seattle
King County
Sewage Treatment
Public Transit
So. Snohomish Co.
Metro Municipal
Corporation
Snohomish County
Planning for opera-
tion of Pub. Transit
Port of Seattle
Commission
King County
Harbors Sea-Tac
Airport
Other
46 Cities
181 Other Special Districts
35 School Districts
Fig. 6. Governmental Characteristics Seattle Metropolitan Area
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storm drainage; water supply; major roads and mass transportation; parks and
parkways; health and garbage disposal. Other functions had been considered,
but had been dropped for various reasons. Air pollution control might inhibit
industrial growth. Airports and ports were being satisfactorily operated by an
existing separate authority. The bridges were under the control of the State.
Although arterial streets were recommended in the Shape report, they were
omitted in the subsequent draft legislation.
The County had been seriously considered as the metropolitan level of govern-
ment, but this idea was finally discarded. The County did not precisely em-
brace the land area envisioned as functionally desirable; it did not include a
part of Snohomish County and did include some area seen as more functionally
related to Tacoma and Pierce County. The more important reason for not con-
sidering the County was that its administrative organization was not seen as
productive of efficient operations, and reform of this organization seemed im-
probable in view of the heavy defeat of the 1952 home rule charter. Had the
proposal passed, conceivably the transit and sewage treatment functions might
now be operating out of the courthouse and the Metro Enabling Act would never
have been passed.
On the basis of this second report the municipal league moved the city and
county governments to appoint a Metropolitan Problems Advisory Committee
(MPAC). The MPAC chairman was James Ellis and more than half of its mem-
bers had served on the committee that prepared the "Shape" report.
On the state level in 1956, Governor Langley established an advisory committee
on metropolitan problems. A Seattle civic leader was chairman, and James Ellis
was a member. This committee first looked at sewage problems in the Seattle area,
and on recommendation of this committee a major engineering study of the sewage
needs of the Seattle area was commissioned. Financed largely by the City of
Seattle, but with contribution by the state and county governments the results of
this study were to form the basis for the technological operations of Seattle
Metro.
In 1957 the state environment was particularly favorable for Seattle leaders to
press for state enabling legislation drafted by MPAC and the municipal league.
Newly elected Governor Rose Mini was a veteran State senator from Seattle, both
his administrative assistant and legislative aide had been members of MPAC, and
the Democratic Governor came into office with his party in the majority in both
the Senate and the House. His inaugural address included a passage urging enact-
ment of a metropolitan Municipal Corporation Bill into Washington state law.
The draft legislation introduced in the 1957 legislative session differed from the
second "Shape" report recommendation only in dropping some functions from those
performed at the metropolitan level, and requiring concurrent majorities within
the city and without for creation of Metro (rather than the original proposal for
a sample majority of voters). The bill sailed through the Senate, but faced stiff
opposition in the House. The chairman of the House Committee considering .the
46
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bill was from Snohomish County, and the delegation from Snohomish County was
extremely hostile to the idea of the creation of a municipal corporation that
could cross the King-Snohomish boundary to manage sewage problems on a regional
basis. With much effort, the bill was pried out of committee, but only to be
amended in an unacceptable form by the delegation representing Snohomish
County and southern King County. But the Governor of Washington possesses
item veto powers and, at the urging of Seattle leaders, Governor RoseIIini vetoed
the defensive amendments and the 1957 Metropolitan Municipal Corporation Law
was essentially that proposed by local leaders in the Seattle area.
The Metropolitan Municipal Corporation Act of 1957
When Roscoe Martin studied the Seattle area in the early 60's it was more what
he termed the "openendedness" of this state enabling legislation, rather than the
limited application of the statute in the creation of Seattle Metro that seemed
worthy of serious consideration as being a significant contribution to metropolitan
governing systems. This legislation makes possible the creation of a multi-county,
multi-purpose special district, operating as a "third tier" above county and city
government's. This "third tier" characteristic did not apply, however, in the case
of Metro Seattle. Its boundaries were originally less than county-wide and even-
tually were coterminous with King County; thus, it operated in parallel position
to the county.
The "Metro Act" represents the judgment of local and state leaders, tempered by
political pragmatism, as to the functions which should be available to a metro-
politan level of government for metropolitan areas. In the language of the act:
It is the purpose of this chapter to enable cities and counties to act
jointly to meet these common problems in order that the proper growth
and development of the metropolitan areas of the state may be assured
and the health and welfare of the people residing therein may be se-
cured (Washington Revised Code, 1969, Ch. 35.58.010).
Any area in the State of Washington with two or more cities, one or more of
which must be a first class city under state law, may establish a municipal cor-
poration (metro). The term "municipal corporation" has a long history in the
state of Washington to describe local subdivisions with a broader spectrum
than the term "special districts." It includes, therefore, multi-purpose special
districts as well as municipalities of general jurisdiction.
The boundaries of the corporation may include in part or whole, more than one
county. However, cities must be included or excluded as a whole.
One or more of the following functions may be performed by the corporation:
sewage disposal, water supply, public transportation, garbage disposal, parks
and parkways, and comprehensive planning.
47
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Comprehensive planning would be advisory only, parks and parkways would be
administered by a board, rather than directly by the metropolitan council, and
until a 1967 amendment that allowed voters to choose between transit systems
being operated by a commission or the council, transit was also to be operated
by a commission rather than directly by the metropolitan council.
An election to establish a metro is held upon resolutions being adopted by either
the city or county governing bodies, or the governing bodies of two component
cities other than the central city, or if four percent of the qualified voters
petition for the election.
The resolution or petition must specify the functions to be performed by the cor-
poration and its boundaries. The proposed boundaries are subject to review by
the central county before being submitted to the voters.
At the time of this initial vote, authorization may also be sought for metro to
levy a property tax of one mill for the first year of its operations (requiring a 3/5
majority vote). For creation of the metro, concurrent majorities (those voters
residing within and outside of the central cities) are required for passage.
The "openendedness" of the Metro Act is in its provisions for the assumption of
new functions (within the six specified in the legislation), and that the area of
Metro can be expanded.
The procedures for holding an election to vote on the addition of a function are
similar to those governing the initial election. A simple majority of those voting
determines the outcome. However, if the ballot includes a provision for Metro
to levy a general tax for the first year of operation of the new function, or if
general obligation bonds are to be issued, a 3/5 majority is required under
Washington law.
A new function can be added without an election by resolution of the Metro
Council with concurring resolutions by each component county, first class city,
and at least 2/3 of other component cities.
A 1967 amendment allowed the council, by resolution, to prepare a comprehen-
sive plan for the performance of an additional function, prior to voter approval
of the, assumption of that function.
Boundary expansion can occur in two ways. If any of the component cities annex
territory, that territory is automatically included in Metro. Contiguous territory
may become part of Metro by a majority vote of the residents of that area.
Representation is a variation of the "federated" model, based upon a rather, com-
plex systism, with no fixed number of council members. The following categories
of representation are provided for:
1. One ex officio (county executive) member from the central county.
48
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2. One additional member selected by the board of commissioners of
each component county for each commission district with ten thousand
or more residents in the unincorporated portion of the district (either
the commissioner representing the district or a resident).
3. One member (mayor) from each of the six largest component cities.
4. One member representing all component cities other than the six
largest, selected by vote of the mayors of these cities.
5. Ons member (who must be on the city council) allotted to each com-
ponent city with a population of 10,000 or more for every 60,000 resi-
dents above the initial 10,000.
6. The chairman of the council, selected by vote of the council, may not
be an employee or official of any member city or county (see Figure 7)
Since much of the focus on metropolitan problems that preceded the drafting of
this legislation was one of concern for adequate sewage treatment, it is not sur-
prising that the provisions for the sewage disposal function provided the metro-
politan corporation with comprehensive powers: of adopting a plan for sewage
disposal, acquiring, constructing, managing, setting minimum standards, fixing
rates and charges, and contracting; to establish and maintain a regional system.
The financial capacity of the municipal corporation is varied. It may issue
revenue bonds by resolution of the council and general obligation bonds with 60%
voter approval. With 60% voter approval it may obtain a one-year mill levy
during its first year, or the first year of operating a new function. To balance
its budget, it may secure supplemental operating funds from each component local
government based on the proportional share of its total assessed valuation to the
total assessed valuation within the metro area. Finally, it may levy special
assessment for specified areas under specified conditions.
Local Implementation of the State Enabling Legislation
Snohomish County leaders, frustrated in their attempts to amend the Metro Act to
their advantage, and knowing that the logic of the Lake Washington watershed
meant that Seattle and King County had designs on them, immediately executed
a tactical maneuver to avoid becoming part of Seattle Metro.
In January of 1958, a South Snohomish County Metropolitan Municipal Corpora-
tion was established under the provisions of the Metro Act with the single function
of planning, effectively precluding any intrusion of regional power from the Seattle
area. Perhaps the only example of "defensive incorporation" at the metropolitan
level.
In Seattle, the MPAC issued a report in August of 1957, calling for the Seattle
area to establish a metropolitan corporation with three functions: sewage disposal,
-------
tn
o
Advisory Committees
Sewer
Industrial Waste
Metro Transit Citizens
West Point Advanced
Waste Treatment
River Basin
Coordinating
Task Force for Citi-
zens Participation
Metropolitan Council
Seattle Mayor,'9 councilmen, and 1 public member
King County Executive and 9 Councilmen
Auburn Mayor
Bellevue Councilman
Kent - Mayor
Kirkland Councilman
Mercer Island Mayor
Renton - Mayor
All Other Cities Mayor of Yarrow Point
Unincorporated Areas 6 public members
Sewer Districts 1 public member
Chairman
Executive Director
Council Committees
Rules & Organization
Finance
Personnel
Sewer
Transit
1
Governmental
Services Dept.
Budget and
Finance Dept.
Metro Transit
Water Pollution
Control Dept.
Engineering and
Water Quality Dept.
Fig. 7i Organization and Functions Minicipality of Metropolitan Seattle
-------
transportation, and comprehensive planning, believing a strong case could be
made for a metropolitan execution of these functions. The MPAC boundary
recommendations included almost all of western King County from the Snohomish
County line to the north to the Pierce County line on the south. MPAC also
recommended that voters be asked to approve the one-year mill levy for the new
corporation.
Almost immediately the machinery to establish Metro was activated on the basis^
of the MPAC report. Two outlying city councils passed resolutions calling for a
metro election and a campaign group, the Metropolitan Action Committee was
formed to work for tfte adoption of metro.
i * »
The King County commission, in exercising the provisions of the act calling ibr
a boundary review of the proposed metro prior to submission to the voters, bowed
to the vigorous opposition of three southern King County cities and excluded a
significant amount of the area to the south. The area finally submitted to the
voters included sixteen cities and 471 sq mi.
The pro-metro rhetoric of this first campaign tended to emphasize the theoretical
benefits of metro along with the years of careful study that had gone into estab-
lishing the need for and utility of a metro.
Opponents of metro were also partially caught up in the theory of metropolitan
reform, voicing fear of the establishment of a "supergovernment." But some of
the opposition was solidly based on issues of substance; some of the outlying
communities had invested large sums, and gone into debt to provide sewage dis-
posal systems, it was unclear just what the establishment of metro would do for
these communities; the engineering study was not yet complete and some oppo-
nents argued that it was unfair to ask voters to approve a function without benefit
of a specific proposal for implementation of that function.
In the March, 1958 election proponents of metro failed to achieve the concurrent
majorities necessary for approval. The measure did achieve a simple majority,
and passed handily in the City of Seattle. But out of the city, 10 of the 15 other
municipalities voted against rnetto, and the unincorporated areas recorded a heavy
negative vote. The provision allowing metro to levy a general tax was defeated
throughout the area,
After this first defeat, James Ellis gathered the community forces favoring metro
to place the issue on the ballot again in the September, 1958, elections.
Just as in the two elections to consolidate the Nashville-Davidson County govern-
ments, metropolitan reformers would like to siolate those factors that make for
success or failure. -But it is impossible to generqjize from the Seattle experience
in a "how to "do" way for other metropolitan areas seeking reform. Suffice to say
the -success of the second election was in some combination of the tenacity of area
leaders, some wise and effective political accommodations, and an Act of God.
51
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Probably it is the Seattle experience more than any other that has fueled the
"crisis" theory of metropolitan reform. In Seattle there had been consistent and
well-documented evidence of an environmental crisis in the waters of the Sound
and Lake Washington. The Seattle area was profoundly water-oriented, emo-
tionally as well as geographically. But apparently it was not until the extremely
dry summer of 1958 that area residents were shocked into recognition of an envi-
ronmental crisis. When Lake Washington's water level dropped to the point that
its putrid condition was evident even to the casual observer, and beaches on Puget
Sound had to be closed, the fall election could truly be said to be overlaid with
a "crisis" facing metropolitan residents one not sold by metropolitan reformers,
but experienced by metropolitan voters.
But even in that climate, it is not possible to conclude that reform in Seattle was
a function of the environmental crisis. Between the first and second elections
there were some significant political accommodations and concessions on the part
of those seeking reform.
The proposal submitted in the second election was for a single function metro in
sewage treatment. Its boundaries were farther trimmed by about one-third to
exclude those areas which had voted heavily against Metro in the first election.
(See Figure 8 ). Furthermore, proponents agreed to support an amendment to the
state law which would require a 2/3 vote of the Council to issue revenue bonds,
rather than a simple majority; voter approval is not required. Fortuitously, the
engineering study had been completed by the time of the second election, and
the campaign was blessed with both a highly visible problem and well-
documented solution. The second campaign was characterized less by the
standard rhetoric of reform, focussing on the overriding issue of clean water.
The second proposal also specified that Metro would take over the operation of
the existing sewage treatment plants and compensate the communities that had
invested in them.
The second campaign resulted in an affirmative vote in all but one of the ten
municipalities still included in the district, although failing the three-fifths
majority necessary to authorize a general tax levy.
Boundary Expansion
Between the first and second elections in 1958, the land area of Seattle Metro
was cut back to the area around Lake Washington. The Metro area approved by
the voters in the second election did not include even the area draining into
Lake Washington. From the standpoint of sewage treatment itself, Seattle Metro
was not an adequate regional instrumentality.
By 1967, despite a dramatic success in cleaning up Lake Washington, only one
additional municipality had voted to become a part of Metro, and the total land
area under Metro was 231 sq mi. In 1971, however, the State legislature amended
the Metro Enabling Act to provide that "any metropolitan municipal corporation
52
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Putet Sound
.}
Snohomish County
Richmond Beac
Treatment Plant
Cerkeek Park
Treatment
Plant
West Point
Treatment Plant
Lake Hills
Interim
Treatment Plant
AJki
Treatmeni
. .Plant
..enton
Ticalmcm
Metro Comprehensive Plan
Metro boundary
Sewerage service
area boundary
Facilities completed
by 1970
Facilities to be
constructed aflat 1969
Metropolitan facilities
to be constructed
nd operated by others
Fig. 8. Original Boundaries of Seattle Metro
Source: The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, Metro The First Ten Years
1958-1968, p. 39.
53
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now existing or hereafter created, within a class A county contiguous to a class
AA county or class AA county, shall upon the effective date of this 1971 amenda-
tory act as to metropolitan corporations formed after the effective date of this
1971 amendatory act, have the same boundaries as those of the respective central
county of such metropolitan corporations ..." (Washington Law, Extraordinary
Session, 1971, Ch 303, p0 116o)0 The amendment also provided that such boundar-
ies could be further enlarged by the annexation procedures set forth in the original
act. Further, contiguous metropolitan municipal corporations could be consolidated
into a single corporation upon resolutions of the respective councils» In such event,
the largest city (in terms of population) would be the central city and the largest
county would be the central county of the consolidated corporation.
This amendment, which increased by almost tenfold the land area under Seattle
Metro's jurisdiction, was a part of the 1971 legislation which made state funds
available to local transit systems, Including the local power to levy a .3 of a
cent sales tax. Numerous problems in the administration of the sales tax were
to be avoided by imposing it throughout the couity, rather than tieing it to the
boundaries of Metro. The county, then, seemed to be the natural and appro-
priate regional unit for Seattle Metro, an example, perhaps, of the emerging
role of the county as a vehicle for regionalization.
Expansion of Metro to the boundaries of King County inevitably has produced
speculation about the necessity of having two county-wide governments operat-
ing independently of each other: Seattle Metro and King County. Seattle Metro's
Task Force on Intergovernmental Relations has at least marginal interest in this
issue. At least one of the major reasons for not using the county government
originally rather than Seattle Metro has disappeared; the passage of the home rule
charter for King County in 1968 has resulted in what is regarded as a competent
administrative structure in the courthouse. Although merger will continue to be
an issue, particularly as Metro Seattle moves into additional functions, there
is little reason to believe that it will occur in the near future. Seattle Metro is
very competently managed, it is financially viable, and it has a widespread and
active citizen participation program; there is small likelihood that it will be
criticized for inefficiency or insensitivity, nor that there will be a financial
"crunch." In addition, it is widely respected for the job it has done in cleaning
up Lake Washington. On the other hand, King County government is locally
respected. The "crisis" factor present in many consolidations and mergers does
not appear to exist with respect to Seattle Metro and King County.
Yet, the rationality of merger cannot be disposed of this easily. There is a
local theory of community process in Seattle which says that the combination of
Scandinavian common sense, an immigration of civically active expatriates,
and a greater concern with cabins and lakes than with local government by the
bulk of the residents, has made efforts by rational reformists somewhat more
successful in Seattle. Conceivably, then as Seattle Metro attempts to move into
the solid waste disposal and water supply functions, merger could be effected with-
out the stimulus of a "crisis."
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Functional Expansion
In 1962, Roscoe Martin could only conclude that Seattle Metro was "off to a
good start." Having been trimmed back to the area immediately surrounding
Lake Washington and incongruous with its watershed, Seattle Metro could not be
viewed as regional in scope. It was fust another single~function special district.
Yet, it had potential, and a civic leader in the person of James Ellis who was
determined that that potential would become reality.
Almost immediately after the election of 1958, Ellis and area leaders began the
work of expanding Metro, and in 1961 the Mayor of Seattle and the King County
Commissioners appointed a metropolitan transportation committee. Ellis had
always been interested in the public transit function; through control of transit
one could have a significant impact on the environment and could, also, con-
tribute to the life of the central business district.
In 1962, the committee report recommended that Metro assume the transit func-
tion via the route of concurrent resolution of its component governments, rather
than by popular vote. The fledgling Metro Council (perhaps wisely) declined to
take that action.
Four of the smaller metro municipalities passed resolutions for Metro to submit
the proposed transit function to the voters. In September, 1962, metro voters
defeated the proposal by a margin of almost two to one, and Seattle Metro re-
mained a single-purpose special district.
After the state legislature in 1967 enabled Metro to prepare a plan prior to sub-
mitting a new function for voter approval, Metro and the Puget Sound Govern-
mental Conference engaged a consulting firm to prepare a transit plan for the
Seattle area.
The proposal for adding the transit function and issuing general obligation bonds
to acquire and expand the system was submitted to Metro voters in February of
1968. The measure achieved a simple majority but failed to gain the three-fifths
majority approval necessary for Metro to issue general obligation bonds.
Again, James Ellis had a central role to plan in the evolutionary history of
Seattle Metro. What is generally acknowledged to be one of the most publicized
and effective civic organizations in the country Forward Thrust, Inc. was
formed in Seattle in 1966 with Ellis as its president. Forward Thrust activism is
involved in all of the pieces that made possible the eventual success of Seattle
Metro in assuming the transit function, as well as numerous other efforts on behalf
of the Seattle area (Ellis, Feb 1969, pp. 56-60).
In 1969 the Washington state legislature acted to make state funds available to
public transportation, beginning July 1, 1971. The legislature earmarked half
of the 2% state excise tax on automobile ownership to be used for public trans-
portation .
55
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The transit plan approved by nearly 60% of the King County (Seattle Metro) voters
on September 19 of 1972 was, in many respects, a product of a decade of experi-
ence and adjustment by metropolitan leaders. The success of the Seattle experi-
ence is very much an example of the American system of federalism dependent
on a change in both state and national willingness to support urban transit systems
and local initiative to seek and use that support.
The Seattle transit system is not dependent on general obligation bonds for funding
(freeing the election from the 3/5 majority requirement). The System is projected
to meet all operating and capital improvements costs from the farebox receipts, a 3/10
of a cent King County sales tax, state automobile excise and gas taxes, and federal
grants'and gas taxes (Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, May, 1972, p. 4.)
Seattle Metro acquired the city-owned Seattle bus system, and the privately
ownsd county-suburban system and began operations on January 1, 1973. The
transit system will be operated directly by the Council rather than by a transit
commission. City finances will be eased somewhat by Metro assuming the transit
function, and Seattle residents were probably influenced by the promise that the
county-wide sales tax to support the system would be balanced by ending the City
of Seattle's household tax.
Seattle Metro, after studying five,other metropolitan transit systems, lays claim
to a pioneering effort in several areas:
1. The most extensive community involvement program in development
and implementation of the system plan.
2. The most liberal elderly fare policy of any of the systems visited.
3. Metro transit is pledged to develop a fleet of low-polluting vehicles.
(Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, Dec 1972, p. 10).
In assuming the transit function and expanding its boundaries county-wide, the
Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle is not quite the misnomer it was when
Seattle Metro was "just another special district. "
River Basin Coordinating Committee (RIBCO)
RiBCO was formed in 1971 at the initiative of Metro and King County to meet the
requirements of the 1969 federal legislation for the development of plans for the
control of water pollution in the Lake Wdshington-Cedar and Green River basin
(see Figure 9 ). When it became apparent that the program should be under the
control of elected representatives because of the need for legislation and funding,
the committee requested the Metro Council to assume legal and financial re-
sponsibility for the Committee, which it did. This decision was significant in
terms of possible further expansion of Metro into the functions of solid waste and
water distribution.
56
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f ^XBRETT
COUNTY DOUNDARV
Fig. 9. Lake Washington and Green River Drainage Basins
57
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The committee is composed of representatives of King and Snohomish counties,
the City of Seattle, the Puget Sound Governmental Conference, the Puget Sound
Air Pollution Control Agency, all sewer districts and cities in the basin, all
water districts in King County, Seattle Metro through its Task Force for Citizen
Participation, and one non-voting member each from the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the State Department of Ecology.
In late 1972, Metro's Council formed a Basin Environment Committee to serve as
a policy advisory group on the river basin planning effort (Municipality of Metro-
politan Seattle, Dec 1972) Its function is to review all recommendations of
RIBCO and transmit its reactions on to the Metro Council.'
The work of the Commission has been to conduct various studies preliminary to
the development of plans and recommendations. The Puget Sound Governmental
Conference has produced the basic study on land use and allocation. Four other
studies due to be completed in July, 1974, are on the subjects of water pollution
control and abatement, water resources management, urban runoff apd basin
drainage, and solid waste management. In addition, the Puget Sound Air Pollu-
tion Agency is developing an air quality plan which it would like to expand and
integrate with the other water and waste management studies when funding be-
comes available. Metro's Task Force for Citizen Participation is responsible for
communication to and input from citizen groups through dissemination of interim
study findings and discussions at community meetings.
The two studies that have implications for functional expansion of Metro are those
dealing with solid waste and water resources. Solid waste is now disposed of
through City, County, and private facilities. The recommended plan is expected
to call for a combination of various methods: composting; regional sanitary land-
fills; landfills with shredded waste; landfills with baled waste; recycle Centers;
ocean disposal, and transporting shredded waste in the sewerage system. Such
plans will be integrated with those of water resources and pollution control. It
could be expected, therefore, that the study would recommend that responsibility
for county-wide solid waste disposal be vested in Metro. One possible problem
is that the enabling legislation for Metro specifically authorizes garbage disposal
and an amendment may be necessary to include the disposal of trash.
The City of Seattle is the major purveyor of water through direct service in the
City and through contracts in the County (at a higher rate). There is, reputedly,
some suburban dissatisfaction with this arrangement, because of the higher rates
and the lack of direct representation on the Seattle City Council. Too, the con-
struction and operation of water distribution and sewage treatment should be closely
coordinated, if not integrated. Conceivably, therefore, the study could recom-
mend the metropolitan administration of water supply, vested in Metro, and possible
under the enabling legislation.
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Metro and the Puget Sound Governmental Conference
Roscoe Martin's concluding comments on Seattle noted the existence of another
regional entity, the Puget Sound Governmental Conference, that was truly
regional in scope. Formed prior to Metro in 1957, it originally included only
four counties in its membership. In 1961, the four central cities joined the
Conference, and in 1966 it assumed the A-95 review function.
The relationship between Metro and PSGC has bsen largely a collaborative one,
notably in the public transportation field and in RIBCO. There is disagreement
currently, however, on the, division of labor with respect to planning for sewage
disposal. Metro takes the position that it is in a better position to plan for
sewage disposal and treatment facilities because of its experience and expertise
in this field. The Conference believes that planning for land use involves a
series of "trade-offs" between competing mission-oriented operating cigsncies
and the responsibility for negotiating these trade-offs into a plan for develop-
ment is better vested in an agency independent of the operating agencies.
If Metro lays a sewer line down a valley which lies in tax-frozen agricultural
status, it defeats the State policy of retaining lands in agricultural use by re-
lieving the urban fringe farmer of taxes based upon high speculative values. If
EPA requires that future shopping centers be built on smaller scales to avoid the
heavy concentrations of automobile exhaust, it is encouraging urban sprawl and
its attendant higher utility costs. The planners believe that a balance must be
negotiated among these various interests and this negotiation should bs conducted
by the Conference which views itself in a third-party position.
This type of disagreement is occurring with regularity throughout the country and
is by no means peculiar to Seattle. It is focussing not only on the issue of plan-
ning for land use development. It is concerned also with the problem of multiple
special purpose agencies spawned by the categorical grant programs of the Federal
Government. This latter problem has been the impetus for "umbrella" agency pro-
posals ajid the "Big 7" proposals to the Office of Management and Budget for link-
ages at both the federal and regional levels, referred to in other sections of this
report1 (Council of State Governments and others, Dec 29, 1972).
The issues of land planning versus functional planning and the introduction of
House Bill 791 into the state legislature has moved Metro to form a Task Force on
Intergovernmental Relations. Itp first task was to review HB 791, the State Land
Planning Act, for its possible impact on Metro. This act, introduced in 1973
in anticipation of federal legislation sponsored by Senator Jackson encouraging
states to develop land use planning policies would, among other things, attempt
to differentiate between land planning and functional planning and would desig-
nate a regional agency (probably the Conference) to have certain planning powers,
including the power to comment on the compatibility of both functional and sub-
regional land use plans with the regional plan.
The Chairwoman of the Task Force is also a member of the Conference. Other
members include the Mayor of Renton, the Mayor of Mercer Island, the Mayor
of Kent, the County Executive, and a County Councilman. The Association of
59
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Washington Cities is also a concerned party for reasons of blocking state involve-
ment with local government. With the apparent reluctance of the Conference
directors to expand its functions and the resistance of the various local interests
to the State Land Planning Act, one would have to predict the failure of the
State Act and the continuation of the current disagreements over planning as
well as the ongoing collaborative arrangements.
Metro and EPA Programs
It should be noted that Metro is currently involved in a dispute with federal
water pollution control regulations and the EPA that could have an adverse effect
on Metro if its point if view is ignored.
Essentially, the dispute arises partly from the fact that Metro has "saved" Lake
Washington by diverting treated effluents into Puget Sound.
Of its five plants discharging into the Sound only one (Renton) provides secondary
Treatment. The 1972 Federal Water Quality Law requires municipally owned
waste-treatment systems to provide secondary treatment by 1977. Metro contends
that ths Sound is an unusual body of water possessing a rich concentration of dis-
solved oxygen which when combined with its depth and "washing action" makes
it environmentally acceptable. Metro is preparing a plan calling for the "best
practicable treatment" by 1983 which if accepted as an alternative to the 1977
requirement would save $55,000,000. Essentially this alternative would call for
the removal from effluent of toxic materials, oil, other contaminants, and,
possibly, other oxygen-demon ding materials (Seattle Times, June 29, 1973).
If Metro is not successful with its alternative plan, there will be difficult times
ahead for Metro as it is forced to raise its rates by 95$ to $2.00 per month to
finance construction of additional treatment facilities which may be viewed as
not necessary.
Conclusion
Seattle Metro can be viewed as having limited success as a form of regional govern-
ment. Its land area is not exactly coincidental with the direction of urbanization,
but it contains the bulk of the urbanized area and much more. Nor does it cover
the drainage area of Lake Washington which extends into Snohomish County, but
it is contracting with the sewer districts in that area, so that functionally it is
providing regional disposal and treatment'services.
With Snohomish activating its metropolitan municipality in anticipation of taking
over the public transit function, Seattle Metro is foreclosed from expanding in
that area. Undoubtedly the other counties will follow this pattern, as it appears
necessary. Seattle Metro can be seen, therefore, in the long run as a sub-
regional unit, regionalizing the Seattle core, but not beyond the boundaries of
King County.
60
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Within this sub-region, Metro Seattle had moved with a success unusual for
local governmental reform movements. It has acquired a second major function
and is moving toward additional ones. It apparently has a high levsl of credi-
bility in the community, if only because of its success in cleaning up La'
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SECTION VI
Bl-STATE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF ST. LOUIS
Introduction
The Bi-State Development Agency, like all local government structures, is a
product of broad social and economic trends and local circumstances. These
forces shape the politics of the area, which in turn influence the form of
government structure.
The usual difficulties faced by proponents of regional government is achieving
consensus among competing interests are complicated further in St. Louis, be"
cause it straddles a state line. Thus, an additional network of political and
economic interests must be reckoned with. The two and one-half million in-
habitants reside in five counties in Missouri (counting St. Louis City as a county)
and three in Illinois. (The official SMSA includes only 2 counties in Illinois,
excluding Monroe County. Monroe County is, however, included in the juris-
diction of Bi-State and Franklin County is not.)
Table 5
Population Data for Counties in the St. Louis Area
% Increase % of Total Area
Counties1970 Population 1960 to 1970 Population
Missouri
Franklin
Jefferson
St. Charles
St. Louis City
St. Louis County
Total Missouri
Illinois
Madison
Monroe
St. Clair
(E. St. Louis)
Total Illinois
TOTAL
55,127
105,647
92,954
622,236
951,671
1,827,635
250,934
18,831
285, 199
(69,996)
554,964
2,382,599
23.7
58.6
75.5
-17.0
35.2
12.6
11.7
21.4
8.6
(-14.3)
2.3
4.4
3.9
26.1
39.9
76.7
10.5
J12io
23.3
100.0
Source: 1970 Census of Population, Report PC(1) A-27 Missouri and Illinois,
Tables 10 and 13.
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ST. LOUIS METROPOLITAN AREA
STANDARD METROPOLITAN
STATISTICAL AREA
t CENTRAL CITY
Bi-Slate Development Aoenov
^, « r^ t
Fig. 10. Boundaries of St. Louis SMSA and Bi-State Development Agency
63
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With three-fourths of the population living in Missouri and four-fifths of the
Missouri residents living in St. Louis City and St. Louis County, these two
jurisdictions play a dominant role in the affairs of local and regional govern-
ment. This role is a divided one, on occasion, between the interests profiting
from the westward migration from St. Louis City out into the newly developing
areas of the County and the interests of St. Louis City. The support of the
former mayor of St. Louis City for the location in Illinois of the major airport
for the St. Louis area to replace Lambert Field in Missouri was an attempt to
counteract this westward flow of poopulotion by opening up for development
the close-in areas on the east side of the Mississippi.
The two old cities of St. Louis ornd East St- Louis have undergone the change in
social class typical of central cities that have not expanded their boundaries for
future growth.
Table 6
1970 Minority Races, Median Income, and Education, Counties in
St. Louis Metropolitan Area
Family Median % Minority Average
Counties Income Races Education0
Missouri
Franklin $ 8,760 1.3 9.5
Jefferson 9,742 1.0 11.1
St. Charles 10,855 1.5 12.1
St. Louis City 8,182 41.3 9.6
St. Louis County 12,392 5.2 12.3
Illinois
Madison $10,249 5.5 11.5
Monroe 9,352 0.1 10.4
St. Clair 9,547 22.6 11.0
E.St. Louis 6,654 69.3 9.4
Source: 1970 Census of Population, Report PC (1) C-27 Missouri and Illinois,
Tables 88, 89, 120 & 124.
aMedian school years completed for all persons 25 years old and over.
These data have significance in illustrating the differences in social class and the
concentration of minority races in the two major cities. One result has been a
specialization of politics anpl problems. Minority race politics has acquired
strength of its own in its acquisition of governmental resources in the old cities;
from these bases the minorities are able to press for solutions to the problems
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important to them: inequality of opportunity, deteriorating facilities and serv-
ices (including public transit) and jobs. Foremost of these problems is that of the
fiscal disparity between the central cities and the suburbs brought on by the rela-
tive decline in the central cities' property tax base. (See Table 7 .) St. Louis
City has tried to solve this problem with a 1% earnings tax levied on those who
reside and work in the City.. Other governmental units continue to depend on
the property tax as their main source of local tax revenue.
As could be expected, there are many units of local government. In addition to
the two states and seven counties, there are 169 municipalities, 46 townships,
145 special districts (105 with property taxing powers) and 108 school districts.
The principal regional bodies as depicted in Figure 11, are the East-West Gate-
way Coordinating Council (established in 1965 and coterminous with the SMSA)
and the Bi-State Development Agency embracing St. Louis County, St. Louis
City, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County in Missouri and Madison, Mon-
roe, and St. Clair Counties in Illinois. There is no single sewer district, this
responsibility being divided principally between the Metropolitan Sewer District
covering St. Louis City and St. Louis County and the East Side Levee Sanitary
District operating within Madison County on the Illinois side.
Metropolitan Reform in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri, is a particularly striking example of the dilemma of Ameri-
can metropolitan areas. As a case study, St. Louis history is rich in the "how
not to do it" literature of metropolitan reform (Schmandt, Steinbicker & Wendel,
1959). The unraveling of the unsuccessful metropolitan efforts in St. Louis has
also become a fertile field of publication for both the analysts and the advocates
of metropolitan reform.
Much of Scott Greer's (1963) pioneering work in attempting to understand the
subjective meaning of metropolitan fragmentation, and citizen apathy or antago-
nizism to a reformed structure of government, is based on field work conducted
in St. Louis, Missouri.
Depending on one's approach to metropolitan problems, St. Louis is either a fore-
boding example of the consequences of lost opportunity or a monument to the re-
markable durability of the "jerry-built" system of local governments in metropoli-
tan areas.
The Early St. Louis Adaptive Pattern
After incorporation in the eighteenth century, St. Louis was able to annex both
incorporated and unincorporated territory through the 1860's by means of state
enabling acts enlarging its boundaries. By the 1870's the city became disgusted
with the county government, feeling exploited by the non-city residents of the
county (Bo I lens, 1961, pp. 61-65).
6B
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Table 7
Percent of Growth in Assessed Valuations, Counties in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, 1968-1972
Assessed Val
1968
%of
Total
Assessed Val
1972
%of
Total
% Change
1968-1972
Missouri
Franklin
Jefferson
St.. Clair
St. Louis County
St. Louis City
Total Missouri
Illinois?
Madison
Monroe
St. Clair
E. St. iouis
Total Illinois
* . ' -
$ 100,098,888
164,363,133
169,254,113
2,405,235,425
1,797,469,835
$4,636,421,394
$ 950,217,064
65,770,806
756,794,138
(168,802,087)
$1,772,782,008
2.2
3.5
3.7
51.9
38.7
100.0
53.6
3.7
42.7
(9.5)
100.0
i
$ 142,326,233
209,061,015
236,955,241
3,058,992,332
1,754,375,184
$5,401,710,005
Assessed Val
1971
$ 996,465,495
83,339,413
774,868,918
(161,640,029)
$1,854,673,826
2.6
3.9
4.4
56.6
32.5
100.0
53.7
4.5
41.8
(8.7)
100.0
+42.2
+27.2
+40.0
+27.2
- 2.4
+16.5
% Change
1968-1971
+ 4.9
+26.7
+ 2.4
(- 4.2)
+ 4.6
Source: State Tax Commission of Missouri and Illinois State Department of Local Government Affairs.
Illinois assessed valuations not available.
1972
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1970 Population (SMS A) - 2,364,000
Land Area 4,119 sq rr.i
Total Units - 483
Regional
(Multi-
County)
en
-j
East -West Gateway
Coordinating Council
St. Louis City
St. Louis Co.
Jefferson Co., Mo.
St. Charles Co., Mo.
Franklin Co ., Mo .
Madison Co., Ill .
St. ClairCo., III.
Monroe Co., Ill .
Board Org. 25-
Member Federation
Major Functions -
A -95 Review,
Regional Planning
Bi -State Development
Agency
St. Louis City
St. Louis Co.
Jefferson Co., Mo.
St. Charles Co., Mo.
Madison Co., Ill .
St. ClairCo., III.
Monroe Co . , III.
Board Org. -10 mem-
bers appointed by
Governors of Mo . & 1 1 1.
Major Functions - Public
transit, Arch elevators,
Granite City Harbor,
Parks Metro Airport
Illinois Air Pollution
Control Dist.
Bond Co.
Clinton Co.
Madison Co .
Monroe Co .
Randolph Co.
St. ClairCo.
Washington Co.
State Agency for Air
Pollution Control
Mo. Air Quality
Control District
St. Louis City
St. Louis Co.
Franklin Co.
St. Charles Co.
Jefferson Co .
State Agency for
Air Poll. Control
Other State Districts for Federal Cc*egorical
Programs: LEAA, CHP, OEO, HUD, Etc.
County
7 General Purpose
County Govts. (SMSA)
St. Louis Airport
Authority
St. Louis Co.
Operates Lambert Field
Tri-City Port Authority
Madison Co., Ill .
Multi-Purpose Special
Dist., operational in
ports only
St. Louis Metropolitan
Sewer Authority
St. Louis Co. & City
Single Purpose Spec.
District
East Side Levee
Sanitary Dist.
Madison Co., Ill .
Single Purpose
Special Dist.
OTHER
175 Cities
102 School Districts
148 Other Special Dists.
46 Townships
Fig. 11. Governmental Characteristics St. Louis Metropolitan Area
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In 1875 the city was successful in adding a pro-St. Louis City section to the new
state constitution that provided St. Louis the ability to unilaterally determine its
boundaries and separate itself from the county. A combined vote in the city and
county (not requiring concurrent majorities) allowed the city to more than triple
its area and achieve independence from the county in 1876.
Rapid urbanization during the next half a century resulted in the City of St. Louis
becoming disenchanted with outmoded boundaries. Attempts to get the state legis-
lature to enlarge the city's boundaries begun some thirty years after city-county
separation were not successful. During the early 1920's state voters rejected pro-
posed constitutional amendments to allow St. Louis to expand.
However, in 1924 a state constitutional amendment provided for the establishment
of a joint board of freeholders (nine from the county, nine from the city) to place
before the voters of the city and county their recommendation from three options
for restructuring included in the amendment: (1) city-county consolidation under
the city government; (2) the city's reentry into the county; (3) annexation of part
of the county by the city. However, the procedure called for conclurrent majori-
ties of city and county voters. When the proposal placed before the voters in
1926 was to consolidate the county area under the city government, it received
a favorable vote in the city but was defeated decisively by out~of-city county
voters.
In 1930 the voters of Missouri turned down a constitutional amendment that
would have allowed the incorporated areas of St. Louis to retain their inde-
pendence in a county-wide federation. While integrative proposals were being
rejected, incorporations were occurring with frequency within the county
23 new municipalities were added to the previous total of 15 in the county dur~
ing the decade of the 1930's. By 1952 there were 94 incorporated cities, and
St. Louis County enjoyed the dubious distinction of being second only to Cook
County, Illinois, in number of incorporated municipalities.
Obviously, the developmental history of St. Louis indicates a concern by the
area's leaders about the relationship of the central city to suburban growth areas.
They had enjoyed some success with the state government. Again in 1945, the
new Missouri constitution added another option specifically available to the city
and county of St. Louis. This option permitted the establishment by petition of
a joint city-county commission to draw up a charter for one or more metropolitan
districts to meet the area's service needs. But despite St. Louis' favorable stand-
ing for metropolitan reform spelled out in the state constitution (Sec. 30(a)(b)),
the state was willing to intervene only to the extent of permitting the establishment
of a variety of integrative mechanisms,-any of which would have to receive voter
approva I.
What is evident in the history of St. Louis is the city's painful realization that its
dominant (and somewhat arrogant) relationship to the non-city county was steadily
eroded as people rather consistently chose to live outside the city. That kind of
choice as a cause of the unsymetrical spread city is attributed to a variety of
reasons from the morality play of the failure of Americans to love their cities
to the more prosaic use of the automobile. Typically, such analysis emphasizes
68
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the helplessness of cities in relationship to negative (anti-city) forces at work
in the process of metropolitanization. That attitude seems apparent at the
leadership level in the City of St. Louis as they struggled with metropolitanism.
The complex web of reasons for urban spread are subject to a variety of inter-
pretations. But few would disagree that the flight from central cities has been
accelerated by Americans seeking to live in desirable (and available) residential
housing. The derogated bedroom community, however, also was either con-
currently or subsequently draining central cities of their traditional concentra-
tion of commerce and industry. Activity followed people to the suburbs. (And
"where the action is" became the rallying cry of the beleaguered city-defenders).
Some of the malaise lumped into the bundle of metropolitan problems is attribut-
able to the perceived loss of status of the central city relative to the rest of the
metropolitan area not a particularly compelling argument for metropolitan re-
form, but one that appears recurrently in St. Louis history.
The very concept of what a central city is or should be has been stood on its
head by metropolitanism. The "decline," "death," "plight," or "crisis" of
central cities is endemic in metropolitan literature. It is only recently that
concern has focused on making cities livable, rather than lamenting the anti-
city growth of quasi-livable suburbs.
But with a remarkably contemporary emphasis on livability of cities, the
nationally-known St. Louis city planning consultant, Harland Bartholomew,
drew up his Urban Land Policy for the St. Louis City Plan Commission in 1936
(Johnston, 1973, p. 123).
The issues Bartholomew raised remain a source of conflict in many cities today.
He pointed out the costs of cities' overzoning for commercial, industrial and
multi-family development with the dual result of nondevelopment in the city
in many instances and single-family development becoming almost exclusively
suburban. The Bartholomew plan tended to emphasize the essential importance
to the city of residential neighborhoods, an idea rather unique for America's
Empire cities in the 1930's.
While there is some validity in assuming that introspection on the part of the
City of St. Louis might have been more productive than anti-suburban bitterness,
the complexity of the St. Louis metropolitan area does not lend itself to analyz-
ing missed cues in decision-making. Almost without exception the metropolitan
reform proposals involve only St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis, which
of themselves probably qualify for the phrase "a maze of local governments"
but are not coterminous with the metropolitan area as defined by the Bureau of
the Census in Standard Metropolitan Areas.
Recent St. Louis Adaptations
In 1936 Harlan Bartholomew could reasonably center his attention on the city,
although his efforts focused on urban trends that clearly warned the city of
loses relative to suburban growth, and suggested some remedial action in land-use
69
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zoning, etc. By 1951, Bartholomew was warning:
The bi-state area Is the city of the future.
An over-all plan to guide and direct the population pattern of the
entire bi-state area is badly needed. Such a plan has been prepared
for only two parts of the area St. Louis and St. Louis County
and these two plans have necessarily been made without the benefit
of an overall metropolitan plan (Duffy, 1964, p. 15).
In the intervening years we may have become less sanguine about the ability of
planning to "guide and direct population patterns," but Bartholomew's perception
of the "city of the future" raises disturbing questions concerning the structure of
government for what he described in essentially unitary terms.
It is apparent from the literature surrounding various St. Louis reform proposals
that much of the impetus for such reform was grounded in concern over the rela-
tive decline of the St. Louis region as a dominant commercial and industrial
center in the United States. Civic leaders believed the irrationality of govern-
mental units was discouraging new businesses from locating within the region.
That cause and effect relationship, while not obvious, is accepted as the gospel
by the St. Louis reform group. Thomas Duffy concludes of the constituent units
of the area:
Statistically, they form the ninth most populous and the tenth largest
economic area in the nation. The area should rank substantially higher
in both categories. Beneath its failure lies a continuing story of frustra-
tion and non-realization of one of the greatest potentials in the county,
and a present-day struggle to shed the reason for failure (Duffy, 1964,
p. 13).
And statistically, another article, again underscores a low growth rate as a
major metropolitan problem for the St. Louis area:
From 1900 to 1950 all other metropolitan areas averaged a population
growth one and one-half times that of metropolitan St. Louis. Between
1950 and 1960 its growth was 19.8 per cent as compared with an average
of 26.4 per cent for all 212 metropolitan areas. The relative population
decline continued through 1967, and in the period since 1950 the area
slipped from 8th to 10th rank in the country (Ross & Grossman, 1968,
p. 32).
The organizational effort that resulted in the formation of the Bi-State Develop-
ment Agency grew out of that kind of concern for growth and vigor for the region.
With two-thirds of the population of the entire metropolitan area residing in
St. Louis City and St. Louis County, results of these two units were the focus
of the various metropolitan reform movements. In the summer of 1956 the Metro-
politan St. Louis Survey was initiated to conduct a broad-scale examination of
the area's governmental needs. Growing out of the metropolitan reform movement
70
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of the 50's, the Survey was a joint project of the political science departments
of St. Louis University and Washington University, funded by the Ford Founda-
tion and the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation Charrtable Trust.
Prior to the initiation of the Survey, an ambitious young St. Louis alderman,
A. J. Cervantes, was leading a movement to obtain signatures on petitions to
establish a board of freeholders to draw up a -netropolitan charter, under Mis-
souri law.
The then incumbent mayor of St. Louis, Mayor Tucker, was not pleased with
Cervantes leadership a-nbitions, and enthusiastically backed the idea of a study
of metropolitan reform as an alternative to the action proposed by the Cervantes
group.
The Survey itself was to become an issue in the subsequent (1959) metropolitan
reform campaign. Critics would argue that the recommendations of the Survey
were influenced too greatly by the "art of the possible" rather than "real needs"
for metropolitan reform. Extensive public opinion sampling in the City and
County did make obvious the public's hostility to major reform.
Of the four possibilities contained in Missouri law merger, reentry, annexa-
tion and the special district approach the latter appeared least traumatic and
most likely to win voter approval in the County and City. The prestige of the
Survey's findings was to become decisive in the deliberations of the board of
freeholders appointed to draft a metropolitan charter.
The proposal voted upon by St. Louis County and City residents in 1959 would
have created another level of government in the form of a muIti-function special
district. The proposal attracted the opposition of both those who favored the
status quo, suspicious of any form of metropolitan government, and those who
opposed the special district as inadequate to solve problems which required a
merger of city and county governing systems. This cleavage between the uni-
tary and federated groups within the reform movement in St. Louis is credited
with being a significant aspect of the failure of reform. The 1959 multi-
function special district proposal was defeated by a two to one margin by city
voters, and by a three io one margin by voters in the county.
In common with other analytical treatments of metropolitan reform campaigns,
there are no really satisfactory reasons that explain defeat or success for St.
Louis. In terms of the influence of what might loosely be labeled the power
structure in St. Louis political, business, civic and labor leaders most
were in the column of supporters of metropolitan reform. But in terms of stakes,
the diagnosis of failure concludes that their support was marginal rather than
committed.
In 1962 the consolidationist wing of the St. Louis reform movement chose another
tack, ignoring the specified routes for reform of St. Louis County and City in the
Missouri Constitution. The self-styled "borough-plan" of 1962 which would have
consolidated city and county government, was placed by initiative petition on the
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state-wide^ballot as a constitutional amendment. The issues identified during
this campaign (which was ignored by most of the state) were more specific than
the generalized rhetoric about "taxes, supergovernments, economy and efficiency"
present in the 1959 campaign.
Henry Schmandt (1963, p. 101) listed five basic issues developed in 1962: the
strategy of a state-wide vote to "impose" change, economic development, the
City's growing black population, the workability of the plan, and the need for
drastic change.
Statewide the amendment failed with 630',073 opposed and 217,252 favoring the
amendment. In St. Louis City the average vote ratio was opposed by six to five,
in the black wards the losing margin was two to one. The margin of defeat by
county voters was four to one. The borough-p-lan failed to achieve the support
of the areas' politicians and the general impression of the 1962 campaign was
"that business backed the plan and the politicians opposed it" (Schmandt, 1963,
P. 102).
John Bo I lens has 'used St. Louis as an example of "resort to a special district"
approach after the failure of more sweeping reform' proposals. However, the
course of events in St. Louis is really not that logical. Metropolitan reform
proposals were presented to the voters "before and after" the creation of two
metropolitan units Bi-State and the Metropolitan Sewer District, with no
particularly rational sequential pattern. For example, the more drastic borough
plan was presented to voters after the rather decisive defeat of the more moderate
multi-function special district. The potential of adding to the existing functions
of the sewer district and Bi-State has not been realized to any significant degree.
There is the suggestion that neither of these metropolitan agencies' performance
has earned voter approval.
The need for adequate sewers often poses a metropolitan problem of substance
that generates structural change. In St. Louis this problem was characterized
as "critical" for the city and close-in suburbs. In 1954 a study of the problem
by the Bi-State Development Agency and a joint city-county committee recom-
mended the creation of the Metropolitan Sewer District for the City and contiguous
one-third of St. Louis County in greatest need. Bi-State was limited to "making
plans and policy recommendations" for sewage and drainage facilities, although,
under the 1959 amendments to the compact, it may now operate sewage disposal
plants. Bi-State lists the establishment of the sewer district as an accomplishment,
although there is no apparent reason to conclude that the sewer district would not
have been formed if Bi-State had not existed.
Created under one of the four options available to St. Louis County and City
under Missouri law, the charter of the Metropolitan Sewer District was approved
by voters in the City and the densely populated adjacent one-third of the county
in 1954 by three to one margins in both areas. The Charter provided for the
establishment of a special district that could acquire, operate, build, and main-
tain all sewer facilities within the district. The Charter also provided that addi-
tional services could be provided by amending the charter by a popular vote.
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The area of the district can be expanded through petition of a majority of the
owners of land of more than one-half of the land to be annexed, implemented
by board ordinance, or by petition of at least one hundred owners of land to be
annexed and approved by a majority of voters in the area.
The district's governing body is composed of three trustees appointed by the
mayor of St. Louis with the approval of a majority of the judges of the circuit
court in the city, and three selected by the county supervisor with approval of
the local district court. The district can levy taxes up to 10 cents for each
$100 of assessed valuation, collect special assessments, issue bonds after voter
approval, and make service charges.
In 1955 a proposal to enlarge the function of the district to operate public transit
was defeated by voters in the county and city. The opinion data collected dur-
ing the St. Louis Metropolitan Survey in 1956 indicated that vorers were more dis-
satisfied with the performance of the Sewer District than local government in
general. The proposed 1959 reorganization for a county-wide multi-purpose
special distirct would have absorbed the sewer district had it been successful.
Regionalism in St. Louis is obviously beset with any number of difficulties, per-
haps the most basic being the difficulties experienced in the relations of the
City and County of St. Louis. In the broader Bi-State area, these difficulties
are compounded, as numerous perspectives are brought to bear on the area's
"problems."
The Orfgins of Bi-State
As indicated previously, there were concerns about the decline in the St. Louis
area relative to other metropolitan areas. It was felt that the economic revitali-
zation of the area depended upon a recognition of the interdependence of both
sides of the river and the consequent need for burying past differences and the
creation of a mechanism for bringing together leaders from Missouri and Illinois.
The New York Port Authority and the Delaware River Port Authority, upon which
Bi-State was modeled, had their Chambers of Commerce of the State of New
York and of Greater Philadelphia, which were able to span state lines. How-
ever, there was no such regional association in St. Louis and consequently,
leaders in business and industry formed the Metropolitan Plan Association in 1944
for this purpose (Barton, 1965, p. 81).
The Association moved quickly to develop a regionwide plan and in the process
to unify the business community on both sides of the river behind the movement.
Fourteen Functional Committees were created to study the following problem
areas: airports, economic survey, flood control, highways and bridges, housing
and redevelopment, land use and zoning, mass transportation, population study,
railroads, recreation and conservation, rivers development, sewerage and drain-
age, trucking facilities, water supply. Simultaneously, six Area Planning Groups
were formed representing St. Louis City and the counties of St. Louis, Jefferson
and St. Charles in Missouri, and of St. Clair and Monroe in Illinois. Cross
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representation between the area and functional committees was effected (Bi-
State Commission, 1949).
These groups recommended legislation creating an interim Bi-State Commission
and produced a preliminary "Guide Plan for the Development of the Missouri-
Illinois Metropolitan Area." The necessary legislation was passed by the two
legislatures in 1948 and the interim body created. Five members from each
state were appointed by the respective governors: three newspapermen, three
industry representatives, a banker, an attorney, a realtor, and a retailer.
Using the Guide Plan arid an opinion survey of metropolitan leaders, the Com-
mission narrowed the 14 problem areas to "seven major projects as illustrating
the urgent metropolitan heeds requiring a permanent agency for their apVance-
ment, namely: airports, union freight terminals, highways and bridges, mass
transportation, sewerage and drainage facilities, railroads, and parks and con-
servation areas" (Bi-Sfate Commission, 1949, p. 5). Fpr reasons not discussed
in the publicity and literature, seven problem areas were rated as not having
urgency: population study, economic survey (probably a parfof the, Guide Plan),
trucking facilities (clearly included in the union freight terminals category),
land Use and zoning, water supply, housing and redevelopment (possibly seen
as already being handled by the public sector), and, ironically, flood control.
At ah areawi.de,conference held December 17, 1948, and attended by repre-
sentatives of the public and private sectors the Commission submitted a resolu-
tion proposing a Bi-State Development Agency and it was unanimously adopted.
Thereupon, the necessary LEGISLATIVE ACTS for establishing the pro-
posed Bi-State Development Agency were perfected by the Bi-State
Commission with the aid of an Advisory Legislative Committee, the
Legislative Reference Departments of Missouri and Illinois, the Com-
mission on Intergovernmental Cooperation and the Council of State
Governments. The Bi-State CotfimissiQn prepared a REPORT TO THE
GOVERNORS AND LEGISLATURES of the two states entitled "A Bi-
State Development Agency for The Missouri Illinois Metropolitan Area"
which includes the compact with a plan of organization and administra-
tion, and supplementing legislation and afso other material supporting
the proposed;legislation (Bi-State Commission, 1949, p. o).
On June 30, 1949, the necessary enabling acts were passed by the Missouri and
Illinois legislatures and the compact signed on September 20, 1949 (Missouri
Laws, 1949, p. 558).
Organization and Powers of Bi-State
Modeled after the Port Authority of New York, Bi-State operates from a geo-
graphical base of 3,000 sq mi spread over three counties in Illinois and three in
Missouri. The governing body for the agency is composed of ten directors, with
the governors of Illinois and Missouri appointing five each for overlapping five-
year terms. The voting system specifies that decisions can be made only with
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en
Gateway Ate h Passenger
- Transportation System
St. LouUCity
Governors of Missouri & Illinois
Board of Commissioners
Five from Each State
Standing Committees: Executive, Transportation,
Finance, Airport, Waterways, Legislative
Liaison, Pension & Insurance
^Executive Director
Adm. Staff
Bt-Stdte Transit
System
7-County Area
Bi-State Parks
Airport
Cahokia, III.
Wharf & Public
Terminal
Granite City,
Fig. 12.' Organization and Functions Bf-State Development Agency
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concurrent majorities within each state group; i.e., a six-four vote in which
only one Illinois commissioner voted for the proposal would be invalid.
Bi-State has no taxing powers, nor can it issue general obligation bonds. It can
charge fees and issue revenue bonds without referenda.
Its powers fall into two broad categories: operational and planning. First, it
can own and operate bridges, tunnels, airports, wharves, docks bnd harbors,
warehouses, commodity and other storage facilities, grain elevators, sewage
disposal plants, passenger transportation facilities, air, water, rail, motor
vehicle and other terminal facilities (Missouri Laws, 1949, p. 558; 1958,
2nd extra session, p. 150; and 1959, S.B. 25).
Secondly, it can "make plans for submission to the communities involved for co-
ordination of streets, highways, parkways, parking areas, water'supply and
sewage and disposal works, recreational and conservation facilities and projects,
land use patterns and other matters in which joint or coordinated action of the
communities within the areas will be generally beneficial. " Such planning
powers are, therefore, only advisory, but "when such plans are duly approved
by the legislatures of the two states, they shall be binding upon both states with
the same force and effect as if incorporated in this compact." Bi-State may
also make recommendations to Congress for the improvement of transportation,
terminal, and other facilities in the district (Missouri Laws, 1949, p. 558; 1958,
2nd extra session, p. 150; and 1959, S.B. 25).
As an indication of the importance of its planning function, the Agency ques-
tioned the decision of East West Gateway Coordinating Council in 1971 to ini-
tiate planning for rapid transit and pointed out that Bi-State "was the only
legally established transportation agency for the metropolitan area" (Bi-State
Development Agency, Annual Report, 1971-72).
The staff is small (currently an Executive Director and three other employees),
who operate their facilities through agreements with private or public organiza-
tions. The cost of staff is borne by administrative fees charged to the operating
programs. At the time of writing, the contract of the Transit Services Corporation
for operation of the Bi-State Transit System was due to expire and the Agency
was considering bringing the System's employees directly under its supervision,
due partially at least to a belief that the ''middleman" between a customer's i
complaint and its resolution should be eliminated.
The Bi-State Enterprises
Granite City Wharf
In 1956, Bi-State constructed the Granite City Wharf and Public Terminal in
Madison County, Illinois, made possible by a temporary construction loan from
the Granite City Steel Company because financial provisions of the compact
made it difficult to market Bi-State revenue bonds immediately (Bi-State Develop-
ment Agency, 1971-72, p«46). It has received considerable recognition for:
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1) being the only major public terminal on the entire Mississippi River; 2) not
utilizing public borrowing and taxes; and 3) for linking together three modes of
communication at a vital point on the river (Bi-State Development Agency,
1971-72, p. 48). For 1973, expenditures were estimated at $39,995, revenues
at $162,600, resulting in an estimated surplus of $122,605 (Illinois Intergovern-
mental Corporation Commission, 1973).
A competing dock was built adjacent to the Bi-State Wharf by the Tri-City
Regional Port District. The District was created under Illinois legislation passed
in 1959. Its jurisdiction embraces four townships and two islands in Madison
County. The legislation enables the Tri-City District to operate ports, sewerage
systems, public incinerators, and airports, to float general obligations bonds, and
to levy taxes to defray the cost of debt service (Illinois Laws, 1959, p. 71).
At the present time the Tri-City District is in the port function only, although it
is reviewing with various local governments in Madison County the feasibility of
building and operating a public incinerator.
The method of selecting members of the governing body, who serve 3-year
staggered terms, establishes ties to local politics. In addition to four members
appointed by the Governor, three additional members are appointees of the
mayors of the cities of Grqnite, Venice and Madison.
Thus, two separate special districts, both created by the 11 lino's legislature and
completely independent of each, operate wharfs adjacent to each other. How-
ever, it is not so much an example of inconsistency of state policy and politics as
it is an indication of the disaffection by local leaders for Bi-State. It is said by
Illinois interests that Bi-State was oriented to St. Louis and indifferent to local
Illinois interests. (The public area of the Bi-State Wharf is under long-term
lease to a St. Louis firm.)
However, to judge from recent articles in the press, additional port facilities are
needed on the St. Louis side of the river. It is pointed out that St. Louis is the
only sizeable port area on the Mississippi River which has not received federal
funds for harbor construction and improvement since World War II. The failure
to receive such funds is attributed to the fact that proposals have never been
submitted to the Federal government. One of the striking things about such
publicity is that B?-State is not referred to as one of the agencies involved in
the problem. The Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis is criticized
for its failure to develop a workable plan, and it, in turn, has commissioned
East West Gateway to conduct a needs study (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 23
and May 29, 1973).
Gateway Arch
The Arch is a prime example of Bi-State's role in stepping in to meet a public
service problem which lends itself to user charges. The Arch is operated by the
National Park Service. Funds for construction of the Arch were insufficient to
include passenger elevators. In 1962 Bi-State offered to use its revenue bond
powers to provide the $3,300,000 needed for elevators in both legs of the Arch,
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which were completed and placed in operation by May 1968. A 30-yecr lease
was entered into between Bi-State and the Park Service as a basis for the -reve-
nue bond financing (Kirkpatrick, 1971-72, p. 294).
The operation has been a financial success to date. Net income to Bi~State for
the 1972 and 1973 fiscal years was $260,000 and $290,000 respectively (Bi-State
Development Agency, 1971-72, p. 10; Illinois Intergovernmental Corporation
Commission, 1973, p. 6).
Bridges
Bridges across the Mississippi were seen early as a vital part of Bi-State's program.
They were an essential part of the transportation system. ". . . , the political
unit controlling all or most of the bridges across the Mississippi or their construc-
tion could also control traffic flow, which to a large extent means control of the
pattern of land use and residential occupance. Hence, control of the bridges
could well determine the operational milieu in which any area-wide government
would operate" (Public Adm & Metropolitan Affairs Program, 1965, p. 49).
Bi-State attempted in 1955 to acquire the McKinley Bridge, located between
St. Louis City and Venice, Illinois and owned by the Illinois Terminal Railroad.
The attempt was blocked by a suit, and new legislation was needed to clarify
Bi-State's powers. Several years elapsed in the meantime, and by the time the
suit was dropped in the late 1950's the bridge had been sold to others (Public Adm
& Metro Affairs Program, 1965, p. 51).
Bi-State maintained an interest in bridges, however, coming out with a study in
February 1963, proposing a toll bridge between Crystal City in Jefferson County,
Missouri, and Harrisonviile in Monroe County, Illinois. However, a separate
organization the Missouri-lllinois-Jefferson-Monnoe Bridge Commission was
created in 1965 by compact between the two states. Five commissioners from
each state are appointed by the governors. The purpose of the Commission was,
as stated in the compact, to "plan, construct, maintain and operate a bridge
and approaches thereto across the Mississippi River at or near Crystal City,
Missouri, at a point deemed by the Commission as most suitable to the interests
of the citizens of the States of Illinois and Missouri; . . . (Kirkpatrick, 1971-72,
p. 326). Since 1965, the Commission has been engaged in planning for the bridge,
No definite date for construction is currently under consideration.
Current planning activities of the Commission have been hampered by the indeci-
sion regarding the location of additional airport facilities, either in the Waterloo,
Illinois area, Monroe County, or through expansion of Lambert Field in St. Louis
County. The last meeting of the Commission was held in April 1972, and no
further meetings will be held until the airport decision has been made (Illinois
Intergovernmental Corporation Commission, 1973, p. 60).
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Airports
Another functional responsibility of consequence is the operation of Bi-State
Parks Airport at Cahokia, Illinois, a general aviation airport convenient to
downtown St. Louis. After four years of negotiations the agency was able to
successfully package the funds necessary to acquire and develop the airport
with grants from the Federal Aviation Administration, the State of Illinois, an
advance of $500,000 payable over seven years from the City of St. Louis, and
revenue bonds. Originally Bi-State proposed to purchase Parks Airport with
funds from the federal government, Illinois and revenue bonds, and lease it to
the City of St. Louis. But St. Louis, fearful of being handed a tax bill by the
Illinois taxing authorities, was vehemently opposed to leasing and operating an
airport within the Illinois taxing jurisdiction. Ultimately, Bi-State reached an
agreement with the Southwest Civic Memorial Airport Association, "a group
composed of East St. Louis area leaders who had organized to prevent the airport
site from being converted into subdivisions," to operate the airport. The airport
was reopened in April 1965, as Bi-State Parks Airport. The airport had a deficit
of $17,221 in 1972, but it is expected to be in the black by 1975 (Illinois Inter-
governmental Corporation Commission, 1973, p. 7).
One of the criticisms levelling at Bi-State is that it is too timid. But while it is
a state-created regional entity, Bi-State's powers are still subject to the con-
sentual agreement of local and state governments. Unless local and state govern-
ments are willing to cooperate voluntarily, Bi-State is not likely to act. The
location of a project in either Illinois or Missouri almost guarantees the opposi-
tion of the excluded state. In 1969, at the request of East-West Gateway, Bi-
State assumed the mantle of Metropolitan Airport Authority, responsible for co-
ordination of operation and development of all airfields in the region. But
Illinois and Missouri are in fierce competition to become the site of a major new
airport in the St. Louis region. Locating a new airport on the Missouri side or
expanding Lambert Field was not as feasible, according to numerous studies, as
an Illinois site, although hope has not died on the Missouri side. But Bi-State
has not been utilized to coordinate the airport problem. In 1970 the Governor
of Illinois chose to establish a new Illinois agency to cooperate with the City of
St. Louis for the development in Illinois of a new metropolitan airport.
At this point in time, there are at least four airport organizations involved in the
major airport developments: 1) Bi-State, itself; 2) the Illinois-St. Louis Airport
Authority promoting the location of a metropolitan airport at Waterloo, Illinois;
3) the Missouri-St. Louis Airport Authority supporting expansion of Lambert Field;
and 4) St. Louis Airport Authority which operates Lambert Field. The decision
between Illinois and Missouri sites will be made by the Federal Aviation Adminis-
tration. The Illinois location was assumed to be the choice of FAA, since appa-
rently Lambert Field could not be enlarged to the extent necessary, but it is claimed
that economic and political pressures on FAA will prove this assumption incorrect.
Gubernatorial choices have shifted from Democratic to Republican in Missouri and
from Republican to Democratic in Illinois in the past year. These changes plus
alleged pressures from a hotel chain which opened a new hotel at Lambert Field
in 1972, have led to speculation that the Illinois site is being reconsidered
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 11 and April 12, 1973). The recent high rate
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of turnover among top federal executives seems to have delayed the St. Louis
decision further (Time, July 23, 1973).
Wherever the site, it is clear that Bi-State will not be able to include operation
of a regional airport as one of its enterprises. Local governmental officials cite
the non-representativeness of the Bi-State structure as a principal reason; two
commissioners of Bi-State stated that the airport was too great a political prize
for the State to give it up. Whatever the reasons the chances tor Bi-State to
become a regional airport authority appear to be non-existent.
Environmental Control
Environmental control activities in St. Louis are scattered across a variety of
local governmental agencies.
Sewage Treatment: Metropolitan Sewer District and the East Side
Levee Sanitary District. A proposal has been submitted to EPA
to form MERTA (Metropolitan East Regional Treatment Associa-
tion) to add East St. Louis and Sauget to the area covered by
ESLSD.
Air Pollution: St. Louis County and St. Louis City.
Flood Plain Zoning: East-West Gateway Coordinating Council has
plans for flood plain zoning, but counties and cities have not
adapted these plans.
Radiation, Noise Pollution, and Visual Pollution Controls: None.
Thus, Bi-State has no active role in environmental control at the present time.
It has, however, conducted important studies on stream and air pollution. Its
study in the 1950's of pollution of the Mississippi, sponsored by the U S Public
Health Service, the Illinois Sanitary Water Board and the Missouri State Board
of Health, led to the Agency's persuading industry to voluntarily install over 7
million dollars of treatment equipment by 1960 (Public Adm & Metro Affairs Program,
1965, p. 41).
As a direct result of a second survey began in 1951, the voters of St. Louis City
and County approved in 1954 the creation of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer Dis-
trict. (Bi-State did not have the power to ope.rate in this field until the 1958 amend-
ments to the compact.) Finally, Bi-State'was one of the sponsors and participated
in the 1967 Interstate Air Pollution Survey of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.
-.v- <
The States of Missouri and Illinois are involved in varying degrees in pollution
control programs in the St0 Louis area. Region 1 of the Missouri Air Conserve- '
tion Commission is responsible for monitoring and enforcing the Commission's air
pollution control regulations in St. Louis City, and St. Louis, Jefferson, Frank-
lin and St0 Charles Counties. St. Louis City and St. Louis County are two of the
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five local governmental units in Missouri operating under "certificates of authority"
to maintain their own control programs. Region 1 directly operates its own monitor-
ing and control program in Jefferson, Franklin, and St. Charles counties (Missouri
Air Conservation Commission, 1972).
On the Illinois side of the area the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has
a district office covering seven counties, including St. Clair, Madison, Monroe,
in the immediate St. Louis area. The Division Office, located in Collinsville,
engages in direct monitoring and control programs in four areas of pollution control:
air, water, noise and land (Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, 1972).
Public Transit
Prior to its assumption of the metropolitan public transit function in 1963, Bi-
State's enterprises had been quasi-public in nature, in the sense that they sub-
sisted on user charges, did not require tax support, and did not impinge upon the
interests of local government. Of these three characteristics, the first two seemed
to apply equally to mass transit; the freedom from $1,900,000 annually in local
taxes seemed to guarantee that the operation could maintain itself from the fare-
box. Such tax relief equally guaranteed that the third characteristic did not
apply; the pending loss of $1,300,000 annually to St. Louis City in property and
gross receipts taxes precipitated its sharp opposition to Bi-State s proposed pur-
chase of the private companies. Opposition interests in St. Louis pointed out
also that takeover by Bi-State would free mass transit fares from review by the
Missouri Public Service Commission. Further, the Commissioners of Bi-State
were reluctant to make an exception to their policy of not competing with private
enterprise; they preferred that the private companies continue in operation with
the aid of local tax subsidies or concessions. However, the private operators
were cooperative; most of them were anxious to get thefr capital back. The
Public Service Company, the operator in St. Louis City, and the County Transit
Company in St. Louis County were losing annually $900,000 and $50,000, re-
spectively (Public Adm & Metro Affairs Progran, 1965, p. 57).
The Commissioners of Bi-State knew that they were embarking on a new and
perilous course, but it was seen also as a test of the Agency's ability to play a
needed enterprise role of an obviously metropolitan nature. One additional
condition had to be met, however, before Bi-State would proceed further: the
support and cooperation of local government. Bi-State tested this by asking for
contributions of $100,000 from local governments to defray the cost of an ap-
praisal of the private companies, a necessary preliminary to the sale of bonds.
The governments responded promptly with the needed funds, including St. Louis
City which was developing a separate proposal in which the City would purchase
the Public Service Company and operate it as a City enterprise. The other sup-
porters were East St. Louis, Alton, Belleville and St. Louis County. Support
from these sources satisfied the condition of local support required by the Com-
missioners and agreements were ultimately executed to purchase eleven bus com-
panies in Illinois and three in Missouri at a total cost of $23,000,000 (Public
Adm & Metro Affairs Program, 1965, p. 65). A professional transit management
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firm, Transit Service Corporation, Inc., made up originally of former executives of
the Public Service Company was retained under contract to operate the system,
Bi-State quickly began to receive an education in the politics of public services.
There were publics involved in mass transit that did not exist with respect to the
Arch elevators, or the Granite City Wharf, or the Cahokia airport. These latter
enterprises could be closed down without any sense of loss of a vital public serv~
ice. Mass transit, however, is increasingly viewed as an essential public service.
The automobile and growth of regional shopping centers were destroying the mar-
ket for public transit all across the country. Declining ridership led to increased
fares which, in turn, stimulated riders to seek other forms of transportation.
Within six months of the takeover by Bi-State, it had to increase the fares; yet
its fares for the first year of operation were $2,200,000 less than that received
by the private companies. Only the tax relief permitted them to operate in the
black in the first year; profit for 1964 was a modest $13,000 (Public Adm &
Metro Affairs Program, 1965, p. 72). Bi-State's commitment to live out of the
fare box eliminated any consideration of public subsidies. But public subsidies
did come, as they had to. It took ten years in the face of an imminent shut-down
of the service, but in 1973 enabling legislation was passed in both states permit-
ting a 1/2$ sales tax to be levied by local governments for mass transit. This legis-
lation had been preceded by an appropriation to Bi-State by the Missouri General
Assembly in 1972 of $1,265,000 out of the $1,953,000 requested. The total deficit
projected for June 30, 1973, exclusive of public subsidy, was estimated at
$4,956,300 (Bi-State Development Agency, 1971-72, p. 3). To avoid the system
closing down by April 1973, local governments contributed the difference of
$688,000 between what had been requested of the legislature and what was ap-
propriated in order to keep the system afloat until July 1, 1973 0 Annual revenues
from the sales tax are estimated at $19,000,0000
The ten years of operation of public transit has been a politicizing experience
for Bi-State. It has had to cope with: (1) the riders themselves, of whom there
are several sub-groups; (2) downtown retail interests of St. Louis, E. St. Louis,
Granite City, Alton, and Belleville who were alert to block any changes in zone
fares which might create a competitive advantage for another city; and (3) the
minority races who press for jobs with the transit company and greater equality
for those who already have them. Over the years these groups built up a con-
siderable backlog of dissatisfaction against Bi-State, of which the local public
officials were well aware. Bi-State brought into the transit operation manage-
ment skills, but not political skills. When the time came to "go public, " in the
sense of seeking support from area local governments, the political base was not
there. Such funds were ultimately obtained but Bi-State had to pay the price
of enduring considerable criticism and, eventually, of acceding to the Missouri
Governor's request that all Missouri Commissioners resign. The State of Missouri
had stepped into the picture by commissioning a study which recommended, among
other things, that all the present commissioners resign, with their replacements to
be nominated by the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council for appointment by
the Governor (Stone and Webster, Management Consultants, Inc. and ATE
Management and Service Co., Inc., 1972, p. 10). The threat of an imminent
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shutdown of all transit operations undoubtedly contributed more to Hie success
in establishing a public support base for the transit operation, than public con-
fidence in the Board or its transit managers.
The alleged lack of representativeness of the Bi-State Board was the stated reason
for the reluctance of local municipal and county officials and state delegates to
assist Bi-State. It was said of the Bi-State Commissioners that "most are business-
men, bankers or labor leaders who are either rewarded by the governor for their
past political and financial support, or who are recommended for appointment by
influential friends. They have no ties to local political leaders. They have no
constituencies and can muster few inducements or threats to generate political
action" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb 11 and Feb 23, 1973). Of the three com-
mission errTnt^r7re^eT7rTlT»Ts"study, the two from Illinois were businessmen who
stated that they had made no contribution of any kind to the Governor's cam-
paign and were appointed on the basis of their community contributions. The
one Missouri commissioner interviewed had been active in national political
races end had requested the appointment.
There were mixed views about what kind of structure would assure more repre-
sentativeness in Bi-State. Some public officials have no ojbection to appoint-
ments by the Governor as long as he confers with them in prospective candidates.
Others would prefer the federated approach of having local elected officials
serve directly on the Board arguing essentially that elections are the true basis
for accountability and political viability. A third view is that operations should
be isolated from the "politician/1 in order to preserve efficiency and financial
integrity. Finally, there is the assertion that representativeness is not the issue/-
the real problems are those forces that have caused the financial plight of public
transit. Suffice it to say that whenever a private enterprise which is rendering
what is accepted as a public service must acquire public resources, its account-
ability must expand to accommodate the social and political mechanisms which
determine who shall share in such resources. Manifestly, B?-State must actively
relate to the local and state political systems. Since it must depend upon local
tax resources, it is apparent that its Board structure and programs should reflect
a greater degree of local accountability than it has in the past.
Rapid Transit
The existence in one area of a council of governments with responsibilities for
comprehensive planning and one or more regional agencies (either single or
multi-purpose) with operational responsibilities, inevitably leads to friction.
In St. Louis the issue of responsibility for rapid transit planning brought Bi-State
and East West Gateway into brief conflict in 1970.
Bi-State had contracted with consultants in 1969 for a rapid transit feasibility
study. It was conducted as a cooperative effort by Bi-State, the Missouri and
Illinois State Highway Departments, East West Gateway and a number of other
organizations (Parsons, et al., n.d., p. 5). It was clear, however, that Bi-
State saw itself as being the official sponsor of the project.
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Before the final report was distributed, East West Gateway initiated its own
planning project, as reported in Bi-State's 1971-72 annual report:
The St. Louis Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit Feasibility Study,
sponsored by the Agency, was concluded during the fiscal year.
Copies of the two-volume report and an abridged summary were
distributed to Commissioners of the Agency on August 19, 1971,
and then mailed to other area business, civic and financial leaders.
Even before formal completion of that report on June 30, 1971,
Directors of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, the volun-
tary regional planning agency, authorized appointment of a special
committee to be called the St. Louis Area Rapid Transit Authority
(SLARTA). This organization was intended to handle all future rapid
transit planning and promotion even though Bi-State was the only
legally established transportation agency for the metropolitan area.
The establishment of SLARTA, which would make locally elected offi-
cials responsible for the planning for a future rapid transit system, but
not responsible for preservation of the existing public transit system,
has had unfortunate results for this metropolitan area. Realizing that
public transportation should only be the responsibility of a single Agency
in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area, Bi-State, on November 8, 1971,
offered to turn over its Bi-State Transit System to the East-West Gate-
way Coordinating Council. That offer was not accepted, and the situa-
tion remained extremely unstable until in January, 1972, the Urban
Mass Transportation Administration, in identical letters to Bi-State and,
the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, made it clear that the
first priority for any metropolitan area would be preservation of the exist-
ing transportation system, and until that requirement was satisfied, no
federal funds for new systems would become available.
The issue was resolved by Bi-State's agreeing to relinquish its claim as having ex-
clusive responsibility for rapid transit planning, in return for East-West Gateway's
support of Bi-State's efforts to obtain local tax support for the transit operation.
The feasibility study recommended 86 miles of new rail transit and 14 miles of
existing trackage at a total estimated capital cost of $1.5 billion at 1970 price
levels (Parsons, et al., n.d., p. 19). The project has been deferred by the
abandonment in June 1973 of a proposed $730,000,000 State transportation bond
issue that would have provided $120,000,000 for a start on rapid transit construc-
tion in St. Louis (St. Louis Post-Dispatch', Apr 18, 1973).
In somewhat uncharacteristic fashion, the consulting engineer's report questioned
representativeness of Bi-State's Board in view of the need to float local bjbnd
issues to finance construction. It recommended that legislation be considered
which would amend the Compact between Missouri and Illinois creating Bi-State
"to provide for the selection of agency members consistent with the degree of ob-
ligation incurred by each of the political subdivisions" (Parsons, et al., n.d.,
84
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p. 17). In support of this recommendation, the report went on to say:
During the course of the study, some strong feelings were encountered
on the part of public officials and private businessmen that the selec-
tion of agency (Bi-State) members should be made in a manner more con"
sistent with the degree of obligation to be incurred by each of the politi-
cal subdivisions than is now provided for in the Compact. Since substan-
tial public support will be required to finance the Long-Range Transit
Program, consideration should be given to this matter (Parsons, et al.,
n. d., p. 19).
There is no evidence that Bi-State took any action to implement the recommenda-
tions to change the composition of its Board.
Other
Two abortive enterprises should be noted in passing. A $5,900,000 grain elevator
was proposed in 1964 by Bi-State for location adjacent to its wharf at Granite
City, the Agency was unable to obtain a satisfactory rate of interest on the pro-
posed revenue bonds (Duffy, 1964, p. 17). In the meantime, the Tri-City Re-
gional Port Authority was formed and now occupies this site.
B?~State entered into an agreement in the early 60's with the Industrial Park Cor-
poration of the St. Louis Giamber of Commerce to build and operate an industrial
park in northern St. Louis County. There was considerable opposition from the
Illinois side because of previous engineering studies as to the prohibitive cost of
protection of the site from flooding and a 1959 consultant's report which advised
the Industrial Park Corporation that the Illinois side of the river offered the most
attractive sites for industrial development. In addition, Bi-State had no power
to form a levee district, which was apparently necessary, and some way to finance
an estimated cost of $10,000,000 for access and interior roads had to be found.
Subsequently, a proposed bond issue of $7,000,000 for roads was defeated by the
voters on March 3, 1964 (Duffy, 1964, pp. 18-19).
The Metropolitan Role of Bi-State
The original resolution of the Bi-State Commission stated that the Bi-State De-
velopment Agency
will engage in activities supplementing, but not supplanting, established
governmental agencies and encouraging, but in no way encroaching upon
private enterprise; ..."
r
In interviews held in 1973 with Bi-State officials the "residual" role of Bi-State
was emphasized. Modeled originally after the New York Port Authority, the
Agency logically could have become the regional authority, for ports, airports,
transportation (embracing airports, parking, highways and bridges), sewage
85
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disposal, and planning, if one interpreted its grant of powers literally. The
fact is, however, that the Agency, with the exception of mass transit, has
played a relatively minor role in these functions, preferring to avoid the initia-
tive in expanding its role, and engaging In new activities only when there
appears to be no other agency in which to locate them. The ill-fated attempt
in 1965 to become the regional planning and A-95 review agency was promoted
more by the staff than by the Commissioners. The mass transit function was taken
on reluctantly; the preferred solution of the Agency for the collapsing mass transit
system would have been to continue under the present private operators with tax
subsidies provided by local government. The Agency said, "we have not sought,
nor do we seek, the arduous task of owning and managing a consolidated transit
system. But, in the face of reasonable indications that the requirements neces-
sary to continue private operations are absent, some form of public ownership
appears mandatory" (Public Adm & Metro Affairs Program, 1965, p. 67).
Thus the role of Bi-State was seen originally, and still today, as a limited one,
operating a number of self-supporting enterprises (the Gateway Arch elevator,
the Granite City port, the Cahokia general airport, and at the time of its acqui-
sition, public transit), stepping in where needed to promote the economic growth
of the area, but certainly avoiding any suggestion of a regional government. The
first requirement of such government, the power to tax, was never believed in
and never asked for; Bi-State was not to add to the tax burden. It saw itself as
a business manager of public facilities, not as a public institution operating from
a political base.
St. Louis MetropoIitan AreaTask Force
George Romney, then Secretary of HUD, held meetings in four cities (Boston,
Detroit, St. Louis, and Wilmington) from March to May, 1972, to discuss with
local public officials and business leaders alternative forms of metropolitan
government,, Labeled as TOP (The Option Process), the effort in St. Louis pro-
duced a 40-member task force, consisting principally of elected officials from
the two states appointed by the Governors of Illinois and Missouri. The Chair-
man of the Task Force is the Supervisor of St. Louis County who is also the Vice
President of East-West Gateway Bi-State was represented on the Task Force by
two of its newly appointed Missouri Commissioners0
A consultant was retained and his proposal calling for an umbrella organization
was submitted to the Task Force on July 13, 1973 (Murphy, 1973). This proposal
called for the formation of a regional body to be called SLACOG (St. Louis Area
Council of Governments) with a board of 26 members, derived as follows:
Missouri Illinois
County and city elected officials 11 10
President of Southwestern Illinois Metropolitan
Planning Commission - 1
Public members appointed by Governors 1 1
Public members appointed by the Regional Forum _]_ _J
Total 13 13
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Thus, the report opted to risk the one-man one-vote objections from the Missouri
side, in favor of assuring the continued participation by the Illinois sector. How-
ever, this problem was neutralized to some extent by providing, in effect, that
the state putting up the greater share of local funds could receive proportionately
more federal funds for one-state projects.
Non-voting members recommended for Board membership were: the Chairman of
the Bi-State Development Agency, the Chairman of the federal regional councils
in Kansas City and Chicago, and the Director of the St. Louis Regional Commerce
and Growth Association.
By reference to the recommendations of a federal report, the consultant proposed
that "all single purpose, multi-jurisdictional, areawide programs should be under
the control of an umbrella multi-jurisdictional organization whose policy board
is composed of elected officials of general purpose units of local government.
This umbrella multi-jurisdictional organization should be given many workable
options, such as establishing advisory committees for recommending policy for
the single purpose multi-jurisdictional programs (Murphy, 1973, p. 25). Pre-
sumably, therefore, the merged agencies would appear as advisory committees
within the umbrella organization.
The question of whether Bi-State or East-West Gateway should be the "focal
point of the umbrella" was unanswered. In polling 17 organizations about the
proposed body, Bi-State "indicated an affirmative response, but added that it
has the legal framework to be the umbrella. The EWGCC staff response was
that EWGCC and Bi-State should be the focal point of the umbrella" (Murphy,
1973, p. 20). The dilemma was posed thus:
The question of merger with Bi-State Development Agency seems too
complex at the moment. The agency's financial, public image, and
managerial problems suggest that any attempt to develop a merger now
would delay, and perhaps kill, the other steps which seem feasible to
create a reasonably strong umbrella agency.
It should be recognized with regard to the Bi-State Development Agency
and the EWGCC that Bi-State has effective legislative authority but is
operated by a board of directors appointed by the two governors. EWGCC
is controlled primarily by elected officials of general purpose governments
in the St. Louis Area. This means that EWGCC has more political account-
ability and is Tore representative of the area but Bi-State has legislative
authority to operate and function. With proper authority, EWGCC would
have more power to implement its plans than Bi-State has had (Murphy,
1973, p. 23).
Basic local financing was to be derived from per capita assessments against the
participating local governments, equally matched by the state. County payments
were to be reduced by the amount local governments in that county contributed.
For SLACOG programs affecting governments of only one of the two stares, the
participating government would be required to provide additional funds which,
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again, would be matched by the state. This latter provision is apparently in-
tended to get at the problem that COG's often face of dissipating regional staff
resources by having to respond to numerous requests from member cities and
counties for local projects.
The Task Force met September 25, 1973, reviewed the consultant's report, and
made a few minor changes in the recommendations. The Task Foice members
preferred to set up categories of board members (such as 11 elected officials and
3 lay members) and decide among themselves the local government sources for
the elected officials rather than being held to a specific formula of sources.
The Missouri side opted, for example, to eliminate representation from Florissant
and University City (which were tne only municipalities to be directly repre-
sented) and to establish a system whereby all cities under 10,000 population
would have one representative and all cities over 10,000 (except St. Louis)
would also have one representative (Roos, 1973, p. 6). The Illinois members
of the Task Force was to have submitted its designation of the composition of
the Illinois membership on October 25, 1973.
The enabling legislation recommended by the Task Force would be identical in
certain sections to the provisions of the B5-State Compact, except for inserting
the name SLACOG for Bi-State and adding the functions of housing, health,
manpower, air quality, and law enforcement to the; list of those currently included
in the statute. As soon as the information board composition is received from the
Illinois membership, the Chairman of the Task Force will forward the recommenda-
tions "to the Governors of Missouri and Illinois and to the legislative leadership
of both states for their information" (Roos, 1973, letter of transmittal). Legisla-
tion is currently being drafted in Jefferson City and Springfield for introduction
at the 1974 sessions. There is no reference in the memorandum to that part of
the process involving the official sanction by East-West Gateway and Bi-Stqte
of the report. There will be significant changes in membership of both organiza-
tions and it is expected that the boards of these organizations will take action on
whether or not to endorse the proposed umbrella organizations.
The TCP's legislation failed in Michigan. There is little reason to believe that
this far-reaching proposal will be successful in Missouri and Illinois. Some state
delegates are very hostile to it; the League of Municipalities of St. Louis County
has gone on record as opposed to it. St. Louis interests will continue to raise the
issue of underrepresentation on the SLACOG's board. There is evidence from
other COG's that its members prefer for them to continue as they are: advisory
bodies with no taxing power. The reasons for rejection of the proposal in St.. Louis
are far more overwhelming than those for its acceptance at this point in time in the
evolution of regional governments in this country.
Conclusion
It is difficult to make a case for the Bi-State Development Agency as an evolu-
tionary form of metropolitan governance. Its organic document and later amend-
ments gave it a broad grant of planning and operating powers in several functional
-------
areas. Its geographical jurisdiction was regional. Yet it never realized its po-
tential as the St. Louis regional body for its authorized functions. It is now
only one of many regional and quasi-regional bodies operating within the func-
tional areas of ports, mass transit, and airports.
Bi-State was never able to achieve financial viability. It did not have the tax-
ing powers which could give it the financial elbow room to develop programs
and constituencies. Its administrative budget was funded by overhead charges
made against the user-supported enterprises and there were not enough of these
to provide adequate funds for planning and development because of defective
provisions in the Compact relative to revenue bonds. These deficiencies until
corrected by amendments ten years later, and differing local circumstances pre-
vented Bi-State from accumulating enough enterprises to fund an adequate cen-
tral staff, in the fashion of the New York Port Authority after which Bi-State
was modeled.
Financial power aside, one is struck by what appears to be an intent by its govern-
ing body to keep Bi-State out of the public domain. The intent at its inception
and today is that Bi-State is to operate "residually"; it would take on only those
enterprises which could not be located in an existfng agency. Its major public
enterprise, public transit, was assumed with great reluctance. Bi-State was
formed to construct public facilities needed to revive the growth of business
and industry and thus improve the general economic position of St. Louis. It
was not seen as an effort to reform local government in order to meet problems
of political fragmentation and disparity of service.
Operating in this mode produced managerial, but not political, expertise. Con-
sequently, today Bi-State has few, if any, political resources. Certainly, what
political support there is for regional government resides now in the East-West
Gateway Coordinating Council. Bi-State's success in acquiring local tax funds
for the transit system resulted not so much from community acceptance, as from
the need to avoid the complete breakdown of a vital public service. Such funds
were obtained only at a high price to Bi-State: the termination of the five Mis-
souri members of me Board, and the surrender of the rapid transit planning func-
tion to East-West Gateway.
Although "The Option Process" proposal for an umbrella organization will probably
not be accepted in St. Louis, it is significant that EWGCC has been at the fore-
front of developing this proposal. Should it be accepted, EWGCC undoubtedly
will be the focal point of the umbrella. If the idea is rejected, one must con-
clude that whatever further evolution of metropolitan government occurs in St.
Louis will come out of EWGCC, rather than Bi-State.
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SECTION .VII
ANNEXATION: SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
introduction and History
Annexation is the basic tool made available to the city by statute for extending
a single governmental unit over the urbanizing territory outside the> city. Vir-
tually every compilation of possible "solutions" to the "metropolitan problem"
in recent years has included annexation as one major possibility. For example,
Roscoe Martin listed it as ninth on a scale of sixteen, and Thomas P. Murphy
listed it as eleventh on a similar scale (Martin, 1963; Murphy, 1970). Yet,
though it is mentioned as possible, most authorities dismiss annexation imme-
diately and concentrate on metropolitan federation or city-county consolidation
or special districts as more promising solutions.
It is not clear why annexation is so summarily rejected by the metropolitan re-
form literature, but apparently some basic philosophical assumptions of reform
may underlie the rejection (Keys, 1973). There is also a pragmatic objection
that annexation won't work, although it is not clear why it would be easier to
persuade legislatures and voters of metropolitan regions that consolidation or
federation should be ad ed than to persuade them that an old, familiar tool
such as annexation could be strengthened and used. Obviously annexation can
no longer be used to extend the boundaries of New York City or Boston or St.
Louis or San Francisco or Minneapolis-St. Paul, all of which are now surrounded
by other incorporated municipalities. But most of the 264 SMSAs recognized by
the Department of Commerce at the end of 1972 do not have a central city com-
pletely surrounded by other municipalities. Thus, for most of our SMSA's,
annexation is still a potentially useful tool in preventing fragmentation.
The two most frequently noted flaws of annexation have been the unwillingness
of city governments to make use of it to extend their boundaries, and the require-
ment in most states that residents of the area proposed fpr annexation must give
their consent before the annexation can be carried out.
Several states have permitted cities to annex adjacent territory without the
consent of the residents, either through general permissive legislation or through
legislation permitting home rule charter cities to establish their own annexation
procedures, which can include annexation by a simple majority vote of the city
council. Among the states that permit annexation without consent of the resi-
dents by some city councils are Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. As a
result Houston and other cities in Texas, Oklahoma City in Oklahoma, and Kansas
City in Missouri have expanded their boundaries so that their area compares
favorably with that of the prominent examples of consolidation or federation.
For example, two "free annexation" cities, Oklahoma City and Houston, were
.1 .1 . .._*.!_ l.L.1 I ____..!. ~__.~ !.. 4-U-l. I I_!4._J C4..~<.__ /ll__ _J.L__
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the ranking was Jacksonville, 766 sq mi, Oklahoma City, 648 sq mi, Nashville,
508 sq mi, Los Angeles, 464 sq mi, and Houston, 434 sq mi. The top ten cities
in area in 1970 also included Dallas and Kansas City, both "free annexation"
cities. This indicates that annexation can be used to encompass territory that
approximates the size of other metropolitan reform government areas, and this is
underlined by the fact that Metropolitan Toronto has an area of only 241 sq mi,
and New York City has an area of 300 sq mi.
Thus, annexation in some cases makes it possible to extend the governmental
jurisdiction of one city to virtually the entire metropolitan area. The end result
would be a unified, genera] purpose metropolitan-wide municipality, i.e., a
single metropolitan wide government, which appears to be the objective of
metropolitan refqrm. However, if the metropolitan-wide city still has most of
the problems of the fragmented metropolitan area, the effectiveness of metro-
politan reform is called into question. Thus, a case study of a metropolitan area
in which annexation has been used extensively is of considerable interest.
San Antonio, Texas, is among the 20 largest cities in the United States in both
population and in area, with 184 sq mi in 1970 and 247 sq mi in 1973. It ranks
fourth among all large (over 500,000 population) metropolitan areas in the
United States in the, percentage of population living within the central city (76%).
The percentage of the population of the urbanized area living within the central
city in 1970 is even higher (85%). San Antonio has been the most successful of
all the large "free annexation" cities in keeping trie bulk of the urban population
as residents of the central city. The 1970 population of San Antonio was 654,000,
making it the thirteenth largest city in the United States.
The beginnings of the city go back to 1718 when the mission of San Antonio de
Valero (later called the Alamo), was established along with a presidio called
San Antonio de Bexar. Civil settlement began in 1731 when a party of 56
colonists arrived. San Antonio quickly grew into the largest city in Texas, a
ranking it retained until the 1920's. The rapid growth of Houston and Dallas
enabled them to pass San Antonio, so that for the past several decades San Antonio
has ranked as the third largest city in Texas* Nevertheless, it has grown rapidly
in recent decades, with over a 60% increase in population between 1950 and 1970.
Given the generally slow rate of growth of large central cities in recent decades,
this is a remarkable increase and San Antonio ranks among the ten fastest growing
large central cities (9ver 500,000 population). A sizeable portion of the popula-
tion increase (14,000 out of 51,000 increase from 1960 to 1970) occurred in areas
annexed to the city between those two census dates. Between 1950 and 1960, 139,000
out of 17^000 increase in population occurred in areas annexed to the city between
the two censuses.
Despite this impressive growth rate, San Antonio in the decade of the 1960's
dropped back a bit in the proportion of the population of Bexar county within the
city limits. In I960, 90% of the population of the county lived in San Antonio,
while in 1970 about 79% of the county population lived in the city. This seems
to indicate that annexation was less effective, and perhaps used somewhat less,
in the 1960's than in prior decades.
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The San Antonio SMSA has a population of 860,000 and consists of Bexar and
Guadalupe counties. Within the SMSA are 23 municipalities, 20 school districts,
and 16 other special districts. In addition to San Antonio, 19 of the municipali-
ties are in Bexar county. Only four of them were incorporated before 1950;
eight were incorporated in the 1950's, and seven in the 1960's (League of
Women Voters of San Antonio, Texas, 1971, p. 13). This also suggests that
annexation has been becoming relatively less effective in recent decades.
Aside from San Antonio, the largest municipality in the SMSA is Seguin, the
county seat of Guadalupe county, with 15,934 population in 1970. Within
Bexar county there are municipalities of 7,600, 6,900, 5,300 and 5,200, with
all the others being under 2,500 population. There are also some sizeable federal
installations outside the jurisdiction of San Antonio: Lackland, 19,100; Ft. Sam
Houston, 10,500; and Randolph, 5,300. About 35,000 people live in the remain-
ing unincorporated areas of the two counties. Thus, the SMSA consists of a very
large central city, and a relatively small number of small municipalities, and a
relatively small proportion of the population living in unincorporated areas (and
half of these living on or immediately adjacent to major federal military installa-
tions). The 20 school districts and 16 other special districts are not an excessive
number for an SMSA of 860,000 people.
The economy of the San Antonio SMSA differs from the national economy, and
from that of other major cities in Texas, in that a high proportion of employees
in non-agricultural occupations are employed by government (29.4% for the
SMSA vs. 17.8% nationwide in 1970), reflecting the presence of federal installa-
tions at Kelley, Lackland, and Randolph fields and Ft. Sam Houston. Conversely,
a smaller proportion of employment is in manufacturing industries (13.3% for
the SMSA vs. 27.4% nationally in 1970).
Local observers rate the homebuilding industry as one of the major employers in
the area, with economic effects second only to those of the federal government,
in part because San Antonio is a favorite retirement community for military people.
The economic importance of the building industry is reflected in its political
strength and influence, which will be noted later in relation tb specific issues
related to environmental protection.
Per capita income in the SMSA was below the national average in 1969, being
$3,028 compared with the national average of $3,688, and with $4,052 in
Dallas, $3,520 in Ft. Worth, and $3,674 in Houston. In 1969, median family
income was $7,734, compared with $8,490 for Texas and $9,433 for the nation.
In the same year, the unemployment rate was 3.6% for the SMSA compared with
3.7% for Texas and 5.7% for the nation. Black citizens were 6.9% of the
population in 1970 and made up 10.9% of the unemployed in 1972. Citizens
with Spanish surnames were 44.5% of the population in 1970 and made up 47.2%
of the unemployed in 1972.
Leadership groups in San Antonio are concerned about the relatively lower income
level of area citizens, and continued economic development is one of their major
goals. In addition, relatively low incomes means a lower level of resources
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1970 Population (SMSA) - 860,000
Area (SMSA) - 1,960 sq mi
Total Units 59
Mu IH "County
Alamo Area
Council of
Governments
Edwards Under-
ground Water
District
San Antonio
River
' Authority
CO
County
2 General Purpose
County Governments
Bexar County
Guadalupe County
Other
City of San Antonio
22 Other Municipalities
20 School Districts
16 Special Districts
Fige 13. Governmental Characteristics San Antonio, Texas, SMSA
-------
available to city government because efforts are made to avoid an undue tax
burden.
Annexation in Texas
A home rule provision was added to the Texas constitution in 1912. It provided
that any city of over 5,000 population might frame its own charter, and include
in it anything they wished not inconsistent with the Constitution and general laws
(MacCorkle & Smith, 1968,p. 298). Under this provision and subsequent enabling
legislation, home rule cities in Texas can define their municipal boundaries and
provide for changing them. Thus, they can determine their own annexation pro-
cedure, and many of them have opted for annexation by a majority vote of the
city council. The Texas courts have ruled that cities are free in their methods
of annexation (National League of Cities, 1966, pp. 291^301). At least 75 home
rule cities, including San Antonio, have written into their charters procedures for
unilateral annexation by the city governing body.
Because some problems had arisen as a result of these liberal annexation provi-
sions, a 1963 Texas statute placed some limitations on the freedom. The statute
provides that annexation may take place only within the extraterritorial jurisdic-
tion of the city, which varies from one-half to five miles, depending on the
population of the city. In the case of San Antonio, the jurisdiction is five miles,
and so annexations may take in any territory within that five mile limit. Another
provision of the statute is that a municipality may annex each year not more than
10% of the total land area of the city as of January 1 of the year of annexation,
but if the city fails to use this allocation, the unused allocation may be carried
over to subsequent years up to a maximum of 30% of the total land area of the
city,(MacCorkle & Smith, 1968, p. 323).
The statute also requires the annexing city to provide within three years a level
of municipal services comparable to other areas of the city, or the residents of
an area may petition for disannexation. This provision would prevent a city
from annexing territory in which it had no immediate plans for providing city
services. After one year, the city may reannex the disannexed territory, pro-
vided it is still unincorporated, but the city must then provide the required serv-
ices within one year (MacCorkle & Smith, 1968, p. 324).
Spoke Annexations
The annexation laws permit the city to annex any adjacent territory it wishes,
so long as it is prepared to provide the necessary services. Many Texas cities,
including San Antonio, have undertaken "spoke" annexations, so called be-
cause they resemble spokes of a wheel sticking out from the city0 In this
type of annexation, the city annexes the right of way of the major highways
extending out from the city for a distance of several miles from the existing
city boundary. The basic purpose is to enable the city to apply its extraterritorial
controls for a distance further than that to which such controls normally extend
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without the spoke. With spoke annexation, the extraterritorial jurisdiction ex~
tends five miles out from the top of the spoke, and thus is a useful type of con-
trol over strip development along major highways extending out from the city.
For example, if the spoke extends out three miles from the regular city boundary,
the extraterritorial jurisdiction extends five plus three or eight miles from the
regular city boundary at the point where it is joined by the spoke.
During the 1973 legislative session> there was consideration of possible legisla-
tion to abolish existing spoke annexations and to prohibit them in the future,
based apparently on dissatisfaction with the way spoke annexations had been
used by the city of Houston. Then it was discovered that this legislation would
wipe out a spoke-flag annexation in the San Antonio area that extended out
around the site of the new campus for the University of Texas at San Antonio,
where the state wanted the annexation to exist so that land use around the new
campus could be controlled. So action on spoke annexations was deferred, but
the City of San Antonio got the message that the legislature didn't want more of
them, and is probably going to go slow on making additional spoke annexations.
San Antonio adopted its first home rule charter in 1914, and the charter provi-
sions for annexation have remained unchanged since that time. Annexation is
by a majority vote of the city council. Over the years, San Antonio has made
considerable use of its annexation powers.
Local Government Structure and Functions
The 1914 Charter established a Commission form of government that continued
until 1952, but in later years dissatisfaction with this form of government grew.
New charters were written in 1940 and 1949 and were rejected by the voters.
In 1952 the voters adopted the present charter, which established a council-
manager type of government, with a council elected at large by "positions," so
that an individual candidate may specify the council seat or '"position" for which
he is running. One member of me council is designated by the council as mayor.
Since 1952, San Antonio has had many of the usual experiences of large cities
with the council-manager form of government. The first three or four years
brought opposition from those who preferred the commission form and these were
difficult years for the city manager system. In 1955 a citizen's group called the
Good Government League was formed to sponsor candidates for the city council
and encourage the development of the city manager system. A majority of GGL-
supported candidates were elected to the council that year, and a new manager
with considerable experience in other cities was appointed.
Candidates supported by the Good Government League continued to win a majority
of the city council posts up until 1973. The problems were changing, and, as in
other cities, solutions were more difficult than in earlier days when the major
problems were how to get the money to build needed facilities. Differences arose
between GGL~supported candidates, and some of them broke away to run as inde-
pendents or as informal "slates." In 1973 the voters elected a non-GGL mayor
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1C*
en
CITY CC
u i Kirn
City " Municipal Library
Clerk Court Judges System
Human Resources
& Services
Human Special
Resources Services
Metropoli-
\kt IT - "«T il ^ LJ *t&L
Welfare tan Health
District
i
Police [fire . <
City
Manager
Asst. City
Manager
Equal Finance
Opportunity
J
Administrative 1
Services J
Municipal Courts Management
Personnel & Systems
Administration Analysis
Purchasing &
Central Supply
Central Shops
Legal Public
fc
-1
Ayiatlon & Municipal . Planning & Com-
.Enterprises munity Development
Convention Convention | ». , . 0 Pla
_ .... ,, ,_ .... ' IvVrtrKPT rv «.
Facilities & Vis tors ^ i» ~~ ' Cor
Bureau Parkln9 , Dev
Hemisfair . . ,.
Plaza Aviahon
nning &
nmunity
felopment
1 Parks & Public I Land Ppraonn*l Traffic & Building & Plan-
sej Recreation Works | Acquisition rersonne. Transportation ning Administration
Fig. 14. Organization and Functions City of San Antonio
-------
and a non~GGL majority for the city council.
Governmental organization is typical of the manager council plan, with a city
manager, an assistant city manager, and 17 major departments,, An unusual fea-
ture of the city government is that the city owns gas and electric utilities and
supplies utility services to five smaller incorporated areas surrounded by the city,
as well as adjacent military establishments. The utilities are operated by a City
Public Service Board appointed by the city council, plus the mayor who is a
member ex-officio.
Water and sewage services are divided between the city and a number of other
special districts. The city sanitary sewer system is operated by the Public Works
department. Water supply for most of the city comes from a separate City Water
Board. The Board is managed by four trustees appointed by the city council for
eight year terms, plus the mayor who is a member ex-officio. The Board appoints
the general manager and is empowered to make rules and regulations governing
the activities of its employees in supplying water to city residents. The Board
also supplies water to a few smaller municipalities, and by individual contract
to residents of some other suburban municipalities. The Board also operates a
central heating and cooling plant that supplies steam and chilled water to the
Hemisfair Plaza, the Convention Center, and the adjacent business district.
As noted earlier, there are 16 special districts in Bexar county that are concerned
in some way with the management of water. Most of them are engaged in supply-
ing water to customers, usually having boundaries coterminous with a suburban
municipality.
Three of the districts are large, and have special purposes of importance to a
larger area: the Bexar Metropolitan Water District, the Edwards Underground
Water District, and The San Antonio River Authority.
The Bexar Metropolitan Water District was created in 1945 by a special act of
the Texas legislature. The District bought up three private water companies,
which it now operates. Although the District has limited its services to supply-
ing water, and confined its operations to about 20% of its territory, it is a multi-
purpose conservation district which includes in its jurisdiction all of the area of
San Antonio as of 1945 and some additional area. Its jurisdiction overlaps that
of the City Water Board and the San Antonio River Authority. The main service
offered by the District is the provision of water to some 25,000 customers, repre-
senting a population of about 85,000 to 95,000 principally in southwest San
Antonio and adjacent areas. The District is governed by a five member Board of
Directors elected by the voters of the District (League of Women Voters of San
Antonio, 1971, p.
In addition to the special districts, there are about 30 private water companies
operating in Bexar county, plus an estimated 2,000 private wells in San Antonio
and 10,000 in the rest of the county.
In 1971 the legislature authorized the establishment of a new kind of special
district, a municipal utility district, as a means of providing water and sewer
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utility services to developing areas that were either at a distance from urban
areas or where the nearby cities could not supply the necessary water and sewer
services. The district can be established by petitioning the Texas State Water
Rights Board, and when established by the Board the MUDs have taxing and
bonding powers and power to annex non-contiguous as well as contiguous terri-
tory. Developers have used this new type of district to provide services to new
developments. In the San Antonio SMS A and elsewhere in the state, cities and
counties have raised objections to the way in which the municipal utility dis-
tricts are established and operated without many of the usual restrictions placed
on local governments. It seems likely that the state legislature will be amending
the legislation, but meanwhile some fifteen to twenty districts are in operation
in the San Antonio SMSA providing water or sewer services to their residents.
The water supply of about one million people including the 860,000 in the San
Antonio metropolitan area, comes from the Edwards Underground Reservoir, an
underground reservoir in the limestone formations underlying the Edwards Plateau.
The reservoir is about 175 miles long, from 5 to 30 miles wide, and extends across
the counties of Uvalde, Medina, Bexar, Comal, and Hays. In 1969 the Texas
legislature created the Edwards Underground Water District for the purpose of pro-
tecting and conserving this vital water resource. The district consists of all of
Uvalde County, most of Medina and Bexar counties, and a small part of Comal
and Hays counties. Three directors from each county area make up the fifteen
man board of directors. The Board members are elected by the voters of each
county, serve six year terms, and are non-salaried. The Board selects an Engineer-
Manager who is in charge of the work of the District. The District is financed by
a 2-cent ad valorem tax from each county area in the District. (League of Women
Voters of San Antonio, 1971, pp. 80-81).
The district engages in data gathering and education programs, and publishes
annual bulletins on water quality, recharge and discharge of the reservoir. The
purpose of the district is the protection of the reservoir, and it cooperates with
other agencies in implementing the applicable portion of the State Water Plan of'
the Texas Water Development Board.
The San Antonio River Authority was created by the Texas legislature in 1937, as
a conservation and reclamation district consisting of the counties of Bexar, Wilson,
Karnes, and Goliad.
The Authority is governed by a 12 member board, elected for six year terms.
Goliad, Karens, and Wilson counties each elect two members and Bexar county
elects six members. The Board appoints a director, and makes policy. The
Authority has a staff of about 50 and an annual budget of over $2 million (League
of Women Voters of San Antonio, 1971, p. 85).
The primary purposes of the Authority are stream improvement and channel con-
struction, and the Authority has constructed and operates a number of flood con-
trol structures in the four counties. The major project is the San. Antonio Channel
Improvement Project in the City of San Antonio, a 37 million dollar flood control
project. The Authority is cooperating with the U S Corps of Engineers in studying
the feasibility of a barge canal project that would link San Antonio with the
98
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Infracostal Canal and the Gulf of Mexico. The Authority also operates parks
and recreation projects on the river.
The Authority has established a basin-wide stream quality standards plan, by
which the quality of effluent being discharged by the waste treatment plants in
the San Antonio River Basin is regulated. It operates a water quality laboratory
near Converse rn Bexar county, and has developed basin stream quality records.
The Authority built and operates two sewage treatment plants in eastern Bexar
county, as part of the development of a waste treatment system for the Upper Cibolo
Creek watershed. It operates two treatment plants by contract for Bexar County
Water Control and Improvement District No. 16, and one for the City of Kirby.
The Authority is also authorized by the legislature to carry out flood plain manage-
ment projects and solid waste disposal projects with the Basin.
The Alamo Area Council of Governments
One other regional body that undertakes activities involving environmental pro-
tection problems is the Alamo Area Council of Governments. The council is
similar to other COGs in that it is a voluntary association of local units of govern-
ment, but it is also designated by the state as a regional planning body. Texas
has provided funds for its regional planning agencies, and the Governor's office
has provided direction and support for them, so that the state government is more
actively involved in the COG movement in Texas than is true in many other states.
The AACOG planning region covers eleven counties, but only five of these
counties have joined the voluntary council. Cities from two non-member counties
have joined the council, so some portions of seven counties are members. Twenty
cities, including San Antonio, are council members. In addition, nine school
districts, six So!I and Water conservation districts, and seven special districts are
members of the council. Among the special districts that are members are the San
Antonio River Authority, the Edwards Underground Water District, the San Antonio
City Water Board, and the Bexar Metropolitan Water District.
Membership on the Executive Committee consists of two members from San Antonio,
two from Bexar County, one from each other member county, one member for each
six cities other than San Antonio (up to a maximum of three), one representatives
for the school districts, and one representative for the special districts.
The Council is the A-95 review agency for the federal government, and engages
in other planning activities, including work in the areas of social planning, law
enforcement, health, and water quality.
To sum up, the governmental picture consists of one large city containing most of
the urban population of the metropolitan area, some 20 smaller cities, some 20
school districts, some 15 small special districts, plus 2 multi-county special dis-
tricts and a 11 county council of governments.
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For environmental control purposes, the city can exercise controls up to five
miles beyond the city limits. Beyond that limit, the counties and the multi-
county agencies are active, and in addition the Texas Water Quality Control
Board sets the standards for water quality and exercises some controls.
Experience of San Antonio with Annexation
The original city limits of San Antonio were established in 1838 and included
36 square miles, which included a considerable amount of rural land. In 1930,
San Antonio still had an area of 36 sq mi, and had a population of 232,000.
The first annexation came in 1940, when 4.3 sq mi were added. Table 8 shows
the total area annexed each year from 1940 through 1972. The first major annexa-
tion came in 1944, when 19.9 sq mi were annexed. Smaller annexations continued
in the post-war period. In 1950 the total area was 72.3 sq mi, an increase of 55%
since 1940. The 1950 population was 408,000, up 62% from 1940.
After the adoption of the city manager form of government in 1952, the first city
manager proposed a major annexation to try to keep up with urban growth, and in
that year the city annexed 79.9 sq mi, more than doubling its area. Within the
area taken in were the residences of some wealthy Texans who had not wanted to
be annexed, and they financed a slate of candidates to oppose the incumbent
city officials in the 1953 election. All of the incumbents who ran for re-election
were defeated, and the incumbent city manager departed. As was mentioned
earlier, this defeat led to the establishment of the Good Government League to
sponsor candidates in the 1955 election, and for the next 18 years candidates
supported by the GGL comprised a majority of the city council.
However, the experience of 1952 and 1953 made subsequent city councils wary
about major annexations. Between 1952 and 1960 an additional 6 sq mi were
annexed, bringing the total area to 161 sq mi.
Up until the 1963 Texas Annexation law, it was apparently common practice in
Texas for cities to use the first reading on an annexation ordinance as a means
of extending city control over adjacent areas, and San Antonio made occasional
use of this practice.
The 1963 annexation law appears to have had less effect on San Antonio annexa-
tion practices than did the 1953 election results. At no time from 1963 to 1972
did San Antonio approach the 10% per year limit imposed by the 1963 law. From
1964 through 1970, the annual annexation rate was under 1% for four of the years,
and no higher than 5% in any year. The city council in the 1960's talked about
developing a positive annexation policy, but no one pushed very hard for it, and
the city continued to annex only when residents or landowners outside the city
requested to be annexed.
In 1971 and 1972, in part because the then mayor was concerned about annexa-
tion, the council moved more aggressively. In 1971, 13.7 sq mi were annexed,
about 7% of the existing area of the city. In 1972, the council proposed a much
TOO
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Table 8
Total Area Annexed Annually, City of San Antonio, Texas,
1837-1971
Year
1837
1838
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
Sq Mi Annexed
Incorporated
city limits established 5-25-38
04.2829
00.0265
00.0114
00.0000
19.8930
04.7482
00.2780
03.2204
00.2618
01.3896
02.3390
02.3618
79.8982
00.0000
00.3125
00.0174
00.1763
05.5800
00.0028
00.1920
00.0000
00.0146
00.1167
02.5265
08.7385
04.4300
05.3022
00.4490
00.7435
00.4987
00.3334
13.7517
53.2534
Total Sq Mi
36.0000
40.2829
40.3094
40.3208
40.3208
60.2140
64.9622
65.2402
68.4606
68.7220
70.1120
72.4510
74.8128
154.7110
154.7110
155.0235
155.0409
155.2172
160.7972
160.8000
160.9920
160.9920
161.0066
161.1233
163.6498
172.3883
176.8183
182.1205
182.5695
183.3130
183.8117
184.1451
197.8968
251.1502
Source: San Antonio Planning Department.
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larger annexation, intending to take in the full 30% allowed by the 1963 law
for one year, including permitting carryover from previous years. The first pro-
posal by the city staff contained about 70 sq mi for annexation, but lawyers for
developers who didn't want their land to be annexed pointed out some unsettled
legal questions on which litigation could develop, so the proposed area was re"
duced. In December, 1972, the council annexed slightly over 50 sq mi, which
was about 24% of the previous land area. As of January 1, 1973 the area of San
Antonio was 251 sq mi, so it is now larger than Metropolitan Toronto.
The present mayor and council, elected in 1973, are inclined to go more slowly
on annexation, but they are again discussing the possibility of a positive program
of annexation designed to keep up with urban growth. The problem is essentially
a political one in that some developers and some residents of developments out-
side the city do not want to be annexed, and as was pointed out earlier, home
builders and developers are a potent political force in San Antonio. There is
also the problem of the technical and financial ability of the city to provide
city services to substantial new annexations each year, which the council also
needs to consider. Meanwhile, the policy seems to be to annex only territory
in which residents or landowners request annexation, plus such additional terri-
tory as is needed to "square out" the boundaries so they will be clearly identi-
fiable for city personnel providing services to the area.
One way of partially measuring the effect of annexation is to compare the popu-
lation per square mile for each recent decennial census year.
Year Density
6,450
6,350
5,660
3,960
4,410
It can be seen that San Antonio has maintained a fairly high urban density despite
the annexations, but the annexation of new suburban development has helped to
decrease the density per square mile.
Another measure of the effect of annexation is the proportion of the urban or
metropolitan population within the city limits of the central city. By this measure,
San Antonio has done well: the percentage of the population of the urbanized
area in San Antonio was 84.7 in 1970, 9-1.5 in 1960, and 90.9 in 1950. In 1950
and 1960 this was the highest percentage for any urbanized area of over 500,000
population, and it was the third highest such percentage in 1970.
The percentage of the metropolitan area population within the city limits of
San Antonio runs somewhat lower, but nevertheless has been much higher over
these past decades than in most other metropolitan areas of comparable size. In
1970 the percentage was 75.7, in 1960 it was 85.5, and in 1950 it was 81.6.
In 1950 and 1960 this was the highest for any SMSA of over 500,000 population
and in 1970 it was the third highest.
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By all these measures, San Antonio has made more effective use of its annexa-
tion powers than have the other large cities that have similar powers of annexa-
tion. For example, in 1970 Dallas contained 55% of the population of its SMS A
and had a population density of 3,320 per sq mi, and Houston contained 62% of
the population of its SMS A and had a population density of 3,840.
Thus it appears that by the use of annexation San Antonio has managed to keep
up with the urban growth better than most other large cities in the period since
1940 (during which San Antonio's population has nearly tripled). While there
are some small suburban municipalities, the largest of them has less than 5% of
the total population, and less than 5% of the population lives outside the bound-
aries of any municipality. With about 80% of the population of the metropolitan
area, and 90% of the population of the urbanized areas, San Antonio does not
suffer from being surrounded by suburbs, nor have many of the urban residents
managed to flee from the jurisdiction of the central city.
But annexation has lagged behind urban growth, and the city has proceeded most
of the time on the basis of annexing only those territories whose owners asked to
be annexed. The two major exceptions are the 1952 annexation, which had
severe political consequences, and the 1972 annexation, whose consequences
are yet to be fully assessed.
The city has yet to work out a comprehensive policy toward future urban growth,
although some council members are talking in terms of the need for such a policy.
Several recent controversies are a part of the dialogue over growth policies in the
community. For example, there has been controversy between the city and the
developers and homebuilders over how water should be supplied to new develop-
ments, who should set the standards for installation of water lines, and who
should pay for the approach mains. The financial ability of the City Water Board
to provide water to all proposed subdivisions is a part of the problem. The city
council in 1972 designated the City Water Board as the exclusive supplier of
water in the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction, and a new council reversed the policy
the next year. The dialogue and controversies continue, and some of them will
be described in the next section on pollution control activities.
Pollution Control Activities in the San Antonio Area
As was noted in describing governmental structures in the San Antonio metropoli-
tan area, responsibility for pollution control activities are divided among a number
of agencies, as is the case in many other metropolitan areas. The city of San
Antonio is of primary importance in pollution control in the area. The other
major control agencies are state agencies such as the Texas Water Quality Con-
trol Board, the Texas Water Rights Board, the Texas Air Quality Control Board,
and the State Board of Health.
San Antonio is one of the few major metropolitan areas of the country that has
apparently unlimited water supply from an underground source, the Edwards aqui-
fer. Until recent years, pollution of the aquifer has not been a problem because
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urban development Intruded only on the southern edge of the aquifer and it was
possible for sewer systems to drain away from the aquiver. However, develop-
ment has been edging onto the aquifer and was given a substantial boost when
the state decided to locate the campus of the University of Texas - San Antonio
some miles to the northwest of the city, on the aquifer, thus inviting consider-
able urban growth out toward and around the new campus. So far as can be de-
termined, the state agency did not consult the city about potential pollution
problems before making the location decision. Even if the campus had bee*n
located on the other side of the city, some urban development onto the aquifer
would have continued, and the problem of pollution of the aquifer would have
arrived anyhow in due time.
With respect to water pollution control, the most powerful regulatory agency
other than the city of San Antonio is the Texas Water Quality Control Board,
which is empowered to adopt wdter quality standards. The Board adopted water
quality control standards for the area as part of a state plan in 1971. In 1972
and 1973 it held a series of hearings in the San Antonio area about proposed
revisions in the quality standards. In April, 1973, the AACOG council was un-
able to agree on a position on the revision because of a disagreement between
the city of San Antonio and other units represented in the council. The position
of the city, as stated by the public works director, was that higher treatment
standards for sewage effluent discharged into rivers in the Edwards aquifer re-
charge zone should not be adopted. The city might not provide sewer service
in the recharge zone, said the director, if it was unable to meet the required
standards, thus opening the way for the establishment of several independent
municipal utility districts "without adequate pollution controls." The mayor
pro-tern suggested that it would be better to ban all treatment plants over the
aquifer rather than adopt higher treatment standards. It appears that the city
was basically concerned about the costs of bringing its treatment system up to
the higher standards (San Antonio Express/News, Apr. 4, 1973 and Apr. 12,
1973).
County officials from Guadelupe and Bandera counties supported higher quality
standards, and were opposed to downgrading standards for the Guadelupe and
Medina rivers. In these two counties there are many vacation centers and sum-
mer camps on the two streams, and economic loss would occur if the water
quality were downgraded so that swimming could not be permitted (San Antonio
Express/News, Apr. 15, 1973).
The Sierra Club, South Texas Group, has also registered opposition to the SWQB
proposed standards for the Edwards aquifer area. The Club maintained that the
rules established by the SWQB allow development to proceed in a manner which
will clearly allow pollutants to enter the aquifer. The Club cited projections of
over a million gallons of raw sewage per day being allowed to enter the aquifer
under existing SWQB specifications (San Antonio Express/News, Apr. 21, 1973)
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The Edwards Underground Water District has also sent to the SWQB some proposed
revisions in Board standards applying to the aquifer area. The district suggests
legislation that would authorize some agency to license contractors drilling wells
over the aquifer and recharge zone; it wants the district to be authorized to lo-
cate any abandoned wells in the area, rather than relying on developers to do so,
and to set standards for plugging the wells. It also suggests that the district should
be authorized to prepare a standard form for all septic tank licenses to be used by
all counties in the district. Finally, the district calls for agreement to use only
U S Geological Survey maps to define the recharge zone, and suggests better sani-
tation at Gamer State Park where sewage facilities are not adequate to prevent
pollution of the Frio river in the recharge area (San Antonio Express/News, Apr.
19, 1973).
It appears that the City Water Board and the Bexar Metropolitan Water District,
the other major supplier of water in the area, are in agreement with the position
of the city public works department that effluent standards should not be set so
high that they will discourage development over the aquifer by making it finan-
cially impractical.
These incidents illustrate the fact that the City of San Antonio, despite the fact
that it contains a substantial majority of the residents of the metropolitan area,
does not have complete authority over water pollution control activities in the
area. Even more interesting is the fact that the City, both through its water
agency and its sewer agency, seemed to be in the position of supporting lower
water quality standards than do the regional agencies which contain a majority
of representatives from surrounding rural counties. It suggests the interesting
hypothesis that a single area-wide regional government might favor lower stand-
ards for pollution control than would be the case where other local units exist
and have influence. It should be noted that the San Antonio position is similar
to that taken by the central city in many metropolitan areas, namely that stand-
ards should not be so high that they cannot be met by existing facilities of the
city without substantial additional expenditures.
During the Summer of 1973^ a special task force of the AACOG on pollution of
the Edwards aquifer was established, including representatives from the City and
the City Water Board. The task force prepared a set of recommendations to the
State Water Quality Board for a tightening of the regulations on urban develop-
ment over the aquiter. The major recommendation was that stringent licensing
requirements be placed on all new private sewerage systems built over the aquifer.
Another recommendation is that density of settlement be limited if a pollution
hazard is considered seriously-possible from a planned urban development or sub-
division in the recharge zone. The Edwards Underground Water District would
act as coordinating agency to oversee pollution control measures affecting the
underground water reservoir.
These proposed requirements move further in the direction of control over urban
development than any previous group of recommendations by an intergovernmental
task force. The City representatives supported the recommendations.
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The proposal ako, for the first time, will give some control powers to an area-
wide agency, the Edwards Underground Water District. If the State Board accepts
the proposals, more control will be possible over the area outside the extraterri-
torial jurisdiction of the City of San Antonio.
Aside from the Texas Water Quality Board standards, but related to them, is a
major proposed "new town" development near San Antonio. A development firm
proposed to build San Antonio Ranch New Town for 88,000 persons on acreage
in Bexar county northwest of San Antonio. The area of the proposed development
lies mostly outside the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city, so the city has
little formal power to require changes in the proposed plans of the developers.
The development was held up by a temporary injunction and a suit for a perma-
nent injunction against building the new town brought by Bexar county, the Sierra
Club, the League of Women Voters, Citizens for a Better Environment, the Ameri-
can Association of University Women, (the Edwards Underground Water District,
and the San Antonio River Authority). The City of San Antonio did not join in
the suit. The county brought the suit because after the county refused a permit for
the new town, the developers went to court and got an order directing that a per-
mit be issued for the development. The other organizations and agencies joined
in the suit because they felt a development of that size over the aquifer would
permanently contaminate the underground water supply for the metropolitan area.
One point brought out by the developers in the suit was that the standards they
proposed for sewer effluent were higher than the existing standards of the City
of San Antonio.
The federal court dismissed the suit for a permanent injunction, and permitted the
development to proceed. However, the court retained jurisdiction and directed
the developer, the State Water Quality Board, HUD, and other concerned parties
to file periodic reports with the court to show that the developer was meeting the
standards specified in the plans (San Antonio Light, June 7, 1973).
The lawsuit is the most publicized of a number of controversies concerning sewage
disposal and water supply in the San Antonio area. One major phase of the con-
troversies concerns the Edwards aquifer, because experts disagree about when and
to what extent any given development on the aquifer will pollute the water, al-
though all agree that sooner or later continued development on the aquifer will
pollute it. It appears that any considerable amount of pollution will require
rather expensive treatment to make the water safe for drinking purposes. When
that happens, the costs of providing wafer to new developments will be such that
it will no longer be highly profitable to some developers to operate their own
water system. It will then be necessary to turn to some public agency to provide
water, and the City Water Board of San Antonio seems to be the only viable
alternative.
Much of the controversy over water supply and sewage disposal policy in the
metropolitan area hinges around the problem of equitable distribution of the costs
of the needed facilities. This is a problem familiar in most metropolitan areas
106
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of how to divide the costs of major facilities between city residents and those
who live outside the city, between residents of the city and developers, and
between residents of older areas who believe they have paid for their facilities
and residents of newer areas who think the costs of major facilities should be
paid for by all residents of the city or the metropolitan area.
There is also the problem of finding the funds necessary to provide the facilities
that the technical experts say are necessary. The City of San Antonio, like most
other major cities, finds that allocating existing resources between competing
uses is difficult and usually means that no one activity gets all the funds needed
for that activity. And, as is the case elsewhere, the council feels that there
are political limits to how high the water and sewer service charges may be
raised and to the amount of bonds that may be approved for water and sewer
facilities.
Thus, the major pollution control activities are the provision of water and sewer
services by the city to its residents and to residents of the extraterritorial juris-
diction. The city must approve the plans of developers who propose to provide
these services within the extraterritorial jurisdiction. '
Outside the territorial jurisdiction, the primary power to control water pollu-
tion rests with state agencies such as the Water Quality Control Board and the
Board of Health. The ^oard of Health, for example, has the power to issue or
refuse to issue permits for septic tanks or sewage disposal systems that do not
meet minimum standards for protection of public health. However, as was noted
earlier, most of the controversy over water pollution is about questions that are
outside the jurisdiction of the Board of Health and concern general development
policy.
The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District is a city-county health department
for Bexar County and the City of San Antonio. It inspects septic tank installations
and small sewage treatment plants, and monitors other potential sources of water
pollution. If has the usual police powers to enforce health regulations, and it
has the same problems that exist in other metropolitan areas of depending on
prosecuting attorneys in the court system for ultimate legal action to stop pollu-
tion. Most cases of pollution are stopped voluntarily by the polluter, so only
the more difficult cases are recommended to the prosecutors for court action.
To sum up, the major actors in the control of water pollution are the City of San
Antonio and the state agencies that set standards for pollution control. The
problems that exist are primarily concerned with the questions of what standards
are adequate for control purposes and how the costs of necessary control facilities
should be divided up among various sources of payment.
Air Pollution Control Activity
Responsibility for setting air quality standards in the San Antonio area rests with
the State Air Quality Control Board. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health Dis-
trict monitors the air quality, and shares enforcement responsibilities with the
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state agency when violations are detected. Presumably the District has some
police powers to go beyond the standards of the State Board, but it is not clear
just how far they could go, and it appears unlikely that any such action will be
taken except in an emergency.
Studies of the air pollution problem have been undertaken by the local govern-
ments in the area through AACOG, but the problem has generally been con-
sidered less severe than water pollution problems. San Antonio'was listed as
fourth among the ten major cities of the United States with the cleanest air by
EPA in 1973.
San Antonio does not have much air pollution from stationary sources, and the
major users of polluting fuels are the federal installations and the city's Public
Service Board. Both jurisdictions are correcting pollution problems as rapidly
as funds permit.
There was considerable discussion in the San Antonio area in 1973 focused on
EPA proposals to insure that the air quality in that area did not deteriorate.
This was part of state-wide controversy over the kind of standards and anti-
pollution measures to be included in the state plan to be submitted to EPA by
the State Board. In general the Board felt that EPA proposals were more severe
than what the Texas situation warranted, and the discussions by the San Antonio
city council tended to support the position of the State Board.
The major source of pollution in San Antonio is the automobile, and city officials
are aware that development of rapid transit is the major alternative to eventually
deal with the problem unless federal controls over automobile emissions eventually
make further action by the city unnecessary. The city is concerned about im-
proving the bus system arid decreasing traffic congestion in the downtown area
and is developing alternative courses of action for further consideration.
Solid Waste Pollution Control Activities
At the state level, jurisdiction over solid waste pollution rests with the State
Board of Health. At the local level, the Metropolitan Health District has a con-
tinuing inspection program of waste disposal sites and has jurisdiction over solid
waste disposal violations by individual citizens. The City ofSan Antonio collects
most of the solid wastes of the metropolitan area, and disposes of them at its sani-
tary landfill sites. So far, San Antonio seems to have encountered less than the
usual amount of controversy over Idndfill sites. The city and the smaller juris-
dictions do not anticipate any, major problems in solid waste disposal over the next
few years, but will eventually have the problem of increasing costs as landfill
sites are located further from the centers of population.
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Nuclear Pollution Control Activities
The Metropolitan Health District inspects manufacturing plants that make use of
radioactive materials, under the general jurisdiction of the State Board of Health.
So far, this is the only nuclear pollution control activity in the area.
Noise Pollution Control Activities
The AACOG did a study of noise pollution in the area, focusing primarily on
noise pollution problems relating to aircraft at the major airports in the area,
and the Metropolitan Health District has a continuing concern with noise pollu-
tion problems. San Antonio at present has a rudimentary noise pollution control
ordinance which is enforced by the police department and consists basically of
responding to complaints about noisy motor vehicles.
The question of noise pollution has come up in discussions about the need for
and location of a possible new major airport, or of major expansion of the present
airport. Similar questions have arisen about lengthening of runways at federal
air force installations in the metropolitan area, and the federal government has
held up on proposed expansions because of objections to the additional noise
pollution for nearby residential areas.
Visual Pol lution Control Activities
There is a continuing concern with problems of visual pollution in San Antonio
because the travel industry is a major economic activity, and San Antonio is
concerned about its image as one of the unique cities of the United States. The
City does not have a visual pollution ordinance, but does have an agreement
with the Paseo Del Rio Association that permits the Association to limit signs
and other advertising along the River Walk portion of the downtown area.
Summary
Because of the liberal annexation powers authorized in its home rule charter, the
City of San Antonio has territorial jurisdiction over the urban population of the
metropolitan area that is adequate for dealing with most urban problems. The
city has jurisdiction over the 251 sq mi within the city limits, and more limited
jurisdiction over another 300 to 350 sq mi within its extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Within this area lives more than 90% of the urban population, and it seems
probable that the proportion will not change much in future decades unless the
city changes its policy and annexes no further territory.
Over the past 40 years, the annexation powers have been adequate for keeping
the city's boundaries in pace with urban growth. However, the political will to
keep expanding the boundaries through annexation has not always prevailed in the
short run against opposition from developers who did not want their developments
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to be annexed. And at times the city has held back from annexation because it
felt it did not have the money to provide the necessary urban services in terri-
tories that were proposed for annexation. Thus, the annexation process has tended
to proceed at an irregular pace, in some years taking in considerable amounts of
territory, and in others taking in practically none.
For some problems related to development, such as potential pollution of the
Edwards underground aquifer, liberal annexation powers alone do not provide
enough territorial jurisdiction for the city to deal with the problem by itself.
For these kinds of problems, the city is dependent upon adequate state action
in terms of minimum standards and the enforcement of pollution controls. And
San Antonio does have considerable impact on the policy of the state because
city officials represent such a large proportion of the citizens of the metropolitan
area, because annexation has prevented the rise of large numbers of suburbs.
Liberal annexation powers, then, present an organizational arrangement that
minimizes the number of governmental organizations in the metropolitan area
and concentrates a very high proportion of the population under the jurisdiction
of a single general purpose government. Much can be done within this jurisdic-
tion to control pollution if the city council has the will to do so, and if the neces-
sary funds are available to carry out pollution control activities. Still, some pol-
lution problems will require additional action by other jurisdictions, especially
by the state pollution control agencies.
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SECTION VIII
THE URBAN COUNTY: MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND
Introduction and History
The term "urban county" has been used for many years, and by many people,
without any agreement on what is meant by the term. The Advisory Commission
on Intergovernmental Relations attempted to provide a standard definition:
"The urban county approach to local government and metropolitan areas refers
to the development of the county from its traditional position as an administra-
tive subdivision of the state for carrying on state functions to one in which it
provides a significant number of services of a municipal character throughout
all or part of its jurisdiction (Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Rela-
tions, June, 1962, pp. 138-139).
By this definition, an urban county is essentially one that provides a significant
number of urban services. It is a county government that does the things that
cities normally do. That definition will be used in this report. But it should be
noted that the definition leaves some unresolved problems.
For example, what is the difference between an urban county and a city?
Probably none, except the name: one is called a county and the other a city,
but essentially they do the same things. One difference that usually exists is
that the urban county has a larger area than the average city of comparable
population, but this is not always the case.
Another complication of the definition is that it is imprecise enough so that
boundaries between the urban county and other "approaches" to metropolitan
government are unclear. For example, does city-county consolidation result in
an "urban county"? Or does the so-called "quasi-federated" approach of Metro-
politan Dade County make it an urban county? In both cases, the county would
fit the ACIR definition of an urban county, but most studies prefer to keep the
three separate, or not use the term "urban county."
Still another problem with the definition is that it does not make a distinction
between the metropolitan regional activities of an urban regional county and the
day to day services of a municipal character provided by the county. This has
led one authority to limit his use of the term urban county to "a second-tier
government existing alongside cities and determining with its cities and the state
who does what in the county as the metropolitan area" (Mogulof, 1972, pp. 7-8).
Mogulof uses Metropolitan Dade County as his example of an "urban county."
Using his definition, he is not concerned with the urban services provided by the
county to the several hundred thousand citizens who live in the unincorporated
portions of the county. Thus, the problem of defining the urban county leads
Mogulof to reject the ACIR definition', and to instead use a definition of the
county as a metropolitan regional county.
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The problem, of course, is that counties are evolving in different ways is response
to the challenge of urban expansion. This does not necessarily result in neat
categories of activity or organization. Perhaps the earliest prototype of the
urban county was Los Angeles County, with its mixture of cities that provided
all their own municipal services, cities that provided none of their own services
but use contracts with the county under the "Lakewood Plan" by which the
county provides the municipal services within the city limits, cities with a
mixture of these two, unincorporated areas in which urban services are provided
entirely by the county, and unincorporated areas in which municipal services
are not provided. That type of urban county has worked reasonably well in the
Los Angeles area, but it has not been widely accepted elsewhere.
Montgomery County, Maryland, comes perhaps as close as any county to the
ACIR definition in that since at least 1948 it has been providing services of a
municipal character to a substantial majority of its residents. It is typical of a
number of suburban counties in major metropolitan areas which have been cop-
ing with urban growth that spilled over the borders of the county containing the
central city of the metropolitan area: Westchester, Suffolk, and Nassau counties
around New York City, Orange County in the Los Angeles area, and Arlington,
Fairfax, Prince Georges, and Baltimore counties around Washington and Balti-
more. None of these counties contain the major metropolitan central city, and
most of them contain no city of a size comparable to the central city.
One unresolved problem of any definition of the urban county is the overlap be-
tween the traditional services normally provided by the county in its capacity
as an administrative subdivision of the state and the newer urban services. For
example, in the case of law enforcement and criminal justice, the county has
provided the jail-keeping, prosecuting, and adjudicating activities, and the
sheriff has shared law enforcement with city police forces. These traditional
activities are, if anything, more important in urban areas than in rural areas,
and the county has continued to play an important role in them even where it
did not undertake to provide other services of a municipal character. Other
services present similar problems: for example, many counties have provided
major highway systems outside and inside city limits, in conjunction with state
highway departments, even though other municipal services were left to the
cities. Thus, at least part of the activities of urban counties can be viewed as
an extension of traditional functions rather than as the undertaking of new mu-
nicipal functions.
*
Historical Development of Montgomery County
Montgomery County was established in 1776. It lost a portion of its area in 1789
when the District of Columbia was established out of parts of Montgomery County
and its neighbor, Prince Georges County. The area of Montgomery County since
that time has been 506 sq mi. Essentially, it was a rural county up until the
growth of Washington began to accelerate beginning with World War I, and con-
tinuing through the days of the New Deal and World War II to the very rapid
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1970 Population (County) - 522,000
Area (Counly) 506 sq mi
Total Units (County) - 42
Multi-County
Washington
Suburban
Sanitary
Commission
Washington
Suburban
Transit
Commission
Maryland
National
Capital Parks
& Planning
Commission
Washington
Metro Area
Council of
Governments
County
County
Board of
Education
(elected
by voters)
Montgomery
College
Board
Montgomery
County
Urban
Municipality
Other
12 Municipalities
13 Special Districts
16 Independent
Fire Districts
Fig. 15. Governmental Characteristics Montgomery County, Maryland
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growth of recent decades. As late as 1950, the county seat town of Rockville
had a population of 6,000, and was the largest incorporated municipality entirely
within the boundaries of the county. At that point the county had a population
of 164,000, of which only 23,000, or 14%, lived within municipal boundaries.
In 1970, the population of the county had increased to 522,000 of which 17%
lived within municipal boundaries.
As these figures show, a salient characteristic of the population growth of Mont-
gomery County has been that the great majority of it has occurred outside
municipal boundaries. The largest and best known "places" in the county,
such as Silver Spring , Bethesda, and Wheaton are not municipalities, but are
nevertheless major suburban centers that in other metropolitan counties would be
incorporated municipalities with populations in excess of 100,000 each; there is
no way of specifying the exact population of these areas since they do not have
the boundaries of an incorporated city.
Thus, urban growth in Montgomery County has been essentially urbanization of
unincorporated areas of the county. There were some small municipalities es-
tablished back in the late 1800's around the station stops on the railroads going
out from Washington and at the ends of the streetcar lines. But the major popu-
lation growth has occurred out from the major streets of Washington, D.C. as
population spilled over the borders of the District of Columbia out into Mont-
gomery County.
Governmental ly, the growth differs from that of many suburban areas in having
very few municipalities and only one school district, which covers the entire
county. In 1972, there were 14 incorporated municipalities and 13 special
taxing districts in the county. Thus, proliferation of local governments is not
a characteristic of Montgomery County.
The reason for the relatively small number of local governments is that county
political leaders in the period between 1900 and 1948 did not permit the in-
corporation of local units and limited the use of special districts. The same
policy was in effect in some other Maryland counties, for example, Baltimore
County (which does not include the City of Baltimore) in 1970 had over 600,000
population and had only two local governments.
Maryland has had county-wide school systems since public schools were estab-
lished, so that suburbanites moving into Montgomery county found their schools
provided by the county school system. Special tax districts to provide certain
urban-type services were established in the earliest suburban areas adjacent to
the District of Columbia. Formally, they were given names as villages, for
example North Chevy Chase and Chevy Chase View, but their activities are
those of special districts for trash collection, tree care, and sidewalks. But as
growth continued, these kinds of services were provided to the newer suburban
areas by the county.
As urbanization occurred, fire protection was handled by volunteer fire depart-
ments supported at first by contributions, and later by taxes. With the advent
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of property taxes for this activity, the county council was designated as the tax
levying authority, but essentially the fire departments remain independent.
There are 16 independent fire districts in the county at present, of whom 2 have
only full-time professional firefighters. The rest also have volunteer firemen,
and as in other parts of the country, Hie volunteer firemen and their friends are
a potent political force. The independent fire departments have successfully
resisted occasional efforts by reformers to establish a county-wide fire depart-
ment.
Governmental services required by residents of the urbanizing areas were pro-
vided by a combination of agencies: municipalities, special taxing districts,
bi-counry districts, independent fire departments, and the county. By the end
of World War II, the old county commission system of government seemed to be
unsatisfactory and after a number of studies and efforts at reform, a home-rule
charter was adopted in 1948 providing for a county manager form of government.
This existed until 1970, when an elected county executive form of government
went into effect.
The county manager and county executive forms in Montgomery County are
virtually indistinguishable from the city manager or strong mayor forms of govern"
ment that exist in large cities throughout the country. The county has a merit
system and its departments are operated by professional personnel, just as is the
case in most major cities, and the county manager system in Montgomery County
was recognized as a valid council-manager system by the International City
Managers Association.
So far as can be determined, the change from the county manager system to the
county executive system in 1970 was not done because of any major dissatisfac-
tion with the council-manager system. It was felt that after twenty years, the
charter ought to be re-examined, and in the process of doing so the academic
consultants suggested that the strong elected executive system was regarded by
many experts as being superior to the appointed executive of the counci I-
monager system. It was felt that there was a need for an elected spokesman for
the county, and the idea appealed to political leaders. As a result, the charter
committee recommended the change and it was approved by the voters in 1968
and went into effect in 1970.
Governmental Organization
The county executive is the chief executive officer of the county. He is elected
for a four year term, and is eligible for re-election for any number of additional
terms. He is responsible for the administration of county activities. He appoints
a county administrator, who serves at the pleasure of the executive, and who is
responsible for the day-to-day operations of county government and for assisting
the executive in carrying out his duties.
There is a county council of seven members elected for four-year terms. Two of
the members represent the county at large, while the other five each represent
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one of the five councilmanic districts into which the county is divided. All
seven are elected on a countywide basis. The council is the legislative branch
of county government, and also deals with matters of zoning and planning.
All department heads are appointed by the county executive, after consultation
with the county administrator, and subject to confirmation by the council. The
charter specifically provides for a County Attorney, to be appointed in this
manner, and then permits the council to determine what other department heads
and departments will be established. Department heads may be removed by the
county executive, but the Charter provides that the County Attorney may re-
quest a hearing before the council before he may be removed from office.
All other county personnel come under the provisions of a merit system under the
general supervision of a county personnel board appointed by the council.
The charter and Maryland law give the council a wide grant of legislative
powers.
The county governmental system also provides for a judicial system under the
general provisions of state law. The courts are not mentioned in the county
charter. There is a state district court for Montgomery county, including sub-
ordinate units such as a juvenile court. There is also a Circuit Court, a Clerk
of the Circuit Court, a States Attorney, a Public Defender, and a Sheriff, whose
office concerns itself primarily with civil functions associated with the courts.
There is also a county Register of Wills, a County Surveyor, a County Agricul-
tural Extension Service, and a County Soil Conservation District. Thus, it can
be seen that Montgomery County as an urban county still continues to carry out
administrative and judicial duties that are usually classified as traditional county
functions.
A listing of the regular administrative departments established under the charter
is found in Figure 16. The list is typical of that of most urban municipalities,
and includes such as activities as a Commission on Aging, a Drug Abuse program,
a Human Relations Office, and a Rent Control Program. The principal urban
activities not carried out by county departments are those under the jurisdiction
of the two major bi-county commissions: water supply and sewers, and parks
and planning.
The three years' experience in Montgomery County with the elected county
executive system has not been long enough to make valid comparisons with the
prior county manager system, but the experience with the two systems since 1948
has been generally good. The county government has been providing a high level
of services in accordance with professional standards, and the county is recog-
nized as one of the better urban governments in the Washington metropolitan area.
At least since the 1930's, a substantial proportion of the population has consisted
of federal civil servants, employees of the national associations that are head-
quartered in Washington, and more recently employees of "science industries."
They are an articulate and active citizenry, and they have required of the county
a high level of services.
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Quasi -
Judicial
Agencies
County Personnel
Board
County Board of
Appeals (Zoning
& Bldg. Permits)
Appeal Tax Court
(Assessments)
Board of License
Commissioners
(Alcoholic
Beverage
Licenses)
Board of Supervisors
of Elections
County Fire Board
Judicial Branch
County Executive
Circuit Court
People's Court
People's Court for
Juvenile Justice
Office of the State's
Attorney
Office of the Public
Defender
County Medical
Examiner
Office of the County
Sheriff
Office of the
County Executive
County Administrator
Offices:
County Budget Office
County Information Office
Office of Program
Coordination
County Purchasing Office
Office of Drug Abuse
County Personnel Office
Departments:
Economic Development Dept.
Finance Department
General Services Dept.
Public Works Department
Health Department
Police Department
Social Services Department
Community Develop. Dept.
Public Libraries
Liquor Control Department
Inspection and Licenses Dept.
Cooperative Extension Service
County Soil Conservation Dist.
County Council
Council Office
Off ice of the Hearing
Examiner (Zoning
Map Amendments)
Commission on Aging
Commission on Human
Relations
Office of Services to
Montgomery County
Legislative Delegation
Quasi -
Independent
Agencies
County School Board
Montgomery College
Board
16 Independent Fire
Districts
Washington Suburban
Sanitary Commission
Maryland National
Capital Parks and
Planning Commission
Fig. 16. Organization and Functions Montgomery County, Maryland
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Regional Agencies in the Metropolitan Area
Montgomery County is a member of the Washington Metropolitan Area Council
of Governments. There are five other local government members: Prince
Georges County, Maryland; the District of Columbia; and the city of Alexandria
and the counties of Fairfax and Arlington in Virginia. A little over 20% of the
population of the metropolitan area lives in Montgomery County, and perhaps
slightly more than 20% of the income and wealth of the area is found in the
county.
The Washington Metropolitan Area COG is unique in the United States in that
the national government is directly represented in the COG, indirectly repre-
sented through the government of the District of Columbia, and has a heavy
influence because it is the major employer in the metropolitan area. Thus, in
addition to the usual problems of the felt predominance of the central city in a
COG, the federal government has a predominant position in the Washington COG
with which other members must cope.
This is only partially offset by the fact that each of the members is a major mu-
nicipal government in its own right, and that there are only six members of the
COG. Alexandria has the smallest population, 110,000 in 1970; Arlington has
174,000; the other three counties have 455,000, 522,000, and 660,000 re-
spectively; and the District of Columbia has 756,000. So there are no very small
units, and a number of the suburban members are about on a par with the central
city.
Montgomery County from time to time has been a less than enthusiastic member
of the COG. For one period of a year or so during the early years after the
COG had been established, the Montgomery County Council withdrew from the
COG and made no contributions to the COG budget. This was at a point in
time when Montgomery County was an urban entity with over 400,000 population,
indicating that it is not only small rural counties that sometimes have reservations
about membership in COGs.
However, from time to time activities come along in which county officials want
to be involved, for example in the planning that led to a rapid transit system that
has a number of lines projected to extend out into Montgomery County. So,
after the early period of resistance to the COG, Montgomery County again be-
came a member.
More recently, County Executive James Gleason has expressed some doubts about
the COG and its activities. His major concern is what he perceives as a tendency
for COG staff to want to undertake responsibility for operating area-wide programs
rather than merely providing services to the member units of government. He be-
lieves a COG could be of real assistance to local government if it provided help
aimed at developing stronger local governments. Instead he sees the COG serv-
ing as a tool of the state or federal government in taking more and more responsi-
bility away from the localities. He views the tendency toward one-man, one-
vote representation for COG governing bodies as a change from representation of
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local governments toward a regional government, and cites the Minneapolis-
St. Paul Metropolitan Council as clearly an agency not composed of local govern-
ments (Gleason, 1972).
Another point of view was expressed by the Chairman of the COG in 1970,
Mr. Joseph L. Fisher, He suggested that the activities of COGs were restricted
to accommodating the specific activities that the federal or state governments
want the COG to undertake, and suggested that bloc grant funds might be pro-
vided to enable COG's to undertake programs responsive to all the needs of their
regions. But apparently he would permit the COG to undertake activities that
Mr. Gleason would prefer that it not undertake (Fisher, 1970).
A 1971 report on environmental pollution problems in the Washington Metro-
politan Area suggested that the COG was a relatively weak agency as presently
constituted, and recommended the establishment of a Regional Council that
would be the upper tier of a two-tier governmental system, with power to levy
taxes and undertake operation of regional programs such as water supply, sewage
disposal, solid waste disposal, and air pollution control (U S Environmental
Protection Agency, 1971).
Thus, the role of the COG in relation to Montgomery County is developing
under conditions where there are differences of opinion about the proper powers
and activities of the COG and the local governments. With respect to Mont-
gomery County, no charge is made that the county is too small, or lacks power,
or shows an unwillingness to act to control environmental pollution. Instead,
the criticism seems to be that a single central government is needed for the region
to make area-wide decisions. Obviously, Mr. Gleason and other Montgomery
County officials and citizens feel that an urban county with over 500,000 popu-
lation is big enough to make the necessary decisions and carry them out, in co-
operation with other local governments. On both sides of the question, this
appears to be an ideological preference for or against a single region-wide
government.
Montgomery county is also a part of two bi-county special districts, along with
its neighbor, Prince Georges County. In the 1930's, the state legislature es-
tablished the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. The
Commission is composed of an equal number of members from each county, chosen
by the county council in each county. It provides an extensive parks and recrea-
tion program in both counties. Montgomery county supplements this with an addi-
tional recreation program operated by its recreation department. There is no dis-
satisfaction with the parks and recreation program that is operated by the Com-
mission, but it does not provide the wide range of recreation activities that
Montgomery county citizens want, and therefore must be supplemented by the
county. This dual system does make for some problems of scheduling and coor-
dination between the various recreational activities offered within the county.
The Montgomery county members of the Commission serve as the Montgomery
County Planning Commission, and meet separately under their own chairman.
The county planning commission works closely with the county council, by whom
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it is appointed, in planning and zoning matters.
The other bi-county district is the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission,
also created in the 1930's. The WSSC provides water and sanitary sewer serv-
ices to a large proportion of the two counties, and has controlled the extension
of these services into undeveloped portions of the two counties. The commission
consists of an equal number of members from each of the two counties, appointed
by the county council in each county. The portions of each county provided with
these services is designated as the sanitary district, and pay a property tax as
well as a service charge for these services.
Thus two major urban services were provided by the WSSC, and Montgomery
county officials had only an indirect influence over the process. Since this re-
moved them from the pressures of developers who wanted water and sewer service
for their property, county officials were content with this arrangement for several
decades. However, the rising interest in environmental pollution and in con-
trolling growth in Montgomery county over the past 10 or 15 years led to an
interest on the part of county officials in being able to control where the water
and sewer lines were going to be extended, as one tool for controlling the direc-
tion and amount of additional population growth in the county.
This interest was spurred by events that led up to a serious problem of sewage
disposal that developed over the past ten years, along with some high rise de-
velopment and redevelopment that upset residents of several areas within the
county.
The majority of the county council that took office in 1962 felt that develop-'
ment had been restricted too much during the previous few years, and so for the
next four years the council granted rezoning for development of large areas of
undeveloped land in the county, along with rezoning for more high-rise apart-
ment and office buildings. Most of the members of this council were not mem-
bers of the next council elected in 1966, and subsequent councils have felt that
too much land was rezoned during the 1962 to 1966 period.
Meanwhile, after some regional consultations on the problem of sewage disposal,
in which the enlargement of the major treatment plant of the District of Columbia
was a major consideration, the WSSC felt it had enough disposal capacity coming
on line over the next few years so that it could make commitments to developers
to build sewer extensions into undeveloped portions of Montgomery County. "There
were some difficulties with Congress over the Rinding of the expansion of the
District of Columbia plant, and the planning process took longer than anticipated,
and work on other plants to be built by the WSSC did not move as rapidly as had
been hoped. The net result of this process was that many more sewer connections
had been authorized in Montgomery County than the treatment facilities could
handle. The WSSC viewed itself as the victim of a set of circumstances beyond
its control, while many Montgomery County officials and citizen groups viewed
the WSSC as being the major cause of the-problem.
The Montgomery County council then enacted legislation requiring a ten year
county water and sewer plan to be adopted by the council, which would designate
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the water and sewer extensions to be made each year for the next ten years.
In any given year, the WSSC xcould build only those extensions designated by
the plan to be built in that year. The first 10 year plan was enacted in 1972.
This action placed the Montgqmery County council in control of water and sewer
line extensions in the county for the first time. As noted earlier, this did not
entirely solve the problem, because there has been some delay in building a
wastewater treatment plant to be built by the county as part of the ten-year plan
because the county council members could not agree on a site for the plant.
Despite this small setback, Montgomery.County officials are hopeful that the
ten year plan will both prevent future problems of too many sewers and too little
capacity, and will also be a tool by which the county council can regulate the
speed and direction of future growth.
Meanwhile, the state pollution control agency ordered WSSC officials to place
a moratorium on any new sewer connection commitments until the sewage treat-
ment capacity caught up with the development authorized by existing commit-
ments. Because many developers had anticipated the moratorium and applied
for and received sewer commitments from the WSSC, it will be several years
before the moratorium can bring the supply and demand for sewer treatment
facilities into a reasonable balance.
One unanticipated effect of the moratorium has been that the state property
assessment review agency has reduced the assessment on parcels of land owned
by developers who were denied future connection commitments because of the
moratorium, on the grounds that the land had less value when its development
was delayed. Tljiese reassessment decisions reduced the tax base of Montgomery
County by several million dollars.
To sum up, the relationship between Montgomery County and the Washington
Suburban Sanitary Commission has been a mixed relationship at best. Some
county officials have suggested that the WSSC should be abolished and that
the water and sewer functions should be taken over by Montgomery County and
Prince George's County.
Pollution Control Activities in Montgomery County
Probably the most important pollution control activity in Montgomery County has
beentthe efforts of the county council to limit and slow down urban grbwth over
the past few years. The effort has received considerable support from citizens,
although it has not met with the approval of developers, the building industry,
and the home furnishing industry, which together are one of the largest sources
of employment within Montgomery county.
The council has used its planning and zoning powers to slow down growth by re-
quiring lower densities as one of the conditions for rezoning or for the approval
of plans for development. Because of the extensive rezoning done by an earlier
council to encourage development, the actions of the present council are not
going to result in any substantial slowdown of new building for a few years.
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Meanwhile, some citizen groups are suggesting the concept of no growth. This
concept has not yet been given serious consideration by the community and by
county officials, although it has been discussed and there seems to be agreement
that slowing growth to a relatively low rate may be desirable. In June of 1973
the Washington Metropolitan Area, including Montgomery county, had its first
smog alert, an event which triggered new awareness of the connection between
population and automobiles and air pollution.
Air Pollution Control
The county environmental protection department has participated in studies of
air pollution done in cooperation with the Washington Metropolitan Area
Council of Governments, and operates several monitoring stations in that part
of the multi-county COG network. The department also inspects incinerator
controls in commercial buildings for violations of the county air pollution ordi-
nance. Because the county has very little industry, air pollution is almost en-
tirely caused by emissions from automobile exhausts. Thus dimunition of air
pollution is primarily dependent upon national regulation of automotive emissions,
When the rapid transit system now being built becomes operational, it is hoped
that the amount of automotive traffic in the county and the entire metropolitan
area will be reduced considerably, thus helping to reduce air pollution. The
primary responsibility for air pollution control rests with the state pollution con-
trol agency.
Water Pollution Control
Up until 1972, responsibility for water pollution control rested primarily with the
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, and Montgomery County officials felt
that it was difficult to get information. Meanwhile, urban growth continued and
sewer connection permits had outrun the capacity of existing treatment plants,
resulting in the moratorium on sewer permits mentioned earlier. With the adop-
tion in 1972 of the new ten-year water and sewer plan for Montgomery County,
control over extension of water and sewer lines has been taken over by the
county council, and improvement in pollution control is expected, once the
backlog is eliminated.
The county council also decided to build a major wdstewater treatment plant for
the western side of the county, which will be a major part of future pollution
control activities. Meanwhile, there has been some difficulty in finding a site
for the plant on which the members of the council can agree, and some delay has
resulted. So the change in control from the WSSC to the county has not eliminated
some of the pollution control problems. Statewide pollution control regu/lations
are established by the State Board of Health and enforced in Metropolitan County
by both county and state officials.
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Solid Waste Pollutioh Control
The disposal of solid wastes has been a major problem for Montgomery County in
the past few years, just as it has been in other major urban areas. Because of
the high median income of its residents., there may be a slightly greater genera-
tion of solid wastes in Montgomery County than in some other areas. The problem
in the county has been to find sites for land-fills, and to provide sufficient funds
for sanitary landfill operations. Because the major landfill sites were reaching
their capacity about three years ago several temporary sites were put into opera-
tion. As of mid'-1973 the County Council was having difficulty agreeing upon
new landfill sites because of the strong citizen opposition to having a landfill in
their area of the county.1
Nuclear Pollution Control
Nuclear pollution control is not a major activity for Montgomery County. The
environmental-protection department does monitor the nuclear equipment of pri-
vate industries that hold state permits and notifies the state agency if it finds
violations. There is some nuclear equipment in federal installations within the
county, but this does not come within the jurisdiction of the county environ-
mental protection department.
Noise Pollution Control
Montgomery County has a noise control ordinance which is directed primarily
at automotive noises. It is enforced by the police department, which attempts
to follow up on all complaints from citizens about noisy vehicles.
Visual Pollution Control
The county attempts to prevent visual pollution by control of new developments
in the county, arid" this is one consideration taken into account by the planning
commission and the county council before approval is given for development or
redevelopment to proceed. However, the county does not yet prohibit over-
head power ancj telephone lines in residential developments, although developers
have been encouraged to voluntarily do this.
Summary
Montgomery County is an example of an urban county which has operated under
a count!(-manager and a subsequent elected chief executive charter since 1948.
Over 83% of the population lives in urban areas outside the boundaries of any
municipality, and receives most urban governmental services from the county.
Because the existing municipalities have about exhausted their capacity to ab-
sorb additional population, the proportion of residents outside municipalities
will continue to be as high or higher in the future.
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The county is a member of the Washington Metropolitan Area Council of Govern-
ments, and county officials generally find the COG useful as a form in which to
exchange information with local officials from other jurisdictions in the area and
to discuss with them possible solutions for area problems. County officials and
the citizens of the county do not look with favor on the COG or any other agency
becoming a regional government. They apparently believe that an urban munici-
pality of over 500,000 population with the kind of governmental structure viewed
most ravorably by reformers should be the operating and decision-making govern-
mental unit.
The county is also part of two multi-county special districts, the Maryland-
National Capitol Parks and Planning Commission and the Washington Suburban
Sanitary Commission. Over recent years, the county has been moving in the
direction of taking control over the planning function and over water and sewer
extensions, thus indicating a preference for operating all governmental services
carried on within its boundaries.
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SECTION IX
THE URBAN COUNTY, PLUS: METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY
Introduction and History
Students of metropolitan government have found Metropolitan Dade County,
Florida, difficult to classify, because it is still in the process of evolving. The
study by the Public Administration Service in 1954, which was the basis for the
subsequent successful charter effort, proposed a two-tier federation (Public
Administration Service, 1954). The charter, however, provided a system of
urban county government that could develop in one of several directions. Even
in 1973, sixteen years after the adoption of the charter, local leaders express
differing ideas of the direction of future governmental changes in Metropolitan
Dade County (hereafter called Dade Metro in this chapter).
The local government pattern is roughly comparable to Los Angeles County be-
fore the Lakewood plan. In Dade County, two-thirds of the population lives in
cities, but mixed in between and around the cities are unincorporated areas in
which urban services are provided by the county.
But what has been happening in Dade county for the past decade or more is func-
tional consolidation individual cities ask the county to take over a service pro-
vided by the city, such as fire protection, or parks and recreation. Dade Metro
agrees to do so, and begins to provide the service to all residents within the
boundaries of that city.
Thus, over time, Dade Metro is providing not only county-wide services, but it
is also providing a larger proportion of the local services within the cities. And
since much of the urban growth in the past decade has been in the unincorporated
areas, the proportion of local services provided by Dade Metro has been increas-
ing steadily, and the proportion provided by the cities has been decreasing.
The term "urban county" has been applied to Metropolitan Dade County in re-
cent years, and this seems to be a reasonably accurate description, except that
Dade Metro also encompasses an entire SMSA, is the A-95 review and regional
planning agency, and performs other functions usually done by a regional agency.
But all of these activities take place within the boundaries of one reasonably large
county.
At the same time, not all regional activities are encompassed within the county
boundaries. Planning for rapid transit or a new regional airport, for example, in-
cludes representatives of from three to five counties. And as the state of Florida
moves toward multi-county regional planning, Dade Metro has been included
within a region that includes seven counties.
Thus Dade Metro is an urban county that has regional characteristics for some pur-
poses, but for others it is only one county within larger regions.
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Characteristics of the Miami-Dade County Area
The area of Dade county is 2,352 sq mi, making it one of the larger counties in
the Eastern half of the United States. However, much of the area is low lying
everglades and swamp, and only a narrow strip of land along the eastern side of
the county is suitable for urban development.
Miami is the oldest of the existing incorporated cities, having incorporated in
1896. It became the largest city in the county, and in 1910 had a population
of almost 5,500. Rapid development occurred in the next two decades, and in
1930 Miami had a population of 110,000. There was a slight pause during the
depression, and Miami deannexed some territory because it could not afford to
provide the necessary urban services. Several suburban cities were incorporated
in the deannexed area, and other suburbs such as Coral Gables, Miami Beach,
and Hialeah continued to grow.
Since the 1930's, developers and redevelopers have been active, changing rela~
tively inexpensive land into residential accommodations for people who wanted to
enjoy the sun and the sea and the mild winter climate. Dade county has also been
an important agricultural county, ranking 86th in value of agricultural products
in 1969. Urbanization continues at a rapid pace, and former agricultural land
is turned into new subdivisions.
Over the past few decades, population growth has shifted outward from Miami
to suburban areas. Between 1960 and 1970 the population of Miami grew by
15%, a growth that many a central city would envy. But in the same period,
the population of the suburban municipalities increased by about 45%, and that
of the unincorporated areas increased by over 50%. So, despite a substantial
population increase in Miami, the central city proportion of the population of
the county dropped to just over 26% (it had been just over 50% in 1950).
In 1970 the five largest suburban cities had slightly over 23% of the county popu-
lation, while slightly more than 42% of the population lived in the unincorporated
areas.
Thus, Miami differed from the central cities of other metropolitan areas that had
major governmental reorganizations in the past two decades in not being the
dominant center of population, as were Nashville, Jacksonville, Indianapolis,
and Toronto. And Dade county is characterized by having a large and increasing
portion of the population living outside the. boundaries of any city.
In 1970, the population of Dade county was 1,257,000; Miami had 334,000,
Hialeah 101,000, Miami Beach 87,000, and the unincorporated areas had a
population of 537,000.
These growth patterns have implications for the development of local and metro-
politan government in Dade county. The residents of the county each decade
contain a high proportion of migrants from other areas, almost entirely from other
states, but including a large influx of Cubans in the past 15 years. The strong
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1970 Population (SMSA) - 1,268,000
Area(SMSA) - 2,352 sq mi
Total Units 33
Multi-County
Central and Southern
Florida Flood Control
District
(18 Counties)
Florida Inland
Navigation
District
(11 Counties
ro
County
Metropolitan
Dade County
Urban Municipality
Dade County
School Board
Other
27 Cities
2 School Districts
3 Special Districts
Fig. 170 Governmental Characteristics Dade County, Florida
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attachment of residents to their cities that exists in most other metropolitan
areas of the U S appears to exist to a lesser extent in most Dade county cities
because the residents are relative newcomers. And more than 400,000 of the
residents of the unincorporated areas did not live there in 1950. Thus they have
either voluntarily moved from a city or from outside the county into the unin-
corporated area, where their urban services are provided directly by Dade Metro.
The major ethnic groups in the population also tend to have a high proportion
of in-migrants from other areas, and to lack identification with specific cities.
The black population has had less in-migration than the rest of the population
in recent decades. Blacks were nearly 13% of the population in 1950 and just
under 16% in 1970. They have concentrated primarily in the city of Miami and
adjacent unincorporated areas. One result of this was that the Model Cities
neighborhood boundaries took in areas within the city of Miami and adjoining
unincorporated areas, and was administered by the Dade Metro department of
housing and urban development.
The largest ethnic group in the county is the Spanish-speaking population com-
monly referred to as Cubans, although there are components from other Latin
backgrounds. This group totalled 300,000 in 1970, or nearly 24% of the county
population. They also live primarily in the city of Miami and adjoining sub-
urban areas. Most of them are migrants into the area within the past ten or
twelve years.
The City of Miami Beach has a fairly large component of Jewish residents, most
of whom are migrants from New York and other Northern cities.
Because the climate of the area attracts tourists and winter visitors, Dade county
also has a large non-resident population. During peak weeks, there may be up
to 300,000 non-residents living in the county. It appears that this shifting popu-
lation of visitors tends to reinforce the tendency to not have deep-rooted local
loyalties.
Because of its relatively recent development, and its distance from other major
markets, Miami and Dade county have relatively little heavy industry and manu-
facturing. The travel industry and the real estate development industry appear to
be the two major components of the economy. The largest private employer is
Eastern Airlines.
The Dade County SMSA contains relatively few units of government. There were
33 such units in 1972, in contrast to the average of 268 units for metropolitan
areas with over 1 million population. There were128 municipalities: Dade Metro
is one of them, and the other 27 were cities. There were 5 special districts, con-
sisting of housing and urban renewal authorities and the school district.
There were 10 new municipalities incorporated in the county between 1940 and
1950. In the early 1950's, the Dade county legislative delegation to the Florida
legislature obtained legislation precluding further incorporations under general
state legislation, and the delegation informally agreed not to introduce special
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legislation for incorporations. When the Dade Metro charter went into effect
in 1957, the county assumed the power over municipal incorporations and only
one incorporation has been approved since that time.
There are very few multi-county districts of which Dade Metro is a member be-
cause Dade Metro serves as the regional agency for such things as A~95 review.
The Florida Inland Navigation District is concerned with bridges over the inland
waterway which goes through Dade county. Dade is one of seven counties in
the South Florida Regional Planning Council.
Historical Development of Metropolitan Dade County
The activities leading up to the adoption of the Metropolitan Dade County
charter in 1957 have been extensively studied (Sofen, 1963; Wolff, 1960;
Grant, 1969, 1970), and will be only briefly reviewed here.
There had been efforts to simplify and unify local government structure in the
Miami area dating from at least the 1930's. In the 1940's ten school districts
were consolidated into a single county-wide district, a county-wide health
system was established, and the area's major hospital was transferred from Miami
to Dade county.
In 1945 the mayor of Miami offered a proposal for consolidating all units of
government in the county into a unitary City and County of Miami. This was
supported by the news media and by governmental reform groups, but was not
introduced in the state legislature because of opposition from some of the sub-
urban communities.
But in 1948, a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution that would con-
solidate Miami and four smaller municipalities with the county, and allowing
other municipalities to join at a later date, was defeated by the voters in Dade
county.
In 1953, a proposal to abolish the Miami city government and transfer its func-
tions to Dade county was narrowly defeated by the voters of the city. This
close vote was an important factor in encouraging the subsequent campaign to
establish a home rule charter for Dade county (Sofe'n, 1963).
The willingness of many Miami residents to consider unification of the city and
county governments has been an unusual aspect of governmental reform in Dade
county. Unlike most other areaa where a unified form of government has been
considered, the residents of the central city of Miami have been more open to
the possibility of abolishing the city and combining it w'rth the county. Indeed,
in 1973 a member of the Dade Metro Commission from Miami was organizing yet
another attempt to do just that, and was receiving some support from other Miami
citizens.
Dade county government prior to reorganization was the commission form, with
numerous elective offices. The council-manager form existed in Miami and
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several other municipalities. But despite Miami's professional governmental
structure, the city government was often in political turmoil, and the relatively
stable county government was a more respected institution. While it is not the
norm, there have been several grand jury investigations and indictments of
municipal officials in Dade county over the past 25 years. And in 1972 a petition
for a recall election on four Dade County Metro commissioners was sparked by
charges of corruption. Thus, the pattern of political turmoil was a factor in the
movement toward governmental reorganization.
The campaign for Dade Metro began with the formation of a citizens group which
commissioned a study by the Public Administration Service. The Service in 1954
recommended a home rule charter with a two-tier federated system, with the
county providing metropolitan-wide services and the cities providing local serv-
ices, and with a council-manager form of government for the county (Public
Administration Service, 1954).
The governmental reorganization in Dade county took place over the period of
a number of years. First it was necessary to amend the Florida Constitution to
permit certain counties to adopt home rule charters, which was accomplished
through a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment in 1956.
Then a broadly based Charter Commission was established in Dade county, and
over a period of several months a proposed charter was drawn up. In this process,
the major political compromise seems to have been the decision to not press for
a unified governmental structure, but to establish a modernized county structure
and to have the municipalities retain their existing functions. However, the
charter attempted to strike a balance, which permitted the cities to voluntarily
turn over individual functions to the county, and gave Dade Metro considerable
power to establish county-wide standards for the performance of services.
Principal support for the charter came from the standard proponents of reform
university people, Chamber of Commerce, local news media (particularly the
influential Miami Herald), and the League of Women Voters. Some opposition
developed among city and county officials and employees.
The Charter was adopted in 1957 by a vote of 44,404 to 42,620, largely on the
basis of the substantial majorities given the proposal in the cities of Miami and
Coral Gables. Most other jurisdictions in the county voted against the charter.
Structure and Powers
The first few years of charter government for Dade Metro was marked by conflict
and confusion because the opponents of Metro government continued to propose
charter amendments that would change the structure and powers of Dade Metro.
The changes concerned the election and powers of certain county offices such
as sheriff and tax assessor, the method of election of the Dade Metro commission,
the powers of the county manager, and the distribution of powers between Dade
Metro and the municipalities. From 1958 through 1962, Sofen lists 17 such
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CO
Circuit Court
Civil Court of Record
Criminal Court of Record
County Judges Court
Justice of the Peace Court
Juvenile & Domestic
Relations Court
Metropolitan Court
Small Claims Court
State Attorney
Public Defender
Medical Examiner
Clerk of the Circuit Court
Clerk of the Criminal & Civil
Courts of Record
Constables (Justice of Peace
Courts)
Board of County
Commissioners
County School
Board
[County Manager
County Water
Authority
County Transit
Authority
Office of the County Manager
Budget & Analysis Division
Program Analysis Division
Data Processing Division
Citizens Information & Service
Program
Code Enforcement Division
Community Improvement Program
Elections Division
Consumer Protective Division
Community Relations Board
Office of Human Resources
Administration
Port Authority
Building & Zoning Department
Finance Department
Internal Auditing Department
Law Department
Personnel Department
Planning Department
Tax Assessor's Office
Health Department (includes
County Hospitals)
Housing and Urban Development
Department
Pollution Control Department
Welfare Department Youth
Services Department
Cooperative Extension
Public Works Department
Seaport Department
Traffic & Transportation Department
Water & Sewer Department
Corrections & Rehabilitation Department
Library Department
Parks & Recreation Department
Public Safety Department
Fire Department
Fig. 18. Organization and Functions Metropolitan Dade County
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amendments submitted to the voters (Sofen, 1963, p. 228). Most of the propo-
sals were defeated, and those that were adopted were of relatively minor conse-
quence except the repeal of a mandatory reassessment provision of the charter,
and amendments limiting the power of the manager to appoint department heads
and reorganize and combine departments without Commission approval. But the
continued proposal of and elections concerning charter amendments indicated a
continuing opposition to Dade Metro and diverted the attention of Metro officials
from the day-to-day business of governing.
The basic structure of Dade Metro is the commission-manager form of government.
It has the largest population of any local government using the manager form of
government in the United States. Many of the studies of Dade Metro have devoted
considerable attention to the county managers, their managerial styles, and their
relationships with the commission. Looking back over the first 15 years of Dade
Metro, it appears that each of the county managers made major contributions to
building the administrative structure and staff, and to educating the community
about how the commission-manager form of government operates. This has not
been an easy task. As recently as 1972, four of the Dade Metro commissioners
were removed from office by the voters in a recall election. And the previous
year the Dade County Metro Study Commission recommended a strong mayor system
that would have weakened considerably the relative position of the manager. In
the 15 years of continuous turbulence, the manager system has not really had the
opportunity to show what it could do.
But in 1973, most observers in Dade county felt that the county manager and the
mayor and commissioners were finally putting it all together. And observers,
while praising the incumbent manager, were careful to add that the commission
he had to work with was the best commission so far. The general feeling of opti-
mism wgs supported by the fact that the voters had shown support for the present
administration in 1972 by approving the issuance of $536,000,000 in bonds for
a wide variety of county projects.
Dade Metro is governed by eight commissioners and a mayor who presides over
and is a voting member of the commission. There are eight districts. The com-
missioner must be a resident of the district from which elected, but is elected by
the voters of the entire county, in a nonpartisan election. The mayor is also
elected by the voters of the entire county.
Thus far there has never developed in Dade Metro the kind of nonpartisan local
political party so often found in other commission-manager municipalities. In
Dade's individualistic electoral system, the most sought-after endorsement is that
of the Miami Herald, but the voters tend nevertheless to make their own selections.
The commissioners hire the manager, and he serves at their pleasure. He appoints
department heads, subject to the approval of the commission. Virtually all other
Dade Metro employees are selected under the merit system except for judges and
other employees of the court system.
There is in the county a state circuit court, whose judges, state's attorney, public
defender and other officials are selected under the provisions of state law, in
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which Dade Metro has only the responsibility for holding such elections as are
required. However, Dade Metro, like other Florida counties, must provide
funds for salaries, court and office buildings, and other requirements of the
court system.
There is also a metropolitan court system, which is provided for in the charter
of Dade Metro, and which is essentially a municipal court system. The rela-
tionship of this court system to the existing municipal courts was a matter of
continuing controversy in the early years of Metro. At present, the metro-
politan court is the municipal court in the unincorporated areas of the county
and in those municipalities that have asked the county commission to provide
municipal court services for them. In other municipalities, such as Hialeah,
the city has chosen to provide its own municipal courts.
Under the direction of the county manager are some 24 major departments. A
few of them are departments with traditional county functions such as cooperative
agricultural extension, medical examiner, and elections. The remainder tend to
perform the functions of departments in large cities, including departments of
general services administration, and of housing and urban development, which
suggest an adaptation of federal agency functions to the local level.
There are five staff agencies, called offices, such as management and budget
and human resources administration. A relatively new staff agency is the Office
of Environmental Resource Management, which will be discussed later.
There are a number of other county agencies that do not seem to fit the tradi-
tional line and staff model, in that they are advisory to the commission, or per-
form functions that in other local areas are regarded as regional in nature. For
example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is advisory to the county
commissioners. Two agencies, the Criminal Justice Planning Council and the
Manpower Area Planning Council are simultaneously county and regional agencies
that work directly with the county manager, but perform review functions for pro-
posals from the county and municipalities within the county.
Division of Functions Between Metropolitan Dade County and the
Municipalities Within the County
The Dade Metro charter provides for a two tier system in that home rule powers
are conferred not only to Metro, but also to the constituent municipalities. But
there is ambiguity in the charter with respect to the precise relationship of Metro
to the municipalities, as indicated by the following appraisal:
Most of the charter provisions are permissive and none accomplish in
themselves any allocation or transfer of function. Powers are conferred
upon the county, but unti I those powers are exercised by the Board of
County Commissioners municipal authority continues unrestricted by the
charter. Consequently, the development of the pattern of interlocal
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governmental relations in Dade County depends in large part upon politi-
cal decisions to be made by the Board of County Commissioners (Feldman
& Jassy, 1967, p. 358).
There are some area-wide, metropolitan-level functions assigned to Dade Metro
by the charter: health and welfare; enforcement of the building code; compre-
hensive planning, pollution control; social action programs; ports, airports,
transit, Metro parks and recreation programs; a court system; and area-wide re-
sponsibi lities for traffic control and roadways.
Responsibility for water and sewage services was to be given to Dade Metro by
trie charter, and the Metro Water and Sewer Board has regulatory power over
all public and private water and sewer utilities. Yet the major operating
agency until 1973 was the City of Miami Water and Sewer Authority, and Dade
Metro had a limited role in providing water and sewer services. In 1973, the
Authority was moved from the jurisdiction of the Miami City Commission, re-
named, and placed under the jurisdiction of the Cade Metro Commission, where
it absorbed the water and sewer services formerly provided by Dade Metro. The
transfer of this major operating agency to Metro had been a long and delicate
transaction, and the Authority remains a quasi-independent agency separate
from the regular departments of Metro and not under the jurisdiction of the
County Manager.
f
At the same time, municipalities within the county are authorized by the charter
to exercise ail powers relating to local affairs not inconsistent with the charter.
Thus the municipalities have a wide range of functions such as police patrol, fire
protection, parks and recreation, and zoning and subdivision regulation which
can be performed by the municipality.
The charter provided that Dade Metro may set reasonable minimum standards for
all local governments in the county for the performance of any service or func-
tion. If the municipalities do not meet these standards, Metro may take over
and perform the function within the municipality. While this is a very strong
provision, the Dade Metro Commission has been reluctant to impose minimum
standards, and there has been no instance of Metro taking over and performing
a regular municipal function unless requested to do so by the municipality.
The charter also provides that Dade Metro may take over and operate or grant
franchises to operate any municipal service if authorized to do so by a two-
thirds vote of the governing body of the municipality or by a majority of those
voting within the municipality on the question of whether the county should
take over a specific service. The election on this question may be called either
by the governing body of the municipality or by the Dade Metro Commission.
The Metro Commission has not called such an election, and as a matter of
policy has taken over services only when requested to do so.
Over the years Dade Metro has received and acceded to a considerable number
of requests to take over services, as is indicated in Table 9.
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Table 9
Functions Transferred to Dade County by Municipal Governments Since 1957
(excluding law enforcement services)
Year
1959
1960
Function
Traffic Courts
Seaport
City
All cities
Miami
Traffic Engineering
Traffic Patrol
1961 Crime Lab
1963 Drunkometer Testing
1964 River Patrol
1966 Libraries
Beach Maintenance
Fire Communications
Tax Assessment
Tax Collection
1967 Soar Park
Neighborhood Rehab
Arterial Bridge Maint
1968 Fire Protection
Arterial Street light ing
Housing Authority
City Stockade
Consumer Protection
1969 Fire Protection
Voter Registration
1970 Fire Communications
1971 Auto Inspection
Libraries
Voter Registration
1972 City Jail
Municipal Court
Fire Protection
Fire Communications
Voter Registration
Auto Inspection
All
Coral Gables
Miami
Miami
Miami
South Miami, Coral Gables, Miami
Springs
Miami Beach
North Miami Beach
All
All
Miami
Miami
Miami
Florida City, Virginia Gardens
Miami (and others)
Miami
Miami
Miami
North Miami
North Bay Village
Miami Shores
Miami
Miami
Biscayne Park, Miami Beach
Miami
Miami
Opa-locka, Bal Harbour-Bay Harbor
Islands, North Bay Village
Miami Springs, West Maimi, Sweetwater
El Portal
Hialeah
135
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Year Function City
1973 Park, Recreation, Miami - Proposed
Special Facilities
Fire Protection Miami Shores - Proposed
Voter Registration Bay Harbor Islands, North Miami
Beach, Miami Shores, Sweetwater,
Hialeah Gardens
Water & Sewer Authority Miami
Fire Protection Surfside
1974 Voter Registration All (10 remaining) - State Mandate
Source; Metropolitan Dade County Office of Management & Budget, July 1973.
The Dade Metro Department of Public Safety also provides services for many of
the cities in the county. For example, crime laboratory service, central acci-
dent records, and vice investigations are provided by the department for all
municipalities within the county. On the other hand, 25 of the 26 cities pro-
vide their own routine police patrol and 23 of the 26 provide their own traffic
law enforcement. And Miami/ Miami Beach and Hialeah still provide most of
the major law enforcement services for themselves.
When a service is transferred from a municipality to Dade Metro, the cost of the
service is included as a part of the Dade Metro budget. Thus there is some finan-
cial incentive for the cities to transfer functions to Dade Metro. The Florida
legislature, by a statute effective in 1972, added some additional incentive by
imposing a tax rate limitation of 10 mills on each municipality in the state.
Several of the cities in Dade county, including Miami, were above the rate
limit, and in order to meet the state requirement they had to cut their expendi-
tures. It is expected that as the 10 mill limit begins to pinch municipal budgets
even further, there will be more requests for the transfer of functions to Dade
Metro.
Another issue has been that there were many people who felt that city residents »
were paying county taxes that helped to subsidize Date Metro services in the un-
incorporated areas, whose residents paid.only the county taxes. One of the argu-
ments advanced by those who favored abolishing the city of Miami has been that
this action would eliminate the double taxation now being paid by residents of
the city.
Metro officials say that this criticism may have been true in the past, but that
changes in the past few years have brought in sufficient revenues from the un-
incorporated areas to pay for the municipal services they receive directly from
the county. The 1973-74 Dade Metro budget points out that non-property tax
revenue from the unincorporated areas is expected to total $36.4 million, more
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than enough to pay for the municipal services received. The major sources are
the utility tax ($17 million),, state revenue sharing to the county for the unin-
corporated territory from gasoline and cigarette taxes ($9.4 million), building
and zoning fees ($3.7 million), and traffic fine revenue ($3.2 million) (Metro-
politan Dade County, 1973, p. 7). This is admittedly a rough kind of cost-
benefit measurement, but it has been accepted as valid in some court suits brought
against the county by taxpayers. Some outside observers, however, have raised
questions about both the validity of the method for determining costs and benefits
and the economic efficiency of the Dade county system for residents desiring diF
ferent levels of services (Bish, 1971, p. 100).
At the cutoff point for our study, there was still a suit in the Florida courts
challenging the right of Dade Metro to levy the utility tax on residents of the
unincorporated areas. Because this tax provides the bulk of the revenue on which
the argument of adequate tax payments from the unincorporated areas rests, it
remains a serious challenge to the ability of Metro to tax residents fairly for
services.
*
With the continued transfer of functions from the municipalities to Dade Metro,
the question arises as to what services will ultimately be retained by the munici-
palities. Some observers predict that most cities will be left with one or two serv-
ices, such as routine police patrol. It is expected that Hialeah and Coral Gables
will retain more services than this minimum as long as possible.
Thus, the picture is one of centralization, with the provision of services for all
residents being done by Dade Metro, with some municipalities providing a few
additional services. This would eliminate the kind of two-tier system originally
envisioned by the PAS study, with Metro providing area-wide services and the
municipalities providing local services. I
The idea of a two-tier system is still in the minds of many local observers, in-
cluding some Dade Metro officials. Indeed, in 1971 the report of the Metropoli-
tan Dade Charter Commission recommended a complete two-tier system, to be
accomplished by dividing the unincorporated areas into four to six service dis-
tricts which would, like the municipalities, support their own local services
from property taxes and service fees within the district (Wood, July 1971, p. 397).
Apparently the service district was regarded by the Charter Commission as an
interim device to be used until the service district residents were persuaded that
they should incorporate into municipalities. The service districts would be
governed by the Dade Metro Commission, but each one would have an elected
district board recommending the level of local taxation to be levied by the Com-
mission for their district. This proposal was not accepted and put on the ballot,
but discussion on some kind of two-tier system continues in Dade county, and
many observers believe that some sort of two-tier system will eventually be
adopted. Just what this will mean for the direct provision of local services by
Dade Metro is unclear, because there are a number of possible options. What is
clear is that the evolution of the system of provision of local government serv-
ices in Dade Metro can be expected to continue, and that further changes can
be expected.
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Pollution Control Activities In Metropolitan Dade County
Citizens of Dade county and Dade Metro officials have shown considerable con-
cern about pollution problems. In Dade county, as in some other parts of Florida,
there has beeri the realization that increased population is inevitably followed by
increased pollution. This realization has led to serious consideration of the ques-
tion of whether additional growth is really desirable.
The same question has been raised by the governor and other state officials, and
the state government has moved to at least slow the growth rate and to control
the effects of pollution upon the major land and water resources of the state.
Legislators from Dade county have been among the leaders in these efforts.
In Dade county, the issue of growth has received considerable attention. Be-
cause the land development and building industry is one of the major components
of the economy, there has been considerable resistance to the idea of limiting
growth. At the same time, there is a general public awareness that too many
people and too much additional building will cause a deterioration of the Florida
lifestyle, and that this has already begun to happen in parts of Dade county and
other nearby areas used for recreation by Dade county residents. In a 1973 sur-
vey, two-thirds of the members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce
favored government and business policies that would discourage migration to
South Florida and would try to improve the lifestyles of current residents.
The Dade Metro Commission has discussed the need for limiting growth. It has
taken tentative action in that direction by imposing temporary moratoriums on
rezoning in major areas of the county while a development plan is being pre-
pared and adopted for the county. The Commission also has consistently voted
to reduce permitted densities in rezoning actions that have come before it.
/
These actions are directly related to pollution control, in that air pollution in
the county is caused almost entirely by automobiles, and a slowing of population
growth means a slowing of the increase in the number of automobiles operating
within the county. Similarly, new housing developments add to the existing
problems of waste disposal, and further development in the south and .western
portions of Dade county poses problems of increased pollution of the Everglades,.
Within this general context of discussion and action to decelerate the rapid growth
of the county, Dade Metro has programs aimed at the specific problems of pollution,
Office of Environmental Resource Management
In the 1973-74 budget of Dade Metro, provision was made for a new Office of
Environmental Resource Management as an adjunct of the County Manager's
office. The new office was not in operation at the time our study was made.
The announced intention was to have a staff agency to pull together the county's
efforts in dealing with environmental resource problems, including the problems
138
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of water resources management, solid waste disposal, river restoration, and to
cooperate on environmental matters with other agencies such as the Inland
Navigation district, the Flood Control District, and the Regional Planning
Council. The establishment of this office appears to indicate formal recogni-
tion by the Manager and Commission that Dade Metro should be devoting more
attention to emerging problems of environmental protection.
Air Pollution Control Activities
The Dade Metro Pollution Control Department operates air pollution monitoring
stations, and periodically inspects installations that emit air pollutants. When
air pollution reaches dangerous levels, the department recommends to the county
manager that an air pollution alert be activated. The county has had several
such alerts. The basic air pollution problem in Dade county is automotive
exhausts, and most local observers feel any solution must come from federal and
state controls over automobile exhausts. However, it is recognized that some
amelioration can be achieved through such things as a rapid transit system and
limitations on future population growth, and Dade Metro is moving ahead on
both of these programs.
Water Pollution Control Activities
The major water pollution problem for Dade county has been sewage disposal,
with runoff from lawn and agricultural chemicals also a serious problem, and
commercial and industrial pollution being somewhat less serious.
Sewage disposal has been one of the major failures of local government in the
Miami-Dade Metro area over the past 15 years. Essentially, the problem has
been that local governments have permitted too much new residential and com-
mercial development without making adequate provision for sewage disposal.
Several times in the past 15 years, the problem has reached near-crisis propor-
tions, and a really serious crisis has been averted by a combination of good luck
and last-minute efforts.
Since 1957, the major responsibility for a county-wide sewage disposal program
has rested on Dade Metro, so the continuing seriousness of the problem must be
regarded as a failure of Metro to deal with the problem for the first 15 years of
its existence. Sewage disposal was one of the more intractible problems facing
the county, and other local government agencies also had major responsibility
and authority in this field. But the county charter gave Dade Metro the authority
to set standards for and regulate all local sewage disposal programs, as well as
to provide sewage disposal services itself. So if sewage disposal remained a major
problem, it was because Metro could not muster the necessary will and resources
to deal adequately with the problem.
However, there has been an accelerated effort to meet the problem in recent years,
and it appears that the problem may be brought under control within the next few
years under the leadership of Dade Metro, in cooperation with state and federal
officials.
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Some of the initial impetus for this effort came from a hearing on water pollu-
tion problems held in Dade county by the U S Environmental Protection Agency
in 1970. Tkiis hearing identified the dimensions of the pollution control problem
in the area, alerted the public to the need for action, and brought out what
local agencies needed to do. While there have been disagreements, it appears
that EPA encouragement and support has been one of the ingredients in the
efforts of Dade Metro to deal with the problem.
Meanwhile, the State of Florida was showing increasing concern about pollu-
tion of water resources, and established a State Department of Pollution Control
with considerable power to regulate local activities. Dade Metro incorporated
all the rules and regulations of the state department into the county pollution
control ordinance by reference. Thus, the State and Metro share responsibility
for taking action in the case of waterpollution.
Where there is a major outbreak of pollution, in which the sewage disposal plants
of Dade Metro or the City of Miami or other major cities in the county seem to be
at fault, it is up to the state to take action. But in the case of pollution dis-
charges into the streams within the county, the Dade Metro Pollution Control De-
partment is responsible for enforcement action against polluters.
Up until 1973, the major agency supplying water and sewer services in the
county was the City of Miami Water and Sewer Authority, which furnished the
water supply to about 70% of residents .of the county, and furnished the sewage
disposal for nearly 50% of them. The Authority was under the jurisdiction of the
Maimi City Commission, but operated independently of the city manager, thus
being a quasi-independent authority.
The Dade Metro Charter established a Water and,Sewer Board with authority to
regulate water and sewer agencies within the county. It has regulated the
smaller public and private water and sewer agencies in the county, but never
really had either the technical or political, capacity to exercise real control
over the Miami Water and Sewer Authority. The Dade Metro Commission also
has charter authority to establish minimum standards for water and sewer services
within the county, but has chosen not to exercise this power to control the Miami
Water and Sewer Authority.
In 1973, after extensive negotiations, the Miami Water and Sewer Authority was
transferred from Miami to Dade Metro, and became the Metropolitan Dade County
Water and Sewer Authority. It absorbed the existing Metro sewer authority,
which had operated on a considerably smaller scale than the Miami authority.
The transfer means that there is now a county-wide authority that provides most
of the water and sewer services within the county, and it is under the jurisdiction
of the Dade Metro Commission, so that it should be easier to establish and carry
out a Metro water and sewer policy. The Authority is not under the jurisdiction
of the county manager, so it retains the semi-autonomous position that it held
when it was an agency of the City of Miami.
Another part of the water pollution control problem in the county is the number
of jurisdictions that are involved in granting permission to developers and builders
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to hook up to existing major sewer systems, or to establish small treatment plants,
or to use septic tanks. In the incorporated areas, these decisions are made by
the various municipalities concerned. In the unincorporated areas, the decisions
are made by Dade Metro, but are made by three different departments Bui Iding
and Zoning, Public Works, and Pollution Control plus the Metro Commissioners
through their actions on zoning and rezoning. Once the tanks and plants are
authorized, the Pollution Control department inspects them on a continuing basis
and enforces the pollution control ordinance. The Department has worked out
an effective relationship with the prosecuting attorney's office, and court en-
forcement has been effective enough so that once a polluter has consulted his
lawyer, he usually is ready to stop the pollution without the necessity for court
action. "*
The Dade Metro Pollution Control Department in 1973 was in the process of de-
veloping a proposed ordinance to require filling stations to install leak-proof
gasoline storage systems and another ordinance to regulate discharges from metal
plating plants, an important component of industry in Dade county. Both ordi-
nances would add to the expense of the affected businesses, but since this pollu-
tion directly affects the aquifer on which the water supply of the entire area de-
pends, the ordinances were regarded as necessary.
To sum up, the Dade Metro Pollution Control Department monitored water pollu-
tion and enforced the existing Metro ordinances and was developing a new ordi-
nance . It was a good program, and was well operated. But there were larger
questions of pollution that were beyond the control of the Department, and for
which responsibility rested in the Dade Metro Commission, the Water and Sewer
Authority, and the State and Federal pollution control agencies.
For example, the ultimate method of sewage disposal for the county was still
under discussion. The City of Miami Beach was under a state and federal
mandate to hook up its sewage outfall line to one of the plants of the County
Water and Sewer Authority, and to cease discharging treated sewage into the
Atlantic Ocean too close to the shore. But the approved disposal method was
to discharge into the Atlantic at a distance of several miles from shore, where
the cleansing action of the Gulf Stream provided adequate dispersal. Even so,
there were occasional complaints from the adjoining downstream areas such as
Broward County and Palm Beach County that their beaches were being polluted
by Dade Metro and its municipalities.
In the Water and Sewer Plan developed by Dade Metro in 1973 and approved by
the State and Federal agencies, this off-shore discharge was a part of the ap-
proved plan. But there was also a controversial proposal for making use of deep-
well disposal as an alternative to discharge into the ocean. So there are still
some major unsolved questions as to where to>put the sewage in the more distant
future.
Meanwhile Dade Metro officials are optimistic that the Water and Sewer Plan
can be implemented within the next few years, thus bringing under control the
immediate water pollution problem from sewage disposal. Among the bond
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issues approved by the voters in 1973 was a substantial amount for sewer mains
and treatment plants, which together with promised EPA grant funds will build
substantially all the facilities needed to provide adequate treatment and dis-
posal for buildings and population foreseeable in the next few years. If a
major pojlution outbreak can be avoided while the facilities are being built,
Metro will have then achieved considerable success in dealing with the sewage
disposal problem. However, any combination of accelerated growth and in-
flationary costs might tend to limit the success of the effort, as would any lessen-
ing of the federal funds being counted on by Metro.
The water pollution problems of agricultural chemicals and the runoff from home-
owners' lawns of pesticides and fertilizers is a major one, though less pressing
than that of sewage disposal. It is acute on the Western side of the county,
where this runoff goes into the streams flowing through the everglades, but is
also a problem in terms of weed growth in the drainage canals and pesticide
concentrations in fish in the canals and rivers on the East side of the county.
At this point, the county is relying on an educational campaign to persuade
people to use chemicals as directed. In the long run, however, there will have
to be a major policy decision by the Dade Metro Commission or the State or
Federal agency, and the alternatives and consequences seem to have not yet
been very well identified.
Solid Waste Pollution
At present Dade Metro and the municipalities in the county are relying upon a
combination of sanitary landfills and incineration to dispose of solid wastes.
The limitations of both appear to be well understood, and Dade Metro is actively
exploring alternative methods of disposal. However, there are no feasible al-
ternatives in sight, and as landfill sites become more scarce, the problem will
become more acute for Dade county than in other parts of the country where
potential sites are more plentiful. Dade Metro officials are aware of the problem,
but at present seem to be hoping that improved technology of some kind will ap-
pear in time to prevent a crisis in solid waste disposal.
Nuclear Pollution Control Activities
There is not much nuclear activity in the county, and consequently not much
problem of nuclear pollution. The Dade Metro Pollution Control Department
issues permits and inspects the equipment of industrial firms using nuclear equip-
ment .
Noise Pollution Control Activities
Dade Metro has a noise ordinance aimed primarily at vehicle and machinery noise
levels, which is enforced when a complaint is received or v»hen a violation comes
directly to the attention of a police officer. In 1973 the Dade Metro Commission
had indicated an interest in revision of the ordinance to provide stricter control
over machinery and vehicle noise, and the Pollution Control Department had
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undertaken a study of noise levels as a preliminary step to developing a proposal
for a revised ordinance.
Dade Metro is in a somewhat ambivalent position with respect to aircraft noise.
As a major air transport center, with a substantial number of its citizens em-
ployed by the air transport industry, it is faced with the problem of not unduly
restricting its economic base by having such stringent noise controls that the
industry would look elsewhere.
At the same time, there is pressure from citizens whose homes are subject to
noise from aircraft flight patterns, and from those whose homes would be in the
proposed flight patterns from new airports. Yet efforts to relocate airports in
the direction of less densely populated areas almost inevitably move trie air-
craft noise out over the everglades and the cypress swamps, and encounters major
opposition from conservationists both in the county, the state, and the nation,
since the everglades are regarded as a unique natural resource. It appears that
the problem will continue to grow more difficult as time passes, since both the
economic and conservationist values will continue to be important to residents
of the county.
To sum up, Dade Metro has had mixed results in dealing with pollution control
problems. It seems to be pulling together the necessary funds and power to deal
with the immediate problems of sewage disposal. In the case of solid wastes,
air, nuclear, and noise pollution, Metro appears to be doing as well as are
other major municipalities throughout the country. But Metro still has major
long range pollution problems of solid waste, air quality, and sewage disposal.
It has yet to make some of the difficult value choices that seem to be required
to either live with or cut down on the pollution. And even if it were to make
these difficult choices, Metro would still be dependent upon action by local
governments in other parts of the state, by regional agencies, and by the state
and national governments before the pollution problems could be dealt with in
the way chosen by Metro. At the same time, it appears that the existence of
the Dade Metro government has made it possible to deal with some pollution
problems on a county-wide basis, which was more difficult before Metro came
into existence.
Summary
For the first fifteen years of the existence of Metropolitan Dade County, a series
of political attacks on its structure and officials tended to take a disproportionate
portion of time and attention. This is reflected in the literature about Dade Metro,
which tends to be concerned with the process by which it was brought into exist-
ence and survived the attacks.
The consultants' report from which the charter commission began its work proposed
a two-tier federation, and this image persisted although the charter established an
urban county with broad powers to determine the directions in which it would
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evolve. Both the report and the charter provided that area-wide functions
would be performed by Metro and local functions would be performed by munici-
palities. Both of them gave Metro power to set minimum standards tor the serv-
ices performed by the municipalities.
But the charter permitted Metro to also provide urban services directly in un-
incorporated areas, and what has developed is that Metro provides all urban
services in unincorporated areas occupied by about one-third of the population
of the county. In addition, many of the municipalities have requested that
Metro provide certain urban services within their boundaries, and Metro has
proceeded to do so. But Metro has never seen fit to establish minimum standards
for the provision of urban services by the municipalities.
Thus, what has developed in an urban county that provides area-wide services,
but not a two-tier or federated system. With respect to the local services, what
has been happening is a transfer of functions from many of the municipalities to
the county.
In addition, the county has performed some functions that are usually thought of
as regional in nature, for example A-95 review and Law Enforcement and Health
Services planning. So, in most respects, Dade Metro has been a regional agency,
primarily in connection with federal regional requirements.
For some purposes such as airport and rapid transit planning, and environmental
planning, Dade Metro has participated with adjoining counties as a part of
several multi-county regions. In the regulation of land use and environmental
management, the State of Florida is taking an increasing role, and Dade Metro
participates under the jurisdiction of the appropriate state agency.
It appears that the political challenges to Dade Metro's status in the county may
have lost their force, so that Metro can now turn its attention to its functions as
an urban county. Further evolution and controversy may be expected on the role
of Metro and the local governments, including the question of decentralization
of Metro services in the unincorporated areas. Some evolution and controversy
may also be expected as Dade Metro becomes more closed engaged with adjoin-
ing counties and the state government in activities that extend beyond the
boundaries of Metro.
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SECTION X
NASHVILLE-DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE
Introduction and History
Nashvi 11
center, [
portrayed by the media.
ille is the capital of Tennessee, a cultural, entertainment and commercial
center, justifiably resentful of the imposition of the "hillbilly image" sometimes
Perhaps best known as the "Country Music Capital of the World, " Nashville is
also a city of educational institutions (including the prestigeous Vanderbilt and
Fiske Universities), government offices, and insurance and banking firms. More
of a commercial than an industrial center, the Nashville area (Davidson County)
has a diversified economy and rate of economic growth that has provided a healthy
increase in per capita income and a relatively low unemployment rate for its
residents (Metropolitan Planning Commission, June, 1972).
On an impressionistic scale of nice places to live, Nashville would rank high
among American cities, possessing both "urbane" and "country" virtues.
As a system of urban government, Nashville's consolidated city and county
metropolitan-government has received a remarkably uncritical treatment in pub-
lished materials. The drama of the unsuccessful 1958 referendum to adopt a uni-
tary metropolitan government and the success of the 1962 referendum tends to
dominate the literature. In 1962 Roscoe Martin developed a systematic classifi-
cation of the methods of local government adaptations in metropolitan areas.
The numerical ordering of the sixteen types of adaptation identified by Martin
reflects the level of complexity and degree of structural change, i.e., Martin
explicitly notes (1963, p. 3): "each succeeding method in normal circumstances
would appear to edge a little nearer to an outright metropolitan solution to the
area's problems of government."
The consolidated government of Nashville-Davidson County is ranked fifteen on
Martin's scale, and that kind of status as "nearer to an outright metropolitan
solution" has tended to be reflected in published materials on Nashville's Metro
the assumption of "it has to be better" is implicit in almost all the research that
has appeared on Nashville's Metro.
In one sense, the passage of the decade of the 1960's has tended to downgrade
unitary metropolitan government as a viable alternative for most metropolitan
areas; but Nashville's Metro's radical departure from the traditional structure of
local government and its decade of existence are compelling reasons to attempt
to understand the relationship of political structure and governmental performance
in metropolitan areas from Nashville's experience.
The developmental history of the metropolitan area centered on Nashville, Tenne-
ssee, is a fascinating example of the process of metropolitanation and the structural
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1970 Population (County) - 447,877
Area (County) 508 sq rni
Total Units-15
Regional
(Thirteen-Counfy)
Davidson
Robertson
Sumner
Rutherford
Trousdale
Humphreys
Wilson
Cheatham
Steward
Williamson
Dickson
Montgomery
Houston
Mid-Cumberland
Council of Governments
Major Functions A -95
Review Regional Planning
Mi d -C umbe r 1 and
Development District
State Economic
Development District
Mid-Cumberland
Comprehensive
Health Plan. Agency
Interlocking Board-Shared Staff
County
r. .* Metro
(Davidson County)
Units within Davidson County
6 Satellite Cities
8 Special Districts
TOTAL UNITS - 15
Fig. 19. Governmental Characteristics Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee
-------
capacity of political institutions as they affect and are affected by that process.
During the last decade metropolitan growth has moved beyond the boundaries of
metropolitan government in Davidson County into contiguous counties.
Prior to 1962 Davidson County was a single-county SMSA. In 1962 Sumner and
Wilson counties were added to the Nashville SMSA. In 1973, Cheatham, Dick-
son, Robertson, Rutherford and Williamson counties were added to the retitled
Nashville-Davidson SMSA, creating an eight-county SMSA (U S Office of
Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, June, 1973, p. 197).
Table 10 indicates population distribution and trends within the eight-county
Nashville-Davidson SMSA. Davidson County clearly dominates as a population
center. But the rate of increase is greater in the suburban counties of the metro-
politan region, with Davidson County in a position of relative loss in its per-
centage share of the total population of the SMSA, replicating the pattern or
urbanization in the United States of spread and sprawl, growth outward from the
urban core.
However, the significance of the Nashville metropolitan area is that the process
of metropolitanization during the last decade has not occurred within the tradi-
tional framework of fragmented local governmental jurisdictions. The core of
the Nashville-Davidson SMSA is not the traditional central city, but a signifi-
cant example of a successful reform effort to achieve metropolitan government.
Certainly the population governed by Metro (447,877 in 1970) is smaller than
that of many of America's major cities. The significance of Nashville's Metro
is partly in its geographic jurisdiction of 507.8 sq mi (U.S. Bureau of the
Census, City and County Data Book, 1972), although there are municipal
governments that have pursued an aggressive policy of annexation which have
comparable areal capacity (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 635.7 sq mi; Houston,
Texas 433.9 sq mi, Kansas City, Missouri 316.3 sq mi).
The political meaning of Nashville Metro is only marginally indicated by its
geographic boundaries or the number of people it serves: Metropolitan government
has long been a goal and object of controversy as the dynamic process of metro-
politanization occurred in juxtaposition to the relatively rigid structure of local
governmental jurisdictions. Nashville Metro is a dramatic development in local
government structure that has served as a prototype for the decade of its existence.
The origins of Metro have been the object of study for social scientists, and there
are a number of comprehensive appraisals of the reform experience (Elazar, 1961;
Booth, 1963; Hawkins, 1966).
Brett Hawkins' work is the most recent developmental history of metropolitan reform
in Davidson County, and it is his research effort that provides the essential frame-
work for subsequent studies of Metro. The following section is a summary drawn
from the detailed presentation of the origin of Nashville Metro presented in Haw-
kins' study.
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00
Table 10
Nashville-Davidson SMS A Population and Projections
County
Cheatham
Davidson
Dickson
Robertson
Rutherford
Sumner
Williamson
Wilson
1950
(1)
9,167
321,758
18,805
27,024
40,696-
33,533
24,307
26,318
1960
(2)
9,428
399,743
18,839
27,335
52,368
36,217
25,267
27,668
1960-1970
1970 % change
(3)
13,199
447,877
21,977
29,102
59,428
56,284
34,423
36,999
(4)
40.0
12.0
16.7
6.5
13.5
55.4
36.2
33.7
1970-1980 1980-1990
1980 % change 1990 % change
(5)
16,400
505,600
24,800
35,000
71,000
72,600
44,600
47,900
(6)
24.3
12.9
12.8
20.3
19.5
29.0
29.6
29.5
(7)
20,300
575,000
28,500
42,500
88,000
86,000
56,400
57,600
(8)
23.8
13.7
14.9
21.3
23.9
18.5
26.5
20.3
1990-2000
2000 % change
(9)
24,800
649,750
32,350
51,000
104,000
103,200
71,600
71,400
(10)
22.2
13.0
13.5
21.4
18.2
20.0
27.0
24.0
Source; Adapted from: Mid-Cumberland Council of Governments and Economic District, Preliminary Development Plan
T972-2000, April 15, 1972. ~~
Columns (1), (2), (3), (4) data from U.S. Census of Population, 1950, 1960, 1970. Columns (5), (6), (7),
(8), (9), and (10) -estimates based on information from the Office of Business Economics, Environmental Protection Agency,
August, 1971, and Revised Population Projections for Nashville- Davidson County and the Metropolitan Region, Metro
Planning Commission, October, I97l, ana a joint meeting of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Tennessee Planning Com-
mission, and Tennessee Development Districts, December 6, 1971.
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Pre-Reform Nashville and Davidson County
Hawkins (1966, p. 17) presents in tabulated form the population differentials
that existed between the city and out-oPcity Davidson County areas from 1900
to I960, reproduced as Table 11 .
Table 11
Population of Nashville Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area,
by Central City and County Outside: 1900-1960
Year
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
Nashville
80,865
110,364
118,342
153,866
167,402
174,307
170,874a
Davidson
County
Outside
41,950
39,114
49,473
68,988
89,865
147,451
228,869
Source: Bertil Hanson, A Report on Politics in Nashville (Cambridge:
Joint Center for Urban Studies of M. I .T. and Harvard Uni-
versity, 1960), Chap. I, p. 1.
Including 4,587 persons annexed in 1959. The legality of this
annexation, however, had not been settled by the courts at the time
of the 1960 census. At that time the city occupied 23.3 sq mi.
The population profile indicates the kind of service problems that are endemic to
the spread of the urbanized area. One aspect of Nashville's pre-reforms circum-
stances are in the substantive problems in serving people needs for fire and police
protection, schools, sewers, etc., as people move beyond municipal boundaries.
Another aspect is the institutional arrangements of the local governments in the
deli very/non-deli very of the needed urban services. The assumption of the metro-
politan reform movement in Nashville (as elsewhere) was that the substantive
problems of lack of sanitary sewers, etc., would yield to the organizational logic
of reformed governmental institutions. Structure-capacity-performance were assumed
to be linked positively, if not absolutely, in reform expectations.
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The political diagnosis of the metropolitan problem was summarized by Roscoe
Martin in his 1963 study of metropolitan areas (p. 103): "Nashville in 1951
was really two cities. One was the economic and social community of over
300,000 persons living in an area of some 125 sq mi. The other was the cor-
porate city, consisting of slightly more than half that number living within an
area of only 22 square miles. "
During the decade of the 50's the governmental structure within Davidson County
became the object of study and concern. Although Davidson County contained
relatively few units of government (15) prior to consolidation "there was no area-
wide instrumentality to handle areawide problems until 1962" (Hawkins, 1966,
p. 23).
The governmental units of Davidson County prior to consolidation in 1962 in-
cluded: one county, seven municipalities, and seven special districts (six utility
and the Nashville Housing Authority).
Numerically, the adoption of Metro didn't substantially decrease the govern-
mental units in Davidson County. The 1967 Census of Governments listed 13
units: seven municipalities (including Metro), and six special districts. The
1972 Census of Governments, again, counts 15 units in Davidson County: seven
municipalities and eight special districts, two being added since 1967.
However, the numbers tend to mask Metro's dramatic accomplishment in govern-
mental reform.
The six "satellite cities" that appear in the census count have retained their
separate identity under Metro but are not particularly significant in terms of the
delivery systems of local government services. The satellite cities and their 1960
populations are listed in Table 12. The satellite cities1 boundaries in Davidson
County were "frozen" by the adoption of Metro, that is they cannot annex. How"
ever, Goodlettsville, in northeastern Davidson County has moved to annex con-
tiguous land in Sumner County. The City of Hendersonville in Sumner, also wants
to annex the land, and the resulting dispute has involved the argument that if
Goodlettsville surrenders its charter and merges with the USD, part of Sumner
County would be "annexed" by Davidson County Metro.
Table 12
Davidson County Satellite Cities
Year Area Population
Incorporated Sq Miles 1960 Census
City of Belle Meade
City of Berry Hill
City of Forest Hills
City of Goodlettsville
City of Lakewood*
City of Oak Hi II
1938
1950
1957
1958
1959
1952
2.80
.87
9,47
6.43
.95
8.37
3,082
1,551
2,101
3,163
1,896
4,490
incorporated as Dupontonia. Name change voted in 1962.
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The continued existence of the six satellite cities may have some symbolic
meaning in their refusal to yield to the unitary logic of Metro by surrendering
their charters and receiving all of their needed services from Metro. (The
satellite cities are included in the area-wide programs of Metro, but remain
separate from the "Urban Services District" which provides "city-type" services
of fire protection, garbage collection, etc.)
But the institutionalized conflict present in Dade County, Florida between the
county and municipalities does not exist in Davidson County simply because the
satellite cities contain such an insignificant percentage of the population that
they can safely be ignored by Metro. (And apparently by the Bureau of the
Census, since our attempts to locate specific population figures for the satellite
cities in 1970 census publications was unsuccessful, although the 1972 Census
of Governments indicates that one of these six municipalities has a population
m the 5,000 to 9,999 range, three are in the 2,500 to 4,999 range, and two are
in the 1,000 to 2,499 range).
The cities of Goodlettsvilie and Lakewood were incorporated after the defeat of
the 1958 consolidation proposal. Typically, state laws make incorporation rela-
tively easy, annexation relatively difficult. The gap between developed areas
in need of urban services and the constrained areal capacity of a central city to
deliver those services usually results in a central city hemmed in by growing num-
bers of incorporated suburbs. Nashville's static geography is explicable on the
basis of restrictive state laws requiring consent of the annexed population, as
much as the city's failure to annex the urbanized fringe. And as subsequent
events in Davidson County were to demonstrate, central cities tend to be "damned
if they do and damned if they don't" in annexation policy-decisions.
Incorporation activity has come to be deplored in metropolitan areas as causing
fragmentation, that is expressing a defensive separatism mentality on the part of
the suburban populations. However, incorporation can also express perception of
service needs and the willingness to organize and contribute tax monies to a local
government to provide those services.
Of the six municipalities that incorporated outside of Nashville, two did so after
the threat of consolidated government in 1958, and three incorporated to gain
zoning power to protect their exclusive residential quality (Hawkins, 1966, p.
23).
Daniel Grant (1966, p. 221) theorized that the failure of Nashville to annex
removed a threat to the urbanized fringe that might have motivated incorporation,
which would have made Metro mOre difficult to achieve, a somewhat back-
handed compliment to the city's government in aiding the reform effort. But that
is a difficult position to understand since until a 1955 change in state law, sub-
urban residents were protected from being unwillingly annexed, with a referendum
required to approve the annexation; nor have other fringe areas surrounding cities
that had a "no-annexation" policy displayed a similar disinclination to incorporate;
for example, this was not the case in the St. Louis, Detroit, or Seattle areas.
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Incorporation as an expression of problem-solving behavior to provide urban
services appears to have been almost nonexistent in Davidson County prior to
consolidation. It is well to keep in mind that dispite substantive problems
prior to consolidation, there is little evidence that the consumers of public
services in Davidson County were aroused to demand a more rational system
of local government's delivery of services. The substantial degree of urbani-
zation in the absence of incorporation and the failure of the 1958 referendum
vote suggest that the residents of Davidson County remained skeptical of the
utility of changing the structure of local government to meet citizen needs.
Substantive problems in Davidson County prior to reform provide a fixed point
measure from which the effect of metropolitan reform can be (crudely) measured,
since the rationale for reform was based on improved services, as well as other
more subjective values.
The literature is agreed on the problems that existed in the Nashville area.
There is substantial agreement that the lack of sanitary sewers was the number
one problem. A health (environmental) problem because the lack of an area-
wide sewer system resulted in the reliance on septic tanks in Davidson County
and the concentration of limestone on or near the surface of the area's soil re-
ducing the capacity of the soil to absorb sewerage (perculate) made the use of
septic tanks especially undesirable in the urbanized areas.
The lack of a sewerage system was also perceived as an economic problem, pre-
venting Davidson County from attracting industrial development in unsewered
areas. Obviously, sewers can and have been developed in suburban areas in the
absence of one area-wide government, often through the creation of special
districts. However, it was not until shortly before the second vote on consolida-
tion m 1962 that the special district was used to provide sanitary sewers in an
unincorporated area of Davidson County (Madison). As another way, short of
consolidation, of sewering the out-of-city areas, Brett Hawkins1 study noted that
proponents of consolidation feared that the county's Madison Sewer District would
weaken the pro-consolidation sentiment of suburbanites seeking sewers (Hawkins,
1966, p. 78).
It was not solely governmental service problems that motivated Davidson County
reformers, but also the conviction that there was a preferable governmental struc-
ture, to provide those needed services. In common with many reform movements,
pro-reform sentiment operated at a level of political abstraction that has seldom
struck a responsive cord with a majority of metropolitan area residents in numerous
referendum campaigns to restructure local government.
The philosophical diagnosis of the governmental problem in Davidson County was
that the existence of a city and a county government resulted in conflict and du-
plication, that created a structurally intolerable governmental setting which pre-
cluded the development of an appropriate governmental response to urbanization.
There is evidence to suggest that service problems in public safety functions, sewer
and water systems, the dual school systems, etc., were subsidiaries of the central
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ideological argument that one government was more rational than two govern-
ments. That unitary ideology did not prove persuasive in the 1958 referendum,
which tended to operate at the abstract level of the presumed benefits of a
metropolitan structure ibr the citizenry of Davidson County.
The recitation of problems is very similar for metropolitan areas in the United
States. What is atypical in the Davidson County experience was the dovetailing
of the abstractions of metropolitan logic as a solution to problems with the gut
level sentiments of metropolitan residents in reaction to events in the 1958-62
interim. The perception of a city-county dichotomy in the metropolitan area in
reform theory was aromatized in the 1958-62 span, at least partly as an outgrowth
of reform strategy. The inertia of the status quo in Davidson County was success-
fully assaulted by reformers, but the success of the second referendum was more
of a political happening than a rational, planned cause-effect relationship be-
tween reform activities and voter reaction. The goal of reform, and the deci-
sion of the voters, was to replace two institutions of local government with one.
The county and city governments were not only the object of reform but important
role-players in the drama of the reform years.
The City of Nashville and the County of Davidson
The government of the City of Nashville prior to consolidation was based on a
strong mayor-council charter adopted in 1947. Jhe mayor had reasonably strong
formal powers in his ability to appoint the directors of the twelve city depart-
ments, members of the city's various boards, etc. The mayor was elected to a
term of four years and operated in the institutionalized executive-centered sys-
tem.
The Nashville city council consisted of 21 members, 20 elected from single-
member districts, and the vice-mayor who was elected at-large.
First elected to the mayor's office in 1951, Ben West was mayor of the city dur-
ing the period of reform activity, and remained in office to become the last mayor
of Nashville.
West was a strong mayor in both the formal and informal sense. He had an image
of dynamic urban leadership, (sometimes referred to as a machine) that made him
a spokesman ibr the urban point of view. West had been president of the Ameri-
can Municipal Association, was a litigant in the landmark Baker v. Carr state re-
apportionment case and had a political record of a liberal, pushing for urban re-
newal programs and increased state and federal aid to cities.
Davidson Co-jnty's government was the typical "horse and buggy" county judge-
county court variety which hadn't been reapportioned and over-represented rural
districts. The county system combined administrative-legislative functions in the
fifty-five member Quarterly Court which was elected from 16 civil districts in the
county.
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The formal authority of the office of the County Judge in this system was not
comparable to the powers of the mayor's office, but the County Judge occupied
the highest office in county government, and had comparable political status.
First elected in 1950, County Judge Beverly Briley held that office during the
reform years, and was elected as the first mayor of Metro in 1962 (and has sub-
sequently been re-elected, now serving his third four-year term as Metro mayor).
Briley's image was more conservative than West's. Briley possessed a suburban
orientation (not surprising in view of his constituency); but in comparison to the
traditionally rural orientation of county government, Briley had a "progressive
conservative" image and a concern for improvements in governmental operations
that generally earned him high marks in his performance as the county's political
leader. Neither Davidson County nor the City of Nashville could be said to be
suffering from inept political leadership during fhe decade that preceded reform.
City-Co'jnty Relations
The so-called private act is a recurrently decisive factor in the reform effort in
Nashville. The somewhat capricious effect of southern state legislatures inter-
vening in local policy-making by applying state legislative acts to specific areas
(a county or city within the state) has been generally deplored in political science
literature. But it does create, in some respects, stronger intergovernmental
channels between the state and local levels than the more formalized political
relationship of home rule counties and cities and state legislation based on classi-
fication of local governments or uniform law. The private acts passed by the
Tennessee General Assembly may be bulky and confusing, but the importance of
the private act in the developmental history of metropolitan reform ih Nashville
cannot be denied and the effect was largely beneficial to those seeking reform.
The role of the Davidson County delegation to the State legislature with that dele-
gation's power to introduce and secure passage of crucial local-effect state legis-
lation doesn't fit the rational model of those calling for more aggressive state ^ac-
tion in metropolitan problems, but it is doubtful that the reform effort could have
moved beyond some of the stalemate points had it not been for the existence of
the private act in Tennessee state government.
By the late 1940's civic concern ibr the metropolitan area was growing in David-
son County. The Community Services Commission for Davidson County, created
by a 1951 private act, was to investigate tbe service needs of area residents, and
suggest methods for local government to meet those needs. Created through state
action, ainded jointly through county and city funds, the work of the commission
provided the framework within which reform efforts would be conducted in the
years preceding Metro's adoption in 1962.
Essentially the problem being addressed by the Commission was the urbanized area
that had spread beyond city government, an area of about sixty-nine sq mi and
90,000 people in 1952.
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Pragmatically, the Commission recommended that Nashville annex this area,
since this appeared to be a more feasible approach than consolidation.
Tennessee law governing annexation allowed two methods of expanding munici-
pal boundaries: by private act of the legislature or by a petition and affirma-
tive referendum in the area to be annexed. The recommendation of the Com-
mission was that the Dpvidson County legislation use the device of the private
act to (1) conduct an advisory referendum on the issue of annexation that would
combine the votes of residents of the city and the area to be annexed; (2) im-
plement the annexation by private act in the Tennessee General Assembly.
(Such a private act would require a unanimous vote of the Davidson County
Delegation.) The strategy was shaped by the expectation that the single-
majority advisory referendum would result in overcoming the expected anti-
annexation votes of the suburban areas with a -heavily pro-annexation vote by
city residents.
Annexation was the heart of the Commission's proposal the most pragmatic
approach in solving the service gap that existed in the suburban areas.
The Commission also identified the need for some services to be administered
area-wide by the county public health services, hospital care for indigents,
public schopis, and public welfare. The Commission also recommended that
Davidson County be redistricted to provide equitable representation to the urban
residents of the county on the Quarterly Court.
Consolidation received favorable comment in the report, but the state obstacles
seemed to rule out that possibility for Davidson County. Specifically those ob-
stacles involved a Tennessee Constitutional provision for a uniform tax rate in
the county, when the mix of exurban and urban population would make uni-
formity clearly unworkable in a "one government" system. In addition, the
traditional role of the county as an administrative subdivision of the state, with
state mandated officials, would further complicate restructuring county govern-
ment to assume unitary powers as a "metropolitan government."
The annexation prbposal was never acted upon by the Tennessee General Assembly,
the only immediate application of the Commission's activities was that the city
transferred the city health department and the city juvenile court to Davidson
County.
!
Subsequent stare legislative action did provide some actions of fundamental im-
portance to the development of metropolitan government in Davidson County.
In 1953 the Tennessee Constitution was amended in a state-wide referendum to
allow the consolidation of any or all of the functions of cities and counties after
an affirmative referendum by both city and county residents (concurrent majorities).
This was not a "self-executing" amendment, i.e., it required enactment in Tennes-
see statutory law to become operational, but it was a "milestone" in creating the
potential for consolidation.
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Through lobbying efforts of the Tennessee Municipal League, in 1955 a Tennessee
statute created a significantly different annexation law for municipalities, allow-
ing annexation to occur by means of enactment of a municipal ordinance, with-
out a referendum, subject only to court review. (Later amended to require the
municipality to have a plan for extending services to the annexed area.)
Meanwhile, in the early '50s, some action'-oriented leadership began to mobilize
in Davidson County. The Nashville Chamber of Commerce had established by
1955 a group that was focusing on "metropolitan" issues. The Chamber decided
it would be helpful to conduct a formal study of metropolitan problems and issues
in Davidson County and sought to broaden their internal efforts by approaching
both the city and county planning commissions.
Since many planners were members of the Chamber, the origins and sequence of
events are not as clear as they would appear to be by stating that the Chamber
of Commerce approached the planning commissions with the idea of studying the
governmental needs of the Nashville area.
And that kind of unclear cause and effect sequence occurs rather frequently in the
Nashville Story. While it is possible to recite the events leading to consolidation,
there is actually no clear sequential pattern that explains metropolitan reform.
It is more useful to visualize the events of the decade that preceded reform in
Nashville as a cluster of some number of entertwined, three-dimensional spheres,
rather than sequential "links in a chain" that led to reform. i
The Davidson County and Nashville planning commissions had employed a joint
staff for some years, and in 1953 an "Advance Planning and Research Division"
was established. It was this division that was given the responsibility of con-
ducting the study of area governmental needs in 1955.
During 1955 the Advance Planning Division was engaged in a number of overview
kinds of studies of the metropolitan area for the two planning commissions.
One of the studies was conducted by engineering consultants'6n the problem of
providing sanitary sewers. The tentative recommendation of the consultants was
to create a special district.
Concurrently, the planning group was engaged in a study of the structure of
government in Davidson County.
Hawkins, in his recitation of events leading to consolidation stresses the
"Machiavellian strategy" of five "technocrats" (1966, pp. 39-40). These five
men were the Director of the Advance Planning Division/ the Executive Director
of the two planning commissions, the Research Director of the Division, and as con-
sultant, a political scientist from Vanderbilt University.
This jroup rejected the idea of a special district to provide sewers, from a mix-
ture of motives ideas on the special district as adding to fragmentation, as
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being removed from democratic control, and a determination that halfway
measures that satisfied public service needs would hinder the structural solution
to which they had become committed.
The experience of other metropolitan areas in which "half-way" measures
create a system of complimentary delivery of services by city and county govern-
ments makes questionable the assumption that a county and a city government
get in the way of the delivery of public services, but the ideal of a unitary
metropolitan government in Davidson County became more important to reformers
than more mundane efforts to improve services, short of consolidation. In our
opinion, the strategy developed by the planning group was in the realm of allowing
(even encouraging) disequalibrium in the status quo system of government so that
change could be introduced to rectify the two government dichotomy.
Hawkins is explicit in noting that part of the strategy developed by the planning
group involved their need to secure the approval of the area s two political leaders,
Briley and West; an obvious goal because both men were members of the respective
planning commissions who must approve the report, and in addition with the ex-
pectation that their political support would be vital to a successful referendum
campaign.
Knowing that fyAayor West preferred annexation and Judge Briley consolidation,
the report issued in 1956 endorsed annexation for short-term utility, but con-
solidation as the ultimate goal of creating a governmental structure capable of
providing needed services. A related aspect of the strategy was in the
subjective expectation of the strategists that each of the two political leaders
would assume that his goal was the more attainable of the dual strategies.
Hawkins1 study clearly assigned a major role in the .events leading to reform to
the strategy decisions of this group.
The Plan of Metropolitan Government for Nashville and Davidson County A
Report of the Nashville City and Davidson County Planning Commissions, issued
on October 30, 1956, is a tightly constructed exercise in governmental logic
which provided the basic structural elements of Nashville Metro. But the behind
the scenes activities are perhaps more relevant to an understanding of the politics
of the adoption of Metro than is the document itself.
The Politics of Adoption
A stage center role in any appraisal of local politics is occupied by Nashville's
two newspapers, the Banner and the Tennessean. It is difficult to sort out the
folklore surrounding the power of the Banner and Tennessean from actual influence.
Nashville area residents appear convinced tfiat the publishers of the two papers
control or try to control politicians, local decision-making, etc. But at the same
time there is a cynicism in warnings-that "you can.'t believe a word you read" in
the Banner or Tennessean. ft is difficult to understand just what effect this com-
bination of "credibility gap" but acknowledged influence of the two newspapers
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has on the outcome of specific issues, but the Banner and the Tennessean are,
by consensus, important participants in, as well as observers of, the local
political process.
The Banner is the older, and generally more conservative of the two. But the
in the politi
Judge Briley
, e .
Banner was considered to be in the political camp of Mayor West, whereas the
Tennessean was allied with Jude Brile.
When the plan was released in 1956, copies of the report were carried in both
papers.
The plan included a reform scenario, Hiat was to be followed with relative ease,
up to the 1958 referendum. However, voter reaction in the 1958 referendum
did not follow the scenario when Metro failed to achieve the required concurrent
majority. The first order of business was to enact statutory law to implement the
provisions of the 1953 consolidation amendment to Hie Tennessee constitution.
This effort was successful in 1957, through the commitment of the Davidson Co;jnty
delegation, a successful alliance with the urban counties containing Memphis
and Knoxviile, and some reassurances to the rural counties.
The 1957 state consolidation law applied to counties of 200,000 population or
more (since amended to remove the population requirement) and provided for
the dissolution of city and county governments, to be replaced by a new entity
a "metropolitan government."
The Tennessee law provided for the establishment of a charter commission after
resolutions to that effect had been passed by the county and city governing bodies.
The state law, at some length, specifies procedures to be followed by the charter
commission and establishes some premises for the structure of the metropolitan
government, one of which was a tax/service differential between a general serv-
ices district and an urban services district.
The obvious task of the charter commission created in 1958, was to draft the
legal instrument that would be voted upon in a referendum by voters of the county
and city as the basis for a new structure of local government. An equally im-
portant function of the commission was to reach out and gather the political re-
sources of the community in support of Metro.
One of the most sensitive (and least discussed) issues in the Nashville area is
racial relations. By the late 1950's the black population, concentrated in the
City of Nashville, comprised some 38% of .the city's population. The implica-
tions for black political power tended to be a submerged issue, but the involve-
ment and approval of black political leaders was sought by reform leaders.
Racial relations never became a publicly discussed issue in either of the referenda
campaigns, and the effect of the adoption of Metro on the interests of Nashville's
black community remains a subject of controversy (Erie, Kirlin & Rabinovitz, 1972,
pp. 28-20; Grant, Sept 1965, pp. 51-53). However, the racial climate of the
70's in Nashville is probably more polarized than it was during the period of reform,
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That is not to say that it is necessarily worse, but that black consciousness, in
Nashville as elsewhere, is a mo«-e restless ibrce now than it was in the 1958-62
period.
Metro officials are quoted In BusinessWeek (September 25, 1971, p. 133) as
doubting "that a consolidation plan, if it were offered today for the first time,
would succeed in Nashville, where the black population has grown to 40% of
the old city."
But the reform movement of a decade ago was successful in co-opting sufficient
black support for Metro so that the campaigns were not marked by black-white
conflict. An important element of the co-optation was in the charter commission
drawing districts of representation in Metro to assure blacks of five seats on the
Metro legislative body.
In 1958 both major political leaders and their political organizations supported
the adoption of Metro. The business community, League of Women Voters,
the Trades and Labor Council, many university professors, many of the recognized
black community's leaders, and various groups with an interest in good government
lent their support to Metro.
Contrary to the accepted practice of assuming opposite sides of almost any issue,
both the Banner and the Tennessean supported the adoption of Metro in 1958.
The "establishment" was solidly behind Metro, and the 1958 campaign was a classic
example of metropolitan reform activity in the United States; with the reformers
concentrating on the presumed benefits of Metro, and the opposition apparently
not as well organized, nor as logical as were the proponents of change (Hawkins,
1966, pp. 46-57).
However, in 1958, Metro was passed in the city, but not in the county, failing
to achieve the necessary concurrent majorities.
In the wake of the defeat of Metro, Nashville moved immediately to annex
seven sq mi of industrial land outside the city limits. It was widely assumed that
residential annexation would follow, but Mayor West pledged that while industries
didn't have votes residents of proposed areas to be annexed would have that right-
respected by his administration.
Supporters of Metro in 1960 tried to revive the charter commission by resolution
of trie county and city governing bodies. In contrast to the referendum vote of
1958, the county favored another Metro charter commission, but the city council
refused. This was perhaps the inevitable result of the annexation/consolidation
strategy, now viewed in either/or terms.
The city council having decided against reviving Metro, in 1960 annexed (by
ordinance) forty-two square miles of territory containing some 82,000 people.
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Having publicly espoused a policy of no annexation of residential areas without
a vote. Mayor West vetoed the annexation, but the veto was overridden by the
council. Since the city government was assumed to be run by the West machine,
the overriding of West's veto only served to compound the out-of-city public
hostility toward annexation.(Both the industrial and residential annexations were
challenged in the courts, but were eventually sanctioned by the Tennessee
Supreme Court.)
It is the period of time between the 1960 annexation and the 1962 referendum
that witnessed the much discussed city-county dissension. The schools, the roads,
and the applicable tax rate in the annexed area all became subjects of contro-
versy between the city and county governments.
Some of the literature on Nashville's Metro implies that the city was unwilling
or unable to extend services to the annexed area (Duncombe, 1966, p. 197;
Nation's Cities, Nov, 1969, p. 29; Martin, 1963, p. 109).
What is controversial was whether the annexation was systematic and planned;
there is no question that the city government did act to provide urban services.
Within six months the annexed area elected council members, and 5.5 million
dollars in general obligation bonds were issued to finance the extension of sewer
trunk lines into the area. The city also began providing police and fire protec-
tion and garbage collection.
But the institutional imperialism of the city and the apparent political manipula-
tions of the West administration obscured any rational appraisal of the effect of
the city government expanding its geographic boundaries from a nucleus of
approximately 25 sq mi to 75 sq mi.
Proponents of Metro, blocked by the city council's refusal to concur in the
creation of a second Metro charter commission, sought to gain state legislative
action to amend the General Act of 1957's method of creating a charter commis-
sion.
In the 1960 primary campaigns, Metro was an issue in the selection of Davidson
County state legislative candidates and county officers, with pro-Metro candi-
dates generally winning office.
In 1961 the Davidson County delegation was successful in getting the Tennessee
General Assembly to pass an amendment to the 1957 law to permit the creation
of a charter commission by means of the state's private act route, in addition to
concurrent resolutions of the two governing bodies.
The private act then was introduced by the Davidson County delegation and passed
by the legislature. This private act (applicable only to Davidson County) required
approval either by the two local governing bodies or a referendum of city and
county voters.
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In August of 1961 a referendum was held which achieved the required con-
current majorities of city and county voters for the creation of another charter
commission. (Although the Individuals comprising the ten-member commission,
were^specified in the referendum proposal and except for two replacements
appointed by the County Judge and Mayor were unchanged from the first com-
mission) .
The Metro Charter submitted to city and county voters in 1962 was essentially
unchanged from the 1958 version (the most significant change increasing the
number of council members), but toe campaign environment was quite different
from that of 1958.
The core of civic organizational support for Metro remained, but the two major
political leaders, Briley and West, split on the issue, with West now opposing
i , * ' » r w
consolidation.
The 1962 campaign was to be much more lively, with the Banner opposing con-
solidation and the Tennessean supporting it. The two papers went all out in the
campaign, and their political position on Metro was not entirely confined to the
editorial page.
Tennessean played a muckraking role in the second campaign, attacking the
city government and the West machine at every opportunity. The Banner supported
the^position of West in defending annexation and opposing consolidation. There
is little doubt that newspaper coverage of the second campaign made for more
exciting reading than in the 1958 campaign.
The second campaign was shaped by the political climate of city-county dissen-
sion and suburban perception of city government not as provider of services but
as aggressor in unilaterally imposing its rule on an unwilling fringe population
through annexation.
The second referendum, expanding on what is assumed to be a base of affirmative
votes from the 1958 referendum, is interpreted as having reversed the traditional
anti-city-attitude equals a no-vote-on-consolidation equation of referendum
politics. In 1962 the anti-city votes were counted in the favorable votes for
Metro. Voter attitudes were influenced by numerous situational elements unique
to the Nashville area. The irony is that trie anti-metro vote outweighed the pro
Metro vote in the old city of Nashville, but the "fifth column" of newly-annexed
residents voted heavily in favor of Metro, achieving the required concurrent
majorities that formally dissolved the city government.
The Structure of the Metropolitan Government
of Nashville and Davidson County
The charter of government adopted by the voters in 1962 (Metropolitan Govern-
ment Charter Commission, April, 1962) created a strong executive form. The
metro mayor is elected for a four year term (with a three-term limit) and has
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THE METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT
or
NASHVIL.UE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY. TENNESSEE
Fig. 20. Organization and Functions Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee
-------
broad powers in appointing department heads, members of Metro's various com-
missions and boards, preparing the budget, and veto powers over the legislative
body (council).
The Metropolitan Council consists of forty-one members: a presiding officer,
the vice-mayor, elected at-large; five council members elected atHarge, and
thirty-five elected from districts. The council functions as a legislative branch
with general oversight responsibilities in connection with administration, and
utilizes the committee system for various program areas, corresponding to the
departments of Metro government. Council members serve four-year terms.
There are some residual independently elected county officials: The County
(Metro) Trustee (who formally collects the property tax but under Metro actually
is an anarchism with no utilitarian role); the Metropolitan Tax Assessor, and the
Sheriff (who has no law enforcement role, but maintains the jail and work-house
and is the process server). The structure of Metro government is graphically
represented by the diagram on the following page.
The Metro Charter provides for separate tax levies and services within two dis-
tricts. The Urban Services District (USD) which was the area of city jurisdic-
tion at the time of the adoption of Metro (some 75 square miles including the
recently annexed area), and the General Services District (GSD) which includes
all of Davidson County. More services are provided in the USD and the tax rate
is higher (the current levy is $4.11 per $100 of assessed value for all residents
of Davidson County and an additional $1.89 for residents of the USD). The
Charter provides for the expansion of the USD by affirmative vote of the council
when the additional urban services are required and can be provided within one
year. The services performed in the GSD and USD appear in Table 13.
In 1962 the Supreme Court of Tennessee ruled in favor of Metro in a case brought
by opponents of Metro who questioned the constitutionality of Metro's creation
and structure (Lewis Frazier, et al. v. Joe C. Carr, et a I., Oct 4, 1962).
Nashville's Metro, having survived the broad court challenge of the 1962 case,
has been more successful in avoiding the numerous legal challenges and mixed
decisions that have confronted other metropolitan regions such as Dade County.
(Currently the City of Goodlettsville is asserting its 'constitutional right" as a
chartered municipal government under Tennessee law to operate a separate school
system. A lower court ruled against Goodlettsville, and the appeal is considered
unlikely to reverse the decision.) In April of 1963, Metro became an opera-
tional unit of local government, "out of the crowd and ahead of its time" (U_S
News and World Report, Jan 3, 1972).
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Table 13
Functions of the General Services District and the Urban Services District of the
Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee
County-wide Functions of the GSD
Additional Functions of the USD
General Administration
Police
Courts
Jails
Assessment
Health
Welfare
Hospitals
Housing for the Aged
Streets and Roads
Traffic
Schools
Parks and Recreation
Libraries
Auditorium
Airport
Urban Redevelopment
Planning
Building Code
Housing Code
Transit
Beer Supervision
Fair Grounds
Public Housing
Urban Renewal
Electrical Code
Plumbing Code
Electricity
Refuse Disposal
Taxicab Regulation
Additional Police Protection
Fire Protection
Water
Sanitary Sewers
Storm Sewers
Street Lighting
Street Cleaning
Refuse Collection
Wine and Whisky Supervision
Source: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Substate Regionalism
..i ,- , i r._,._._ \/_i ii _ ^_._ ct..-u_- D-^ert E. Me Arthur, ""^
County," p. 29.
AOVlSOry Commission on miergovernmemai i\eiuuun», jut
and the Federal System: Vol. II - Case Studies, Robert E. Me Arthur, "TFie
Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson Cot
Washington, D.C., May, 1973.
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Evaluating Nashville's Metro
The functional areas most often cited as the problems which generated metro-
politan reform in Nashville were: providing needed sanitary sewers; schools;
police and fire protection. These services of local government were assessed
as inadequate as a result of the structural incapacity of local government in
Davidson County.
The cynic can observe that the substantive problems facing Metro today are. . .
sewers, police and fire protection, and the schools.
But the "form and substance" difficulty is particularly acute in any attempt to
evaluate metropolitan reform in Nashville. The pervasive rationality of the
structure of Metro tends to obscure attempts to evaluate performance. While
the sum of published materials on Nashville's post-reform experience is a posi-
tive appraisal, those appraisals suffer from a deficiency-endemic to metro-
politan studies: "Adequate measures of the performance of metropolitan institu-
tions do not exist, in part because study has focused more on promoting reform
rather than assessing it. Furthermore, there are different interpretations for
the observed effects of metropolitan institutional reforms. Each can lead to a
slightly different conclusion" (Erie, Kirlin, and Rabinovitz, 1972, p. 37).
Interviewing local Metro officials, one is struck by their insistence that opinion
surveys conducted immediately after the adoption of Metro (Grant, July, 1965)
and in 1965 (McArthur, 1971) accurately reflect public satisfaction in 1973.
The "presumption of excellence" for metropolitan government in Nashville
appears to be cyclical, with the published studies suggesting a vastly improved
system of local government and local officials both re-enforcing and being re-
enforced in that very positive image of Metro. The last decade has been a
particularly traumatic one for governmental institutions, measures of public
confidence and acceptance established almost ten years ago are suspect, and
there is little substance to the assumption that the citizens of Metro are "more
satisfied" with local government than citizens of other metropolitan areas.
The consolidated police function in Davidson County has been widely hailed as
a measure that professionalized and increased the efficiency of police services.
Police scandals in the department of the City of Nashville provided fuel for the
pro-Metro forces in the 1962 fampaign. Metro has consistently given law en-
forcement high priority in its budget decisions, with the program (including the
courts) increasing from five million in the 1963-64 period to nearly twelve
million in the 1971-72 budget year (Office of the Mayor, Metropolitan Govern-
ment of Nashville and Davidson County, May 24, 1973, pp. 1-20, 1-21). By
some measures, number of personnel, coverage of patrols, response time to calls
for assistance, etc., there has been a dramatic improvement in police serv-
ices. Early appraisals tended to emphasize "a lower crime rate" in Davidson
County as one of the benefits of consolidation (Comer, 1969, p. 37). Posi-
tive appraisals tend to be reproduced and re-enforced, as researchers rely
on previous assessments. The Citizens Study Committee on Metropolitan
Problems of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (April, 1972, p. 19) reproduced a list of
"accomplishments" of Nashville Metro during its first year that included:
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"Centralized coordination of all police departments which has enhanced their
public image and increased efficiency." Robert McArthur (May, 1973, p. 32)
quotes 1965 FBI statistics to demonstrate the improvement in the consolidated
police department.
In 1973 Metro's police department has become the subject of a Grand Jury in-
vestigation (with charges of drug trafficing by members of the force, illegal wire-
tapping, graft, etc.)/ Nashville's black community has become increasingly
critical of police behavior in their neighborhoods (and the controversies surround-
ing the death of two apparently innocent young black men), the chief of police
came under heavy criticism for his insensrtivity to civil liberties, and resigned
in November of 1973, and the FBI crime statistics indicate an increase of 11
per cent in serious crime in Davidson County (The Tennessean, Feb 15, June 26,
Oct 1, 10, 11, 25, Nov29, 1973).
Metro's police department may be better than pre-Metro, but it is hardly an
unqualifiedly successful example of how to police an urban area. Certainly
the consolidated police department is itself an issue in the black community,
with some organized black support for neighborhood control or influence in
police activities.
Metro's fire department is generally free of the kind of controversy surrounding
the police department (although there is a lawsuit pending charging discrimina-
tion in the hiring of blacks). But only residents of the USD pay for and receive
fire protection from Metro. In the GSD private, subscription fire services still
exist.
Fire protection remains something of an issue in Davidson Bounty. Mayor Briley
has indicated his support for a county-wide system, but the logistical problems
of expanding the service and maintaining a rating high enough to produce reason-
able fire insurance rates makes it unlikely that Metro will expand its fire protec-
tion beyond the USD (although some of the critics in Davidson County point to
the consolidated government of Jacksonville-Duval County, Florida which does
operate a county-wide fire department).
To further complicate the fire protection function there is some contracting with
the Metro fire department by the satellite cities which adjoin the USD, and the
issue was recently raised in the Metro council of Metro responding to calls in
Berry Hill when residents of Berry Hill were not paying for fire protection.
The council declined to pass a resolution directing the Metro Fire Department
not to respond to any calls outside of the USD unless a contract existed. One
issue raised in council was the possibility of a fire occurring in a 1,000-unit
apartment complex outside the boundaries of the USD (The Tennessean, March 21,
1973).
The existence of "arbitrary" boundaries that impede the rational delivery of
governmental services remains a problem in Metro that is particularly evident
in the program area of fire protection services.
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Metro's school system is not facing the "same old problems" (defined as two
separate, uncoordinated systems in the county and city) but has new problems,
in common with most urban educational systems. Metro's school system has be-
come the center of the most intense local conflict as the politics of integration
has obscured other educational concerns in Nashville.
Since 1970 Metro's school system has been struggling to implement a court-
ordered desegregation plan that involves extensive bussing. The non-political
functioning of the Board of Education has been seriously threatened by the issue
of integration, as appointments to the Board are shaped by Metro Council's and
the Mayor's openly stated opposition to a desegregation plan that threatens
neighborhood schools. (The major local issue in the 1971 Metro elections was
the forced integration of the schools.) There have been demands for the direct
election of school board members .
There has been some back-lash associated with this issue creating anti-metro
sentiment since it is assumed by many that the consolidated city-county school
system made it easier for the federal judge to order desegregation without
crossing political jurisdictions to do so.
The public image of Metro's school system has suffered from the controversy over
bussing, from the point of view of both those supporting and those opposing the
desegregation plan.
Interpretations can be placed on the experience of the Metro school system
either to support the theory of metropolitan reform, or to question some of the
implicit assumptions of that theory. (In the positive sense, the Metro structure
has managed the conflict, the desegregation plan is being implemented; in the
negative sense the necessity of the imposition of federal judicial power, and the
reaction of Metro government in opposing bussing will not be reassuring to those
who have doubts as to the fate of minority interests in a metropolitan government).
But more importantly, Metro's contemporary difficulties in its school system and
police department, and the continuing fire protection difficulty, underscore the
complexity of expectations placed on governmental institutions. "Economy and
efficiency" are but one aspect of governmental programs, one that tends to be
overemphasized in evaluating metropolitan structures. But even by that one-
dimensional measure, Nashville's Metro is not an unqualified success. Few ap-
praisals of Nashville's Metro have indicated any gap between "structural capacity"
(rationality) and "structural performance." But the assumption of a symbiotic rela-
tionship between the rationality of structure and real-world behavioral expressions
of that rationality is not supported in the ten-year operational history of Metro.
Mass transit discussions in Davidson County tend to focus on technical considera-
tions of traffic congestion in downtown Nashville, and the social issues involved
in an adequate urban transit system to serve the urban poor, who are less likely
to be able to afford cars (Tennessean, Sept 20, 1973).
Public transit in Nashville has long been a subject of concern, but it was not
until 1973 thaT Metro acquired the privately-owned public transit system, and
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is moving toward a transit policy, backed by local, state and federal funds.
Public transit is not treated in the literature as an accomplishment of Metro,
and, in fact, Metro's record in this area is far from impressive, as the lead
sentence in a local news story critically notes that:
For more than 15 years city leaders have been saying something must be ,
done to revive mass transit in Nashville, but so far little has been tried
and even less has succeeded (Tennessean, July 1, 1973).
Appraisals of Metro have tended to ignore the lack of a public transit system in
Nashville, but this sort of "nonperformance" might be as important to under-
standing metropolitan government as a list of accomplishments.
i
There is a consistency in claims that Metro has "provided the taxpayer with
more service for his tax dollar" (Morton, Feb 26-27, 1973). Most of the dis-
cussion centers on process, i.e., savings from centralized operations, etc.
However, the tax dollar/service benefits measures of local government remain
elusive. There is simply no definitive position on,whether Metro's level of
public services is superior to other urban areas as a result of structural reform
in Nashville. However, it would be impressive if Metro's performance during
the decade of its existence had established it as innovative in providing urban
services that were not being provided by traditional municipal government, be-
cause of lack of funds. If Metro has been economical and efficient, it has
not been so to the degree that urban services appear distinctly different from
other cities that have also failed to develop such a universally recognized
"needed service" as public transit. Metro doesn't appear to be doing anything
in the way of providing urban services that other municipalities are not doing.
Whether Metro is better at providing those services is problematic. If better
means Metro uses tax dollars in such a way as to free funds for urban services
other municipalities are too poor to provide, Metro does not appear to do so.
The concerns that began to find expression in studies and recommendations for
governmental reform in the Nashville area in the 1950's were occasioned by the
urban population that had spread beyond the boundaries of the city, creating a
situation in which there was a clear need for urban services, but a lack of govern-
mental capacity to provide those services. Annexation appeared as a sub-
optimizing solution, and in the somewhat confusing events of referendum politics,
annexation is credited with creating the circumstances that enabled the optimum
consolidated structure to gain public acceptance.
Urban levels of services in Metro exist only in the area of the USD. For a decade
the Metro Council did not expand the boundaries of the original city boundaries in
1962 of some 75 sq mi that comprised the USD at the time of the adoption of Metro.
Provision of urban services in Nashville's newly annexed area (1962) under Metro
is an accomplishment only if the assumption is that the City of Nashville would
not or could not have provided those services. The meaning of the ten year stag-
nation of the expandable USD has even more significance than Mayor Bri ley's
public statements that the lack of expansion was his greatest regret. (Tennessean,
March 31, 1973).
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The inability of the Metro structure to expand the USD to accomplish the "fit"
between service needs/service delivery central to the theory of metropolitan
reform is a rather dramatic failure. For some ten years a structural gap has
existed between the heavily urbanized area of Davidson County and the Boundaries
of the USD. It would appear that the anti-annexation sentiment that aided in the
creation of Metro in 1962, precluded the "rationalization of urban services" that
reformers assumed to be inherent in metropolitan reform. It could be argued that
the metropolitan structure of the USD has been just as great an obstacle to pro-
viding needed urban services as has "fragmentation/1 in other metropolitan areas,
and perhaps more so as other alternatives (incorporation, special districts) were
not available.
Metro is currently in the position of endeavoring to accommodate a backlog of
urbanized areas in need of urban services who are now convinced that they want
to become residents of the USD. The planned expansion of services to these
areas (within one year by charter provision) and as quickly as possible for
political credibility, will be occupying much of the energy and attention of
Metro government for the foreseeable future.
This turnaround has occurred as the outgrowth of the reaction to a crisis in
this case a neighborhood crisis, but nonetheless a compelling motive to examine
the failure of public services. A fire claimed the lives of two children in the
Bordeaux"Haynes area in the GSD, where there was no fire protection provided,.
Community sentiment began to organize to bring Bordeaux-Haynes into the USD
and receive the protection of the Metro fire department. In December of 1972
the Metro Council approved the addition of the Bordeaux-Haynes area to the USD,
adding some 15 sq mi and 13,463 residents to the USD. (See Figure 21 for the
current boundaries of the USD.)
Urban fringe dwellers (adjoining the USD) are becoming convinced by the ex-
perience of Bordeaux-Haynes, in which USD fire protection (resulting in lower
insurance rates) and trash collection (previously privately subscribed to by resi-
dents) are resulting in more savings than the additional taxes of the USD.
It will be of interest to watch the actual expansion of the USD to see if Metro
will face essentially the same difficulties that annexing cities experience in the
mathematical increase of population in the USD expansion area, and the exponen-
tial increase of the cost of urban services for that population.
The arbitrary boundary of the USD in Metro contributes to some of Metro's diffi-
culties in satisfying citizen expectations. Fire protection remains an area of dis-
satisfaction for residents of the GSD who lack this governmental service, but that
service differential existed when Metro was adopted, and the response of Metro
officials that "you aren't paying for fire protection and therefore you don't re-
ceive it" is logical, if unsatisfying to GSD residents.
Sanitary sewers have created some of the most troublesome conflicts in Metro.
Oriyinally vinanced from the general fund of the USD, sewers were an urban
service which would be provided as the USD expanded. ' '
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BORDEAUX-HAYNES ADDITION
TO THE URBAN SERVICES DISTRICT
URBAN SERVICES
DISTRICT
GENERAL SERVICES DISTRICT
(INCLUDES TOTAL AREA OF COUNTY)
Fig. 21 o Service Districts of the Metropolitan Government
of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee *
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It is widely assumed by residents of the USD that "suburban" interests in Metro
succeeded in getting sewers while "spitefully" refusing to become part of the
USD with its higher tax rate. The mechanism that allowed Nashville's suburbs
to do this was created in 1965 when the Metro Council voted to finance the
sewer and water operation on a user charge basis, ignoring the USD/GSD
boundary.
The sentiments of USD residents are that this was " fudging" on the part of
Metro (in spite of a reduction in the USD tax rate in 1965 to compensate), in
violation of the idea of using sanitary sewers as a carrot to convince the sub-
urban areas to become part of the USD.
To further Metro's difficulties in handling the sewer issue, the twelve-year plan
adopted with the rate structure and reduction of the ad volorem tax rate in the
USD in 1965 was a failure, as projected costs in the plan proved to be totally
inadequate to accomplish the system promised in the 1965 plan "it was only
a few years until the water system was broke, the sewer program was stalled
and the administration was back asking for huge rate increases" (Tennessean,
Feb 14, 1973).
By 1969 the administration was seeking a rat e increase for the water and sewer
department, the financial situation worsened, and for more than two years any
additional sewering Davidson County waited the outcome of a stalemate between
Metro's executive and legislative branches.
A rate increase was not enacted until 1973, and then only after a prolonged debate
between the Briley administration proposing a rise of 125% in water rates and 30%
in sewer charges, and a council loath to face voters at the next election after
that kind of increase. In a compromise, federal revenue sharing funds were allo-
cated to the water and sewer department to lower the rcte of increase to 95% for
water and 15% for sewer charges (Tennessean, April 18, 1973).
Metro officials maintain that the water and sewerage service charge system is
the fairest method of financing, citing expenditures in the USD to upgrade the
sewer system, and the separation of sanitary from storm sewers. But USD residents
remain skeptical, feeling that "they have been paying for sewers for forty years"
and are now being asked to subsidize the sewering of suburban areas with rate in-
creases .
Metro, the Region and Environmental Programs
The perception of environmental problems in Davidson County exists in a some-
what different setting from that of what might be characterized as growth satiated
areas such as Montgomery and Dade Counties.
That is not to say that environmental concerns are not real and persistent in
Davidson County; but managing the environment for the Nashville region envisions
a continuation of a relatively high level of developmental activity, hopefully
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planned with a minimum of environmental damage, but not slowed to any sig-
nificant degree^. (For example, the need for sewers is still advanced on the
basis of attracting industry and many local governments in the region use the
device of industrial bonds in the quest for economic development of the area.)
As the most urbanized of the thirteen counties in the region, Davidson County
exhibits both a more sophisticated capacity in environmental programs and more
difficult problems of local environmental management than the less urbanized
counties surrounding it.
Solid Waste
Metro government feels it has contributed to a major breakthrough in municipal
environmental management.
Nashville's Thermal Transfer Plant, scheduled to begin operation in early 1974,
will convert Davidson County's solid waste into an energy source to both heat
and cool some thirty commercial and governmental buildings in downtown Nash-
ville (Briley, Nov, 1972). Because the Metro charter was an obstacle in allow-
ing the Metro-owned utility to implement the plan, a not-for-profit corporation
was formed with the power to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds (about $17 million)
and will turn the plant over to Metro when the bonds are retired.
Growing out of a consultant's study of the feasibility of a conventional centrally
located heating and cooling plant for Metro's buildings, the resulting plan came
to encompass a whole range of utilitarian possibilities. It is planned that the
Thermal Transfer Plant will initially convert about 50% of Davidson County's
solid waste into energy to heat and cool; aiding in solid waste disposal, reducing
air pollution because of the plants advanced incineration, and providing energy
at a reduced cost.
Nashville's Thermal Transfer Plan appears to be one of those rare examples of an
"everybody wins" environmental management program. But assuming the plant
does perform up to expectations, there is some question as to its economic feasi-
bility for other cities. Some eyebrows were raised when Metro officials involved
in the Thermal Transfer Plant formed a private corporation to sell their knowledge
to other cities (Tennessean, July 10, 1973). Knoxville, Tennessee became the
first customer to sign a contract for the private corporation to study the feasibility
of such a plant in Knoxville,
Heating and cooling will require the installation of some 15,000 feet of pipeline
to carry the chilled water and steam of the system, Nashville's downtown is so
torn up by urban renewal projects that the laying of the underground pipelines
is not as expensive as it would otherwise be. The number of governmental offices
in downtown Nashville was also helpful in providing customers ibr the plant.
Promising as the Thermal Transfer Plant is in alleviating Davidson County's solid
waste disposal problem, Metro faces some serious difficulties in locating sites for
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sanitary landfills in the county (Tennessean, July 25, 1973). The existence of
some ninety private collection companies in the GSD tends to complicate a
systematic approach to disposal.
More stringent state standards, and the necessity to establish new sites as capa-
cities have been reached at the existing sites, have made solid waste disposal a
particularly difficult current environmental problem for Metro.
Not only the technological, but the political difficulty of local communities
choosing sites for landfills makes solid waste disposal one of the most significant
of local environmental programs. Metro is now in the process of taking a look
at its site selection guidelines, with the idea that community acceptance and
involvement is an important aspect of local site selection (Tennessean, Sept 8,
1973).
The director of Metro's Public Works Department summarized Metro's difficulties
in solid waste disposal:
The community is faced with a mounting volume of solid waste, a rapid
disappearance of available disposal sites, increasing costs, people who
are concerned primarily with the removal of waste from their premises
but unconcerned after that unless the disposal site or facility to- place
this material s near their premises, and stricter environmental enforce-
ment orders coming from higher levels of government (First Environmental
Workshop, Dec 5 & 6, 1972, p. 16).
Air Pollution
Nashville is one of four municipalities in Tennessee that administer an air pollu-
tion control program separate from the statewide Clean Air Plan administered by
the State Public Health Department.
The Metro Health Department (under the Metro Health Board) has an air pollu-
tion control division which maintains monitoring stations and enforces the Metro
antipollution code (which must meet or exceed state standards).
Enforcement machinery in Metro typically relies on prolonged efforts to bring
inudstry into compliance, using the threat of court action, but wishing to avoid
the extreme of Metro actually bringing suit against local industries. For example,
the two years of effort by the Metro Health Department to enforce the air pollu-
tion code which was being violated by three local foundries. One of the three
foundries spent some $100,000 on the necessary abatement equipment, and
became very vocal about the discrimination occurring because the other foundries
continued to operate in violation of state and local law. But it was only after pro-
longed deliberation that the Metro Health Board voted to bring suit against the two
foundries as constituting a substantial and immediate danger to public health and
property (Tennessean, Apr 5 and Dec 6, 1973).
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Air quality control is not as difficult a problem for Metro as are the problems
posed by municipal management of water pollution control and solid waste dis-
posal measures established by the state and federal government, in which Metro
must meet externally imposed standards that require a great deal more local
effort than air quality standards.
The four-year program of air pollution control has resulted in a significant de-
cline in particulate pollution, largely as a result of the conversion of many
heating plants from coal to other sources, although the level of particulate
pollution in Nashville remains above the level recommended by the federal
government (Tennessean, July 21, 1973).
However the fuel shortage may seriously affect air quality in Nashville if there
is a return to the use of coal as a result of that shortage (Tennessean, Oct 24,
1973). While the reality of the anticipated fuel shortage in Nashville is far
from clearly established, industrial interests in the Nashville area have begun
to seek variances in the Metro antipollution code to allow them to burn coal
(Tennessean, Nov 13, 1973).
The state office buildings in Nashville switched to burning some coal until the
Thermal Transfer Plant becomes operational sometime early in 1974. It will
likely be a difficult task for Metro to deny industry the use of coal in view of
the state action and the official statement accompanying that state's action:
"We will just burn coal and sweat out the criticism from the clean-air people"
(Tennessean, Nov 10, 1973).
But the interest conflicts of the energy crisis/pollution control controversy tends
to obscure any factual recitation of this particular issue in Nashville, since
the natural gas utility supplying the Nashville area denies that a shortage of
natural gas exists (Tennessean, Nov 12, 1973).
Nashville is not faced with as serious a problem in the level of automobile
emissions that is bringing other urban areas to the point of considering seriously,
alternatives to the use of private automobiles. The levels of gaseous emissions
in Davidson County have been consistently lower than federal standards (Tennes-
sean, July 12, 1973).
Water Pollution Control
Metro's financial difficulties in its sewer and water program have precluded
Metro acquiring the private water and sewer utilities in the county to achieve
its goal of a centrally administered water and sewer program under Metro's direc-
tion .
A consultant's report prepared for Metro (Stone and Youngberg, Nov 1, 1972, p. 2)
noted the "fragmented nature of responsibility for providing these services. " There
were in 1972 some eleven separate utility districts and private companies in addition
to Metro, providing water and sewerage services in Davidson County.
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But after resolution of the rate of increase for water and sewage customers by
the council and mayor's office in 1973, Metro is now implementing the long-
sought goal of consolidating this function.
Metro has recently acquired the largest utility district in Davidson County, and
is moving to become a regional supplier of water. With the 1973 purchase of
the Radnor Utility District, Metro now assumes Radnor's responsibility of whole-
saling water to a Rutherford County Utility District.
There is little question that national programs are prodding Metro's commitment
to a regional system of water supply. Metro's water and sewer director is quoted
in a local news story (Tennessean, July 2, 1973): "If Metro should choose not
to provide at wholesale rates for sewer and water treatment in its big new plants
for outside counties some kind of new metropolitan utility district may be created
at the insistence of the feds. '
In water pollution control it is the state that is involved in enforcement of envi-
ronmental regulations. Metro, in common with other municipalities, is encounter-
ing rapidly increasing costs for treatment of municipal sewerage to comply with
state standards. The Tennessee State Public Health Department, which enforces
water pollution control, is admittedly inadequately staffed. The state assigns
the highest priority to the pollution of Tennessee waters by municipalities, utiliz-
ing its limited personnel for that aspect of its responsibilities. Unfortunately,
water quality control laws in Tennessee are being applied unevenly.
Because of the limited staff of the state's public health department, the strip
mining industry in Tennessee is allowed to continue polluting waters so long as
they have applied for discharge permits. The permits are on file, but have not
been processed, i.e., strip mining operations are openly violating water quality
standards legally, while urban residents are paying the cost of meeting water
quality control standards in Tennessee. At the time this report was prepared, a
lawsuit had been filed in Davidson County's Chancery Court by four environmental
citizens groups to compel the state to enforce the water quality control law against
strip miners (Tennessean, Sept 12, 1973).
Nuclear and Thermal Pollution
While Metro has no direct involvement in the controversies surrounding nuclear
power plants, the possibility has been raised that an upstream nuclear plant pro-
posed by TVA could affect Nashville's source of drinking water in the Cumberland
river.
\
TVA is the subject of a lawsuit concerning its exercise of condemnation powers
to acquire land in Smith and Trousdale counties for a proposed Hartsville nuclear
power plant that will be one of the world's largest plants (Tennessean, Oct 30,
1973).
The basic issue of the lawsuit involves TVA's powers of eminent domain beyond
the Tennessee River and its tributaries, and the condemnation and purchase of
175
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the land by TV A prior to the filing of an environmental impact statement for the
project.
While the issues of radioactive waste and possible thermal pollution are being
raised in the federal court action by the local land owners, the environmental
issues surrounding nuclear power plants clearly exceed the jurisdiction and com-
petence of local governments and will be the subject of national policy determina-
tions; although citizen resistance to nuclear power plants is an emergent issue
that could overshadow the sophisticated technological considerations involved.
Metro's Environmental Policy Making
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of governmental response to the growing aware-
ness of the "interrelatedness of everything," in managing the environment is the
conflict between human organizational needs to compartmentalize tasks, demo-
cratic values as expressed in "fragmented" powers in the political structure; and
the apparent clumsiness of these mechanisms in contrast to the delicate balances
o f the eco-system.
Nashville-Davidson County was chosen by the Ford Foundation to participate in
a two-year program intended to demonstrate the potential of rationalizing Metro's
environmental management capacity. A major assumption of the Ford Foundation's
grant program is that:
It has become increasingly apparent that in attempting to develop regional
models the environmental management obstacles are less technical than
human (Felling, Feb 26-27, 1973, p. 13).
Nashville-Davidson County, with a strong executive and unitary area-wide powers,
attracted a $650,380 Foundation grant in 1972 because of its structural capacity
to achieve an integrative, coordinated, environmental program.
The specific problem focus of the Environmental Planning and Management Project
is solid waste disposal, but it is broadly related to problems of air and water
pollution, transportation and land-use planning (Environmental Planning and
Management Project, Feb, 1973). There is no way to operationally define the
stated goal of the project to relate solid waste disposal problems to the other
areas defined as "related." The goal of the project measured against its achieve-
ments has yet to be evaluated.
Organized under the office of the mayor, a "troika" of co-managers provides the
leadership core for the environmental management project. The core group is
composed of an administrative assistant to the mayor, who is the project director,
a university professor from the Graduate School of Management at Vanderbift/
and an attorney who is the chairman of the Special Environmental Committee of
the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.
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An inter-departmental task force from the planning, health, public works and
law departments and the executive director of the Metro Planning Commission
are participating in the project.
The project is an attempt to balance the interests of the private and public sec-
tors, and decompartmentalize environmental functions within Metro by focusing
on specific environmental issues. The project is described as facilitative and
interventionist in terms of its relationship to the formal structure of government
in Nashville.
Hypothetically, the environmental management project is operating within one
of the most rational, comprehensive models of local government in existence in
the United States.
However, there is no evidence that decision-making in Nashville is any less
incremental and nonrational than it is in other local settings. A unitary
overarching structure of local government doesn't supercede the fragmented
nature of a metropolitan area. Racial, economic, and social cleavages are no
less apparent in Metropolitan Nashville than in other local areas. These divi-
sions have for a decade been operative within one political unit in Davidson
County, just as they are in the more common pattern of multi-nucleated
political structure of the typical metropolis.
Precisely what effect changing the structural context of decision-making in
metropolitan areas has on the outcome of interest-conflict issues, priority-setting,
etc., is unclear.
For example, sewering Davidson County has progressed under Metro, but the
two-year stalemate that occurred in the program because of the impasse over
raising the rates is suggestive of the difficulties of any general purpose unit of
government in handling conflict issues. The sewage and water program in Metro
has not been particularly "efficient," but it has been "democratic." It could be
argued that a county-wide special district could have moved with greater dis-
patch in the sewage and water function, largely because the special district is
relatively free of the kind of democratic conflict that exists in the policy
decisions of general purpose units of government.
Public transit in Nashville has not been an area of notable success during the
last decade. That has not been an uncommon experience of local governments.
But since this has been clearly an area of nonperformance by Metro it is difficult
to apply the standard "it would have been even worse" argument to the transit
system. There is even the possibility that "it could have been better," since
Metro's broad constituency in city-suburban-exurban areas could conceivably
have contributed to a low priority status for urban transit. A Nashville city
council and mayor might have been more disposed toward subsidizing public
transit than a Metro council and mayor were.
Most local functions identified as having environmental costs and benefits are so
closely tied to state and federal regulations and the availability of intergovern-
mental funds that it is extremely difficult to distinguish policy-making that is
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distinctly local in character. Perhaps the one exception has been in local
government's control of land-use planning and zoning controls. But even this
formal allocation of control over land-use has been profoundly affected by the
federal and state highway program, and that is particularly true of Nashville
in which six major highways intersect the urban area.
But the structure of Nashville's Metro is theoretically comprehensive, rational
and^professionalized to the degree that one would be led to expect a high
utilization of its zoning powers toward community-wide goals. Artificial
political boundaries fragmenting responsibility and implementation of land-use
policy do not exist within Davidson County.
However, Metro has yet to adopt a comprehensive zoning bill which was,
after ten years, submitted to the council in 1973 (Tennessean, July 11, 1973).
As of this writing separate zoning ordinances for the USD and the GSD still
exist, and the task of adopting a comprehensive zoning ordinance calls into
play all forms of interest conflicts that tend to slow down the political process
as those conflicts are managed by the political system. The comprehensive zon-
ing ordinance will undoubtedly be a subject of intense controversy and much
compromise. The Metro structure would appear to increase the capacity or po-
tential for comprehensive, area-wide planning, but, operationally, the political,
social, and economic impact of land-use planning and zoning implementation are
so complex, that the nonrational, incremental processes of planning and zoning
are just as apparent within Davidson County as in unreformed local structures.
In spite of the existence of a quasi-independent Metropolitan Planning Commis-
sion (appointed by the mayor and approved by the council), and a relatively
sophisticated Metropolitan Planning Department, zoning changes are subject to
final approval in the Metropolitan Council. Within the council a ritual known
as councilmanic courtesy provides a piecemeal decision-making tool in zon-
ing decisions. The practice of councilmanic courtesy;pperat es in what many
consider to be a structural fault in Metro, and that is its very large council.
The Council is periodically subject to criticisms of the poor quality of members
and lack of staff capacity. Local interviews indicate that the functioning of the
legislative branch is one of Metro's persistent difficulties. Among the thirty-five
district council members, zoning matters are automatically decided on the basis
of the position of that district's council representative (Tennessean, May 16,
1973 and May 23, 1973). Legislative logrolling (you vote for mine and I'll
vote for yours) is a not unusual legislative behavior pattern, but it does tend to
negate the assessment that a unitary and rational system of local government will
handle planning and zoning better than other metropolitan systems.
Noise Abatement
Another measure of local government's response to environmental concerns is in
the area of "add on" programs, i.e., environmental policy and enforcement
activities not mandated by the state or federal levels. Local response in the
general area of noise pollution control has in many urban areas, predated federal
involvement.
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Nashville does not possess a noise abatement ordinance, although the health
department is involved in a monitoring project to record noise levels at selected
locations around Nashville. But if and when noise pollution reaches the agenda
of the council in the form of an ordinance, a large share of the policy-impetus
will be because of construction noise near the law office of a council member,
who is now pushing the health department for a noise abatement ordinance
(Tennessean, May 19, 1973).
Nashville is coping with the complexities of environmental issues, but there
is little or no substance to the theoretical benefits of a unitary metropolitan
structure in environmental programs.
The one clearly outstanding accomplishment of Metro is the Thermal Transfer
Plant, and even that is not necessarily an accomplishment as an outcome of
the structural reform of local government. The geographic locale is the down-
town area, and it is difficult to believe that the cooperation of refuse collectors
delivering waste to the plant could not have been negotiated by a city govern-
ment. Perhaps Metro had more expertise and openness to innovation because of
reform that contributed to the project, but that is a somewhat nebulous claim for
reform that eludes assessment.
Metro and the Region
Beyond the internal concerns of Metro's performance in environmental programs,
Davidson County's boundaries are obviously inadequate to contain the "problem-
shed" area of environmental programs. Metro is the urban core of a multi-county
metropolitan region.
The regional agency in the Nashville area is a thirteen-county council of govern-
ments that acts as the A-95 review agency (clearinghouse) for federal programs
and is also the state designated economic development district.
The origins of the Mid-Cumberland Council of Governments and Economic De-
velopment District in the late 1960's were in state and federal sponsorship of
sub-state regional planning. Metro first attempted to have its planning com-
mission designated as the regional agency, with A-95 review powers in federal
programs. When Metro was unable to assume the A-95 review powers, Metro
then wished to establish a three-county council of governments based on the
existing SMS A. The two suburban counties actively resisted being in a three-
county council of governments in which Metro would clearly be the dominant
component.
In response to suburban resistance, a thirteen county council of governments and
economic development district were created to balance Metro's position in the
>>A*«i/tn
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created. The cooperative, voluntary nature of the COG as presently constituted
make it acceptable to local governments (including Metro) precisely because it
does not threaten their status quo powers. In the Nashville metropolitan area (as
elsewhere) the assumption is that if a stronger regional agency is needed in re-
sponse to the governmental needs of the metropolitan population, it will require
state and/or federally mandated powers being given to the regional entity.
It is difficult to ascertain what effect the consolidation of city and county govern-
ments will have on the kind of metropolitan-regional problems that now transcend
Metro's jurisdictional powers. Having only one governmental entity in centrally
populated Davidson County would appear to be, for the regional effort, an or-
ganizational plus, reducing the complexity of intergovernmental relations.
But Davidson County is probably more threatening to the other twelve counties
of the regional agency as Metro, than would the City of Nashville, some sub-
urban cities and a county government have been. It is also possible to detect a
parochialism on the part of Metro in regional affairs that rivals that of the central
cities in terms of downgrading the hinterland's capacity and ability to contribute
to regional decision-making. The governmental sophistication assumed to be
present in a metropolitan model, doesn't necessarily mean that intergovernmental
relations are facilitated at the next level of problem-solving, i.e., the inter-
county level" for the area today.
Summary
From the point of view of the areal requirements of environmental programs,
Metro's geographic boundaries are no more suitable than other units of local
government. It is possible to suggest, as one writer has done, that the sort of
"innovative spirit" present in the Nashville area in restructuring the city-county
government, will translate into innovation in restructuring governmental organi-
zation at the inter-county, regional level (McArthur, 1973, p. 35). But unlike
technological innovations, which tend to stimulate further innovation, institu-
tional innovations tend to run into more resistance, and evolve into repositories
of status quo forces that act to prevent further institutional change. The inter-
governmental problems of regional environmental programs for the Nashville-
centered region do not appear open to a more optimistic assessment of some form
of resolution because of the existence of a consolidated city-county at the core.
Nashville's experience with metropolitan government doesn't lend itself to any
empirically-based conclusions as to the effect of structural changes on the per-
formance of local government.
The only firm conclusion that can be drawn from Nashville's experience is that it
does demonstrate that some fundamental structural changes occurred and success-
fully made the transition into a stable system of government. The credibility and
acceptance of Metro by residents of Davidson County appear to be as high as that
of any reasonably competent municipal corporation.
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That change can occur without introducing chaos demonstrates the possibility of
successful reform of existing local governmental structure. Just what substantive
results are obtained by metropolitan reform remains unclear, with Nashville ex-
hibiting little definitive evidence that structural capacity and potential trans-
late into improved governmental performance.
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SECTION XI
METROPOLITAN TORONTO
Introduction and History
Since its formation in 1953, Metropolitan Toronto has fascinated students of
government and metropolitanists in this country. It represents to them the most
radical reform of local government and, to many, the most rational answer to
the problems of fragmented local government in this hemisphere. It has been
studied perhaps more than any other metropolitan form (Grant, 1965; Grumm,
1959; Kaplan, 1967; Rose, 1972; Smallwood, 1963). The relatively easy disolu-
tion and consolidation of municipalities and the accompanying formation of
second-tier general purpose governments embracing the total urbanized area
which have characterized the twelve regional governments formed in the pro-
vince of Ontario in the past twenty years are in striking contrast to the many
failures in this country to achieve even limited metropolitan government.
The Role of the Province
Unlike this country where decisions as to changes in local government are arrived
at by local referenda, the province in Canada can by legislative enactment ex-
pand, eliminate, and consolidate municipalities and form second-tier govern-
ments. "Home-rule" as it is known in this country does not exist in Canada.
Under Section 92 of the British North American Act, the Canadian counterpart
to the U S Constitution, the power to legislate on municipal affairs is given ex-
clusively to the provinces rather than to the Dominion Parliament, except that
there are restrict ions on the kinds of powers that the province can vest in the
municipality. This relationship corresponds to that of the United States where
local government comes under the jurisdiction of the States, and differs from the
English system where the national Parliament is omnipotent (Crawford, 1954, p.
50).
Beginning in 1897 with the creation of the post of Provincial Municipal Auditor,
the Province of Ontario has exercised steadily increasing power over municipal
affairs. The Ontario Railway and Municipal Board formed in 1906 was given
powers primarily in the railway field, but also possessed various powers over
municipalities, including the alteration of municipal boundaries. In 1917 the
Bureau of Municipal Affairs was created to supervise the accounting of munici-
pally controlled utilities other than electric utilities.
As a result of the depression, the powers of the Railway and Municipal Board
were expanded in 1932 to include a broad authority to forbid or require actions^
by municipalities and the name of the board was changed to the Ontario Munici-
pal Board. At the same time, the Bureau of Municipal Affairs was transferred
182
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into the OMB. The OMB was given the authority not only to control the borrow-
ing of municipalities but in 1946 its powers were further increased to include
authority over all expenditures.
In 1935, the Department of Municipal Affairs was created in Ontario with
powers to oversee generally municipal affairs and also, under orders from the
OMB to supervise the administration of defaulting municipalities (Crawford,
1954, p. 347). The Department began to collect detailed information about
municipal government throughout the province. Such information provided
extensive background for the discussion and studies that were to begin before
the end of World War II and continued over the next decade. Beginning in the
early 1960's the Department of Urban Affairs commissioned studies which led
ultimately to dividing all of the Province's urban areas into metropolitan regional
units. Involved also in the development of policy relative to local government
structure has been the Province's Ministry of Treasury and Economic Development.
Steps are currently under way to merge Urban Affairs and Treasury and Economic
Development into a "super ministry" of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs
(Rose, 1972, pp. xi, 11, and 144).
Although the decisions relative to local government structure are made at the
provincial level, such decisions are reached only after a wel("defined and lengthy
procedure of study, evaluation, and conferring with local officials. The process
begins when the attention of the Province is called to a local problem. (In the
case of Toronto the need for the City of Toronto to expand caused the adjacent
suburban communities to propose a joint services district which would have pre-
vented any further expansion of Toronto.) Normally a study of the problem is
ordered by the Province resulting in recommendations for a specific course of
action, which is submitted to the local interests involved for their views.
Eventually, a local study committee is formed and an extensive dialogue com-
menced between the Province and local officials, followed by the drafting of
legislation by the Province which authorizes and defines in considerable detail
the new local unit and ultimately becomes law (Citizens Research Council ,
1969).
The domination of local governmental affairs by the Province has been accom-
panied by provincial assistance in local taxing matters. Municipalities had
power to levy the income tax prior to the 1930's but this power was pre-empted
by the Province when it assumed control over local borrowing and debt. The
assistance provided by the Province has been in the form of providing from pro-
vincial tax sources grants to the municipalities and metro governments for the
purpose of providing tax relief to residents from the ad valorem property tax.
A straight per capita grant is made to each municipality. In the case of Metro
Toronto this is currently set at $7.50 per capita per year. This grant, in effect,
is rebated to the residential property owners by reducing the levy against resi-
dential property below that of commercial property in an amount equal to the
total grant.
In addition to the per capita grant, a shelter tax allowance is made directly by
the province to residential owners as further relief from the property tax. The
allowance is handled directly with the individual taxpayer on his federal income
-------
Super-Regional
Metropolitan Toronto and Region'
Conservation Authority
Board: 55 members, 3 appointed
Ontario, 26 by Metro Council,
& 26 by municipalities
Functions: flood control & water
conservation
Area; lrOOO square miles
__, Regional
CO
Metropolitan
Toronto
Board - 33 mem-
ber federation
1971 Pop. -2,049,000
Area - 240 sq. mi.
65 Special Purpose
Metro Toronto agencies
created by Province
Met. CounciJ, area
municipalities or a com*
bination of these
Regional Municipality
of York
Board - 18 member
federation
1971 Pop. -171,000
Area - 817sq. mi.
Regional Municipality
of Peel
Board - 22 member
federation
1971 Pop. -265,000
Area - 484 sq. ml.
Regional Municipality
of Durham
Board - Z5 member
federation
1971 Pop. -204,000-
Area - 793 sq. mi. '
6 municipalities |
Sub-Regional
Toronto Harbour
commissioners
10 municipalities
3 municipalities
7 municipalities
Fig. 22. Governmental Characteristics Toronto Area
-------
I
tax form and is funded from the federal income taxes channeled back into the
provinces.
The Role of County Government
Since the county in the United States has been a significant factor in the efforts
to regidnalize local government in the United States, it is appropriate to review
briefly the place of county government in Ontario.
In contrast to the United States, county government in the Province of Ontario
prevails only in rural, unurbanized areas. In some rural counties, the basic
unit of government is the township which is an incorporated municipality not
subject to control by the county. In other counties, the county is the munici-
pality with certain powers such as upkeep of roads and maintenance of jails.
These county municipalities do not have the power to tax, but receive their
funds from taxes collected by the municipalities. The federated governing body,
made up of representatives from municipalities, was a common form in Ontario
county government. The two-tiered, federated arrangement created for Metro
Toronto was not an innovation in local government structure; there was ample
precedent for it in county government (Plunkett, 1973, p. 43).
In the urban areas, as municipalities are formed and expand, the county func-
tions are transferred to them. The County of York, which at one time included
all of the present area of Metro Toronto, does not function in any way within
the boundaries of Metro Toronto (Citizens Research Council, 1969). The
Canadian county, therefore, is not the durable political force that it is in most
parts of the United States.
The Origins of Metro Toronto
By the time Metro Toronto was formed in 1953, the familiar pattern of a stable
central city and rapidly growing suburbs had emerged. The process of annexa-
tion by the City of Toronto had been discontinued by 1920; the 12 municipalities
that lay on its boundaries had by 1953 foreclosed any further expansion by the
City. Between 1941 and 1951 the population of the City of Toronto had increased
by slightly more than 1%; that of the 12 cities, by 82%. In 1941, the City's
population constituted 73% of that of the metropolitan area; ten years later that
proportion had declined to 60% and by 1971 it was 33%.
The massive growth in the'suburban areas produced numerous public service prob-
lems. Water resource facilities were inadequate, both supply and waste treat-
ment. Educational facilities were overwhelmed and financial resources were in-
adequate to provide needed additions and expansions. Some of the "crunch" of
expansion was relieved through the nearly 100 interlocal service agreements with
the City of Toronto. This system of agreements failed to keep pace with the needs,
"mainly because they failed to commit the supplier of the service to its expansion"
(Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 1970, p. 6).
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Table 14
Population Distribution by Municipal Units, Metro Torontb, 1941-1969
City of Toronto
Towns0
Leaside
(East York)
Mimico
(Etobicoke)
New Toronto
(Etobicoke)
Weston
(York)
Villages0
Forest Hilr
(Toronto)
Long Branch
(Etobicoke)
Swansea
(Toronto)
Townships
(Boroughs)0
East York
Etobicoke
North York
Scarborough
York
Grand Total
1941
667,457
6,183
8,070
9,504
5,740
11,575
5,172
6,988
41,821
18,973
22,908
24,303
81,052
909,746
1951
675,754
16,233
1 1 ,342
11,194
8,677
-:r
15,305
8,727
8,072
o4,616
53,779
85,897
56,292
101,582
1,117,470
1961
672,407
18,579
18,212
13,384
9,715
20,489
11,039
9,628
72,409
156,035
269,959
217,286
129,645
1/618,787
1969 1971
684,595 686,202
,
98,776- , 104,784
269,590 282,686
446,196 504,150
295,534 334,310
140,454 147,301
i
1,935,145 2,059,433
Source: fcose, 1972, p. 115; Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 1970, p.
10; and The Toronto Star, Apr 2$; 1973.
a|n the reorganizatibn of January 1st, 1967 the townships became boroughs,
and incorporated the towns and villages.
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In 1950, the City of Toronto- submitted to the Ontario Municipal Board its pro-
posal for a unitary form of local government the amalgamation of 12 suburbs
and municipalities into the City. The suburban municipalities resisted this pro-
posal and did propose some alternatives, principally in the form of single-purpose
special districts to operate throughout the total suburban area. The OMB held
hearings during 1951 arid 1952, and in 1953 arrived at a compromise between the
unitary form proposed by Toronto and the status quo desired by the outlying cities.
This compromise is the present "two-tier" federated arrangement in which "local"
services continue to be provided by the municipalities and "metropolitan" serv-
ices by the newly formed Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, and the govern-
ing council of Metro is composed of elected representatives of the constituent
municipalities^ Tjhe Act.creating Metro Toronto became effective January 1,
1954.
Structure and Functions of Metro Toronto
The Metropolitan Council consisted of 25 members: the Mayor and 11 aldermen
from the City of Toronto, and the mayors of each of the 12 other municipalities,
and a1 chqirman, originally appointed by the Government of Ontario. After
January 1, 1955, the chairman cduld be elected either from within or outside
of the Metropolitan Council (fcos,e, 1972, p. 22).
Using the population of 1951 as a base, the number of constituents per council-
man would be:
Cities, towns
and villages
Toronto 56,313
Leaside 16,233
Mimico 11,342
New Toronto 11,194
Weston 8,677
Forest Hi 11 15,305
tong Branch 8,727
' Swansea 8,072
Townships
East York 64,616
fetobiqoke 53,779
North York ' 85,897
Scarborough 56,292
York 101,582
The range in the representativeness of each councilman was a factor in the 1967
reorganization of Metro Toronto. It has been the basis for periodic pressures by
the press to discard the method of indirect election to the Council for a method
of direct election from districts presumably of equal population. However,
there appears to be little probability that the present election system will be
187
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changed, as the federated, indirect election system seems to be well suited for
two-tier government. The direct election system was tried in Winnipeg and is
believed to have contributed to the decision to eliminate two-tier government
in that city in favor of consolidation into a single municipality. With govern-
mental services being provided by two levels of governments, it is argued that
the federated system has "ensured continuity and coordination between the
operations of the Metropolitan Corporation and the local area municipalities.
..." (Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 1970, p. 6). Besides the ad-
ministrative advantages derived from having the governing council consist of
the chief executives of each Jocal government, there would seem to be con-
siderable merit in having the differences which frequently occur between so-
called metropolitan and local interests resolved by the elected heads of the
constituent bureaucracies. Whether metropolitan interests are adequately repre-
sented on the Council and consideration should be given to at-large representa-
tives is a question for future research. There is evidence that the aldermen
sitting on the Council are not completely parochial in their votes. In addition,
the chairman through his membership on all committees and his position as the
chief executive over Metro can be a very powerful force for Metro interests.
The general administrative structure of Metro Toronto is depicted in Figure 23.
It follows the typical British pattern of strong council committees, in that all
department heads report directly to a council committee staff to the Executive
Committee, line to the other administrative committees: Social Services and '
Housing, Parks and Recreation, Works, and Transportation.
The chief executive officer is the Chairman of the Council, who serves also as
Chairman of the Executive Committee and ex-officio member of the other com-
mittees. He does not have the exclusive command relationship with department
heads as does the city manager or strong mayor in this country, but he does
possess considerable power as a result of his election by the Council and by his
presence on the Executive Committee. The first chairman, Frederick Gardiner,
through the force of his own personality exercised strong leadership over Metro
and is reputedly responsible in large measure for the successes that Metro can
claim in the first years of its operation. In the past year the office of the Chair-
man has been strengthened by an act of the Council creating the position of
Executive Director who acts as a CAO to the Chairman.
The Executive Committee includes, in addition to the chairman of the Council,
the mayors of the constituent cities, and 4 aldermen from the City of Toronto.
It is the principal administrative body. It develops and presents the annual
budget; recommends appointees to department head positions and members of
boards and commissions; dismisses or suspends department heads; sets pay rates;
and awards contracts.
4
In a recent study commissioned by Ontario's Ministry of Treasury, Economics and
Intergovernmental Affairs, an intensive evaluation was made of the 5 systems of
local government in Ontario, as well as 9 systems in existence in other Canadian
provinces, and in the United States and England (Hickey,. 1972). The study by
Paul Hickey leans favorably'toward more concentrated and centralized administrative
188
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00
S3
City of Toronto
Mayor,
11 Aldermen
V»^
Borough of
North York
Mayor,
4 Controllers
, 1 Alderman
Borough of
Scarborough
Mayor,
4 Controllers
1
Metropolitan
Toronto
Housing
Company
Li Tilted
1 '
Social Services
and Housing
Committee
6 f^embers
1
Toronto
Transit
Commission
i
Parks and
Recreation
Committee
7 Members
x
r
Borough of
Etobicoke
Mayor,
3 Controllers
. ~.
Metropolitan
Council
33 Members
Chairman
I
Executive
Committee
11 Members
i >
Soc'Services Housing Parks
Department Department Department
Clerk's Legal Audit
Department Department Department
Borough of
York
Mayor,
2 Controllers
Borough of
East York
Mayor,
1 Alderman
^, *
1 1
Metropolitan Metropolitan Metropolitan
Toronto Board of Licensing
Planning Commissioners Commission
Board of Pol ice
Works Transporta- Legislation
Committee tion Com- and Planning
7 Members mittee Committee
7 Members 6 Members
Works *J*J} &
Department n rt f
Treasury
Department
i I
P ersbnn e 1 Property
Department Department
I
Emergency
Services
Department
Fig. 23. Organization and Functions Metropolitan Toronto
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structures under the supervision of a CAO (Chief Administrative Officer). The
Council would appoint the CAO, but would not delegate to him its powers; the
CAO would study, suggest, assist, report, and recommend (Mickey, 1972, p. 67)
The study's conclusions about Toronto suggest that future acts creating metro
governments may avoid some of the alleged problems of uncoordination and
fragmentation of Toronto and provide for a form more closely approaching the
council-CAO form. Some of the conclusions about Metro Toronto are repro-
duced below:
71. Metropolitan Toronto's council-chairman-executive committee-
committees-no CAO system (which has been adapted to the needs
of Regional Ottawa-Carleton) was "an interim product of conflict
and compromise, between the central demanding full-scale amal-
gamation of all neighboring communities and its adjacent suburbs
insisting upon retaining their local autonomy (Smallwood, 1963)."
75. The chairman of the council is the head of the council, but unlike
the head of the council of other municipalities, the duties of the
chairman, as the head of the council, are not described in the
Statute.
76. The chairman of the council is the head of the council and the
leader of the council. In addition, he is expected to be a leader
of the local community and the CAO of the metropolitan corpora-
tion. In other major local governments in Canada, the United
States and England, the work of the chairman of the council of
metropolitan Toronto is the work of two and in some cases, three
persons. The imposition of such an extremely heavy workload is "*"
not in the best interests of the person who is chairman, the other
member of the council, the COs, the corporation and, of course
the citizens of the area.
77. It is questionable, to say the least, if any person possesses the time
and energy to assume responsibility (a) for the initiation of the goals,
objectives, priorities, policies, etc. of a major municipality in the
1970s, (b) to lead the council in the formulation of these prime con-
cerns and, at the same time, (c) to lead, co-ordinate and direct the
COs of such a municipality, with their diverse and complicated prob-
lems.
78. There is a void in the coordination of the COs. Some COs report to
the executive committee. Other COs report to the administrative
committees. COs do not report to the chairman of the council. They
do not report to a CAO. The reporting of the COs is confused this
is an extremely significantweakness!
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79. The workload of the members of the executive committee of the
council is exceedingly heavy. The nature of the workload, the
extent of the workload, and the desirability of the workload should
be examined thoroughly.
81 . The acceptance of the recommendations of ... Section (e)
(i) the repeal of the powers of the executive committee of the
council
(ii) the enactment of a modern, definitive statement of the powers
and duties of the executive committee of the council
(iii) the transfer of the powers and duties of local boards and agencies
to the corporation, and
(iv) TE & IA (Treasury, Economics & Intergovernmental Affairs)
promoting, actively
.the withdrawal of the administrative committees of the council
.the establishment of a system of policy committees of the council
to discuss and resolve business of the council
.the concept that the councillors allocate the bulk of their time
and energy to the prime concerns of the municipality and much
less to administrative and technical details, and
.the concept that the councillors assign to a CAO, with the
assistance of the COs, the responsibility to establish a system
of co-ordinated administration at the officer level, that is sub-
ject to the policies and directions of the council (Rickey, 1972,
pp. 285 et seq.)
Division of Services
The sharing of functions between the two tiers of government effected in 1953,
and the later reassignments, primarily upward to Metro, are shown in Table 15.
The trend since 1953 has been for the transfer of services upward to Metro and in
a few cases upward from Metro to the Province and Federal Government. The
first major shift occurred in 1957 as a result of a Metro evaluation of the first
four years of its operation; additional transfers of services were effected in 1967
as part of the reorganization of the Metro Council.
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Table 15
Assignment of Functions to Municipalities and Metro, 1953-1973
(Toronto Metropolitan Area)
Exclusively Local
Fire protection
Community services: recreation programs, community centers, and arenas.
Shared
Water supply Metro acts as wholesaler to municipalities, which are
responsible for local distribution.
Sewage disposal Similar to water supply arrangement. Metro pro-
vides trunk lines and treatment; municipalities responsible for
collector lines.
Parks Neighborhood parks and playgrounds provided by municipalities,
regional parks, zoos, islands, and waterfront by Metro.
Housing Co-equal powers for provision of housing. Metropolitan
Toronto Housing Authority created in 1955.
Health Public health services provided by municipalities, chronic and
convalescent hospitals by Metro.
Planning Theoretically, local plans are developed in conformity with
Metro plan. Actually, the Metro Plan is an amalgamation of the
municipal plans and has never been registered with the Province as the
official Metro Plan.
Taxation Assessment responsibility of Metro, tax collection by cities
On Jan 1, 1970 assessment was transferred to the Province.
Roads Expressways, major arterial roads, and public transit responsi-
bility of Metro; feeder streets, sidewalks, and street lighting are the
responsibility of municipalities
Exclusively Metro
Debenture borrowing Subject to the approval of the OMB, Metro does
the borrowing for the municipalities, boards of education, and authori-
ties.
Civil defence Established in 1957.
Originally Local, Later Shared or Transferred
Police protection Transferred to Metro in 1957 under the Metro Board
of Commissioners of Police
Licensing Transferred to Metro in 1957 under the Metro Licensing
Commission.
Public Libraries Now a shared function. In 1967 the Province established
the Metropolitan Toronto Library Board to develop central and regional
reference libraries and provide financial assistance to local libraries.
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Originally Local, Later Shared or Transferred (cont.)
Garbage Collection Now a shared function. Metro was given power
in 1966 to establish disposal facilities. Municipalities collect.
Administration of Justice Magistrate courts transferred to Metro in
1957.
Education Originally Metro had coordinating responsibilities and pro-
vided some financial assistance through the Metro School Board. Under
the 1967 reorganization, the Metro Board was given more responsibility,
a reorganization into District Boards to operate the schools, and financial
support made uniform throughout the area.
Welfare Public assistance payments transferred to Metro in 1967.
Air Pollution Transferred to Metro in 1957 and subsequently to Province
in 1968.
Sources: "Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto, " in
Joseph F. Zimmerman, Ed., Government of the Metropolis (New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968), pp. 230-232;
Elizabeth Nealson, Metropolitan Information Officer, "The
Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto," Apr 15, 1970, pp 4-10;
Albert Rose, "Governing Metropolitan Toronto: A Social and
Political Analysis, 1953-1971, " 1972, pp. 36 and 119; and
Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 1970, p. 9-
Metro Toronto and Environmental Control
Air pollution control was originally a municipal function, but became succes-
sively a responsibility of Metro in 1957 and of the Province in 1968. The
original anti-smoke law was passed in 1907, but it was not until 1949 that an
effective law was passed. By 1968 when the Province assumed the responsibility,
95% of the once serious black smoke problem had been eliminated. Since that
time there have been 128 industrial abatements and 1,043 fuel conversions im-
plemented. In addition, an air pollution index and alert system has been put
into effect. This index permits the Minister of Energy and Resources Manage-
ment to curtail the operations of major sources of air pollution as certain index
levels are reached (Ontario Dept of Energy and Resources Management, n.d., p. 2)
Water pollution control is the responsibility of Metro's Works Department. This
department reported in 1970 that under Water Control Pollution Plan established
in 1953, "some 230,000,000 gallons of sanitary waste water collected each day
is given complete secondary treatment (through three treatment plants) to ensure
at least 90% purity before discharge and diffusion into Lake Ontario, an
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accomplishment unique in North America for a municipality the size of Metro-
politan Toronto" (Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board, 1970, p. 20).
Flood control is the responsibility of the Metropolitan Toronto and Region
Conservation Authority, with jurisdiction over an area of 1000 square miles in-
cluding the 240 square miles occupied by Metro Toronto.
Control of noise is up to the individual municipality. A North York law under
which 2 individuals had been convicted, one for hammering nails at 11:15 pm
and another for playing his radio too loudly in his back yard, was recently
challenged in the courts, but was upheld as constitutional by the appeal divi-
sion of the Ontario Supreme Court in a "precedent setting" decision (Globe and
Mail, Sept 20, 1973). A two-year study by Toronto Works Commissioner is
under study by that city's Works Committee. Some of the recommendations of
the study are:
The establishment of testing stations to which police would direct noisy
cars, trucks, and buses.
The review by City Council of all applications for rezoning or land use
changes to determine what effects, if any, they will have on present
noise levels. Before the changes would be approved, commitments would
be obtained that if noise levels are increased as a result of the proposed
land use, control measures would be established.
The inauguration of a $100,000 program for the City to reduce the noise
levels of its own vehicles.
The passage of a comprehensive anti-noise bylaw (ordinance) and the
creation of a noise control unit in the Public Works Department.
On the basis of monitoring 600 points throughout the city and interviews with
10,000 residents, the study concluded that Toronto is not yet a noisy city. Its
highest median noise readings of 58 decibels were comparable to the levels in
residential areas of cities in the United States. However, 72% of those inter-
viewed believed that noise was on the increase and there should be laws passed
to control it, although it rated in importance below control of air and water
pollution (only 12% would consider moving because of noise). Most of the City,
(except some areas near expressways) were below 65 decibels, the level at which
noise is considered a problem (The Toronto Star, Nov 10, 1973 and Jan 5,1974).
With respect to control of nuclear radiation, Ontario Hydro operates Canada's
largest nuclear power plant in Pickering east of Metro Toronto. The Province is
under pressure from environmental groups for tighter standards on radiation
emission. It is claimed that the present standards adopted by the Atomic Energy
Control Board "permit 100 times the radiation emission allowed in the United
States. " Tighter controls are requested over the sale of spent nuclear fuels and
the emissions from heavy water production plants (The Toronto Star, Aug 25, 1973)
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Changes Since 1953
The basic structure of Metro Toronto has prevailed since Its inception in 1953.
The changes that have occurred in the succeeding 20 years have changed the
representation of the constituent cities on the Metro Council, shifted some
services upward to Metro and added others, and fixed its boundaries permanently.
The most intensive period of reform began in 1963 and culminated in the 1967
amendments to the original Act creating Metro.
1967 Reorganization
Since 1953 the relatively more rapid increase in the population of the 12 out-
lying municipalities over that of Toronto had resulted in increasingly greater in-
equities of representation on the Metro Council. The City of Toronto's response
to this situation was to continue to promote the amalgamation of these cities into
a single City of Toronto which it submitted as a formal request to the Ontario
Municipal Board in 1963. This eventually resulted in the Province's creating in
the same year a Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto.
The findings of the Commission, contained in a report submitted in 1965, was
accepted by the Prime Minister and placed in his report without substantial change,
except for the recommendations on education. The Commission's report had en-
dorsed the continuation of the two-tier federated system, the consolidation of the
13 municipalities into 6, rather than amalgamation and reform of the system of
representation.
The 13 municipalities were consolidated into 6 units of local government: the
City of Toronto and 5 boroughs: York, East York, North York, Etobicoke, and
Scarborough. Of the 7 towns and villages, Forest Hill and Swansea were
merged into the City of Toronto; and the other 5 were taken into townships re-
designated as boroughs: Long Branch, New Toronto, and Mimico into Etobicoke;
Weston into York; and Leaside into East York. In addition, the townships of
North York and Scarborough were changed to borough status.
Aldermen are municipal council men elected by district. A separate board of con-
trol system may be created in which controllers (usually 4 in number) are elected
at large. The board of control functions like an executive committee of the coun-
cil in developing programs and legislation for submission to the council. At the
time of the 1967 reorganization, the City of Toronto had abolished its board of
control in favor of an executive committee.
The system of representation was also revised. The revised system of representa-
tion is shown below. Mayors and controllers became ex-officio members of the
Metro Council. The revision in representation resulted in the following calcula-
tion of representativeness:
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1967 Population per
Unit Representative
City of Toronto 57,000
Borough of East York 45,000
Borough of Etobicoke 60,000
Borough of North York 57,000
Borough of Scarborough 56,000
Borough of York 43,000
Thus, by a combination of reducing the number of constituent units, adding 8
members to the total number of borough representatives, and holding Toronto to
its then present total of 12 members, it was possible to eliminate the considerable
disparities in representativeness that had existed, although the residents of the
cities that had been eliminated might question whether they were being better
represented.
The Executive Committee of the Metro Council, which had not been provided
for in the original enabling legislation and thus existed at the discretion of the
Council, consisted originally of the Chairman and 4 members elected by the
Council from its own membership. By 1967 the membership consisted of 3 rep-
resentatives from the City of Toronto, 3 from all of the other municipalities, and
the Chairman of the Council. Under reorganization the appointment of an
Executive Committee was made mandatory and its membership increased to 11
to permit all the boroughs to be represented. The mayors of each borough and
the City of Toronto were made members. In addition, the four members of
Toronto's Board of Control (later changed to the Executive Committee) were
also given membership and the Chairman of Metro Council continued to func-
tion as the chairman of the Committee.
In 1973 a further revision of the representation was under way to maintain the
uniformity achieved in 1967. The current chairman of the Metro Council had
submitted four alternative plans for reform based upon varying the number of
councilmen. The one plan he has recommended would call for the number of
councilman to be increased from the present 33 to 38, and would change the
representation of each constituent governmental unit as follows:
Number of Representatives
Unit of Government Present Proposed
Chairman 1 1
City of Toronto 12 12
Borough of North York 6 9
Borough of Scarborough 5 6
Borough of Etobicoke 4 5
Borough of York 3 3
Brough of East York _2 _2
Total 33 38
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The Executive Committee would remain at 11 members but the City of Toronto
would give up 2 members (from 5 to 3) and the Boroughs of North York and
Scarborough would each gain one member (from 1 to 2) (The Toronto Star, Oct
27, 1973). The Chairman is expected to recommend also that all Metro Council
Members be directly elected from districts created for Metro Council member-
ship and that these councillors would also sit on the municipal councils. Under
the present system the alderman and controllers receiving the highest number of
votes sit on the Metro Council Executive Committee.
Metro Toronto and Boundary Expansion
The expanding of municipal boundaries to encompass an exapnding population
and the need for local government to expand its jurisdiction as its population
spreads beyond its boundaries has been met with varying degrees of success by
the devices reported in this study: annexation, consolidation, interlocal agree-
ments, and metropolitanization. If the expansion of population continues, these
steps will have only deferred the problem as populations increase beyond the new
boundaries.
For Metro Toronto the question of boundary expansion was settled this year when
the Province created the new regional municipalities of Peel and Halton to the
west of Toronto and Durham to the east, effective January 1, 1974. To the north,
the regional municipality of York (not to be confused with the Borough of York
in Metro Toronto) was established in 1971. Thus, Metro Toronto is now com"
pletely surrounded by separate two-tier metro municipalities. One can expect,
therefore, as the Toronto economic region grows, discussions commencing on the
subjects of "umbrella" organizations, super-regional special districts, and inter-
regional service contracts. There is some speculation already on the position of
the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority whose jurisdiction
spreads into all five of the metropolitan municipalities, the issue being whether
the functions of the Authority and any future special district cannot be handled
by interjurisdictional agreements between these municipalities.
The efforts begun in 1966 by the Province of Ontario to reform local government
will have resulted by the end of 1974 in the creation of nearly a dozen new
metropolitan municipalities, all of the two-tier variety. This program of struc-
tural reform arose from the economic development programs of the Province and
is set forth in the three phase "Design for Development" (Roberts, 1968; McKeough,
1968, 1972; Davis, 1972) In each of the ten economic development regions (later
decreased to 5 planning regions), regional government was seen as a necessary factor
in the implementation of the economic development plans. On the basis of the studies
conducted by staff of the Department ot Ireasury and Economics and reports emanat-
ing from various legislative committees, notably the Select Committee on the
Municipal Act and Related Acts and the Ontario Committee on Taxation, the
numerous units of small local government were not meeting the needs of the popu-
lation.
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to
CO
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4-" ** _ I 5 _
x^l I -I j- 1 r
1~~ \~i *» i i1! -
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BASE MAP BY
METKOPOIITAN TORONTO PLANNING BOAMO
f E< I»7J
(ICS modified, 1974)
Towns, Townships, Counties
and Regional Municipalities
Fig. 24. Governmental Boundaries in Toronto Centred Region
-------
As our province has become more and more urbanized, it had become
increasingly apparent that the mechanism of several hundreds of small
municipalities has become an inadequate means of meeting the require-
ments of the people of Ontario in the second half of this century. We
envisage in the restructuring of municipal government on a regional
basis that there will be an accompanying significant reduction in the
total number of municipalities now existing in Ontario. . . .
In the case of Smith Committee (Taxation) and the subsequent Select
Committee Report, it was emphasized the restructuring of municipal
financing can achieve maximum benefit only if, at the same time, we
can achieve a more rational approach to the numbers and size of local
governments. Indeed, both Committees made it clear that the reform
of municipal financing and the municipal structure are required if we
are to overcome the basic problems of local governments. . . .
The basic aim of the Government in arriving at the policy of establish-
ing regional governments is to make local government as strong and mean-
ingful as possible. As our society becomes more complex, the people of
Ontario to whom governments are responsible must be able to participate
in the decisions and direction of their government. If our municipal
partners are unable to cope with the problems they face because of their
small size, limited financial resources and inability to provide the serv-
ices which all residents of Ontario should expect, participation becomes
meaningless (Roberts, 1968, p. 7).
This strong position on the reform of local government was restated in the Third
Phase statements.
This Province by its regional planning policy is attempting to guide a
very careful use of the Province's resourcesits land, its water and its
ailin the best interests of all of our people. This policy could be
frustrated, indeed contradicted, by a system of local government that
feels compelled to maximize its development and its tax yields. It is a
simple proposition: if over 900 municipalities believe they have the right
to exploit their physical resources to minimize tax burdens, the rationale
use of our resources will be lost (McKeough, 1972).
The role of local government was seen as one of assistance and cooperation with
the provincial programs of reform. Stating the role as a contradictory one between
being "creatures of the province" and having local autonomy based upon local
political accountability was an oversimplification of the relationship between the
province and its municipalities, from the province's point of view.
Reconciling the formal legal base of power with the realities of political
responsibility is not easy, but to describe the relationship in terms of
"local autonomy, " or of local governments being "creatures of the pro-
vince " only serves to misrepresent the complexities of the relationship.
The most important consideration is that there is far too much at stake for
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all levels of government to allow local government to Isolate itself from
the others in the hope of gaining what is at best a very illusory autonomy.
Ultimately, they are all responsible to the same electorate, although in
different ways and for different things. It is most relevant to talk in terms
of enlightened responsible government, with all three levels having com-
plementary roles to play in meeting the needs of the public, both in general
and in terms of particular communities and needs (Farrow, 1973, pp. 7-8).
Traditional means of expansion of boundaries were viewed as having certain in-
herent deficiencies. Consolidation through annexation and amalgamation was
successful for the short term, but in the long run as development spread beyond
the boundaries, problems began to reappear. Too, annexation in the Canadian
system resulted in loss of population and tax base to the county, thus weakening
that unit of government.
i
The second traditional approach of creating special purpose districts on a larger
area basis pose the problems with which the literature abounds, dilution of local
accountability, unrepresentativeness, and insensitivity to the broader issues of
urban life. '
Eight general criteria were followed by the Province in designating regional
governments:
1. A region should exhibit a sense of community identity based on
sociological characteristics, economics, geography and history.
2. A region should have a balance of interests so that no one group
or interest can completely dominate the region.
3. There must be a financial base adequate to carry out regional pro-
grams at a satisfactory level.
4. The region should be large enough so that local responsibilities can
be performed efficiently by taking advantage of economies of scale.
5. Regional boundaries should facilitate maximum inter-regional co-
operation .
6. Participation by all communities in the discussions leading to the
formation of a regional government. This does not include the power
to veto.
*
7. New regional government boundaries should be usable by other in-
stitutions. This refers to local units of education and, particularly,
to Provincial departments and agencies, in getting the kind of
prqblem experienced in this country of many federal categorical
regional programs with differing geographical jurisdictions.
8. In cases of two-tier governments, both tiers should be designed with
the same criteria.
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Within these general criteria, there were more specific standards enunciated
by the province which reflect the characteristics that the regional governments
were expected to assume.
1. Size. A population of from 150,000 to 200,000 was suggested as the
minimum population for a regional government in order to achieve an
efficient provision of most local services. However, there would have
to be exceptions to this standard in sparsely populated areas to permit
continued access by individuals to their government. The minimum
population suggested for municipalities was 8,000 t6 10,000.
2. Shape. The region should include not only the major urban centers but
also its rural hinterland.
3. Internal Structure. In determining whether the structure would be one-
tier or two-tier, four factors are taken into consideration:
1) Size of the proposed region a very large region may require
lower tier municipalities in order to retain the vital element of
accessibility.
'2) Population distribution within the proposed region the degree of
concentration of population will be an important factor in determin-
ing the form of Regional Government structure.
3) Distribution of fiscal resources these may well determine whether
it is possible to have financially viable lower tier units.
4) Physical and social geography a range of hills, a lake, a river,
or cultural and linguistic differences in a region, may lead to a
decision to have two tiers in order to pro/ide effective services and
to preserve existing social communities in a region (McKeough, 1968,
p. 5).
The distribution of services between the two tiers of government is based
upon an arrangement recommended by the Ontario Committee on Taxation
which is virtually identical with that of Metro Toronto.
With respect to special districts, the Province's view is that such districts
should be abandoned and their powers transferred to the regional or local
municipality.
4. Representation. Should be based on reasonably equal population units.
The Province has no preference for either direct or indirect election,
although it intends to experiment with both forms. There is precedence
for the indirect system in present county government.
The rate at which regionalization should proceed was a point of difference between
the Legislature and the Prime Minister. The Ontario Committee had recommended
a fixed time table and the Prime Minister advocated a more selective and gradual
process. His position was that all areas were not in an equally critical condition,
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and regional governments should be established on a problemrarea priority basis
with the southern part of the province receiving first attention. Other reasons
for the position of the Pri~ne Minister on rate of implementation were the lack of
trained personnel to cover all of Ontario and the need for time for local opinion
to form and express itself.
By April 1, 1974 eleven regional,municipalities will have been formed since the
Province began its program of reform of local government structure in 19<66,, with
eight of these being in the general Toronto region. The provincial government
has, thus, not deviated from the goals it set in 1966.
As firm as the province was in creating regional municipalities, the City of
Toronto and Metro were equally adamant in their assertions that the latter should
be permitted to expand its boundaries. Beginning in 1969 both units of govern-
ment lodged protests against the creation of metros around Toronto; although the
City called for amalgamation first, then expansion (Rose, 1972, p. 146).
Despite the official protests, Metro became completely hemmed in within its 240
sq mi upon passage of the acts creating Haltop, Pell, and Durham. That these
official concerns were not shared by the electorate became evident in the 1971
provincial elections. The Conservative Party, which had been in power during
the period of developing the recommendations for the new municipalities, did
better than expected in Toronto (Rose, 1972, p. 154). Ironically, the success
of the Toronto experiment undoubtedly gave the Province the precedent needed
for its vigorous program of local government reform.
In 1951 greqter Toronto constituted 20% of the entire population of Ontario; by
1971 this had risen to 27%. It has been suggested that the Province was fore-
stalling a potential conflict between Metro and Ontario when the Metro popula-
tion reached the 40 to 50% level (Rose, 1972, p. 164).
Conclusion
The accomplishments of the Metro Toronto government are numerous. Water and
sewer systems were built to accommodate the five to six million population fore-
cast for the year 2000. All sewage received secondary treatment, a unique
situation in this continent. The public transportation system is probably the best
in this hemisphere. Educational plants have been constructed in the new areas,
and that of Toronto's completely rebuilt and modernized. There is a readier
market for bond issues and at lower cost, since it became the exclusive function
of Metro. Police and welfare services were transferred from the area municipali-
ties to Metro in 1966 and 1967 without visible protest. Metro has been criHqized
for its emphasis on physical services to the neglect of needed social services; it
has perhaps been no faster than any other municipality in arriving at a concern
with social programs. Yet, water, sewers, schools, and financial capability
must be deemed high priority needs of urban residents.
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The accomplishments in the services just alluded to are not the kind to cause
much controversy and there was little political conflict in the early years of
Metro. The newer issues -^ dispersal of low-income housing, conservation of
neighborhoods, downtown redevelopment are issues which will test the ability
of Metro to achieve political consensus. A case in point is the commitment of
the present City Council to conservation of neighborhoods and a slow-down of
downtown development versus the alleged propensity of Metro for the bulldozer.
The two-tier structure of Metro was a compromise between the pressures for one
city by the City of Toronto and the resistance of the suburbs to amalgamation.
It was based upon a form used in the Canadian counties, wherein municipal
officials sat on the county council and the cities shared the cost of county
government. When compared with a one city arrangement, it undoubtedly is
producing higher administrative costs as a result of two tiers of officials working
in the same areas, e.g., planning and fiscal administration. Too, there are
bound to be some areas of service where the division of labor between the two
tiers is not well defined, such as the area of planning. Yet, when compared
with the situation that existed prior to 1953 where 13 or more municipalities
would have had to achieve the service improvements effected by Metro; the
assignment of responsibility for regional concerns to a new level of government
under a council made up of the municipal officials has to be rated as superior.
The administrative organization of Metro has its problems, particularly in the
lack of central authority in the chief executive. As part of its program on the
reform of local government, it can be expected that the Province will give weight
to the recommendations of the Mickey report for more authority over the operations
of regional governments in an appointed executive, similar to the city manager or
CAO forms in the United States.
The debate over direct or indirect elections will continue. All but one of the
regional municipalities in Ontario use the indirect system. The other has adopted
a mixed direct-indirect method. The view of the Province is that no one system
can be called superior to the others. The need is to broaden the area of responsi-
bility of elected officials by reducing the number of municipalities, by reducing
and eliminating as far as possible the number of special districts, and by bringing
city and county officials together in the planning and conduct of urban services
(Farrow, 1973).
i
The pressures by the City of Toronto, for amalgamation will continue. The City
does not believe that it is receiving equitable treatment under the two-tier arrange-
ment. Although the City has enjoyed amazing growth and a reputation as one of
the leading cosmopolitan cities of the world, it is the site of the bujk of the social
problems in the metropolitan area. Its tax base has contributed to the growth of
the boroughs, but it has not received in return the funds needed to meet the social
problems unique only to the City. It sees little interest"by Metro in these problems
and tne provincial grants system works to its disadvantage. It receives its pro-
portionate share of grants for education, but the mathematical formula does not
take into account the special services needed for inner city students: remedial1
services, services for exceptional and disturbed children, and the like. Right
or
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wrong, these contentions will continue to make the City a critic of Metro and
the Province.
11
The Canadian system of government stresses the participation of higher level
officials in the reform of local government; in the United States the emphasis
is upon the maximum participation of voters through local referenda. It is
asserted by scholars that the U S system is no more democratic than the Canadian
and, in fact, contains a built-in bias in favor of the status quo (Smallwood, 1965^.
It would appear in view of the Toronto experience and the many failures to reform
local government in the United States that states in this country should begin to
take part in the search for ways to give local government more effective control
over the city's environment .and better use of the area's resources.
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SECTION XII
EVALUATION OF CASE STUDIES OF
REGIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
This chapter will first give a general evaluation of the state of regional govern-
ance in the United States, based upon a review of the literature and the nine
case studies. It will then describe and evaluate several patterns of regional
governmental arrangements.
general Evaluation
We found that in all nine cases, what we were studying was a governmental
structure that was in transition, just as metropolitan government structures were
when Martin made his study ten years earlier (Martin, 1963). In every case
there were current discussions among the local leaders about additional govern-
mental change that might be desirable. This suggests that these regional govern-
mental agencies will be changing in the future, and that their structures may be
significantly modified as they continue to change and evolve.
Secondly, we ibund that the county was the core of metropolitan regional govern-
mental structures; there are no multi-county general purpose regional governments.
The durability of the county and its boundaries is an amazing phenomenon in the
light of all the rhetoric about the county being an artificial unit of government
and an outmoded relic of the horse and buggy days. With very few exceptions,
what have been called metropolitan governments are urban counties they are
counties that have been given the powers of cities. In his recent study, Mogulof
arrives at the same conclusion (Mogulof, 1972). Related to this phenomenon is
the emergence over the past ten or fifteen years of a county reform movement
aimed at modernizing county government, as is well represented by the urban
counties group within the National Association of Counties, and by the newer
metropolitan governments of Jacksonville/Duvall County and Indianapolis/Marion
County. Thus, modernized county government has been the core of what is called
metropolitan government in the United States.
Thirdly, the literature suggest that a major alternative to regional government
structure would be the multi-county multi-purpose special district, but we found
that this structure does not exist in the United States, for all practical purposes.
We have been able to find very few multi-purpose special districts. We did
case studies of two of them: The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle has two
functions, but it is essentially confined to only one county King County; The
Bi-State Development District in the St. Louts area has the authority to engage in
many functions, but is operating only in transit and in a very minor way in other
forms of transportation, and is not really doing anything area-wide except running
a bus system. In both localities, local leaders are hopeful that they will be able
to build some regional activity on the base of the existing special district. Ten
years ago, Martin was very hopeful about the prospects for the multi-purpose
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special district (Martin, 1963, p. 86). After ten years or more of operation in
both the Seattle and St. Louis areas, the multi-purpose special district seems to
us to be making very little progress as a multi-county agency. What in theory
seems to be a very good idea, does not seem to be working out very well in
practice.
The other extant model of structuring regional government around multi-county
special districts, that is, by putting multi-county single-purpose special dis-
tricts under the control of a multi-county regional council, is even more rare
than multi-purpose special districts. The one example we found operational is
the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council. This is in many ways an interesting inno-
vation in government, but in its present form it is a state agency, not a regional
agency. Moreover, the Council has control over only one major multi-county
special district the sewer district, although it has some limited powers of
approval over the capital budget of the Metropolitan Transit Commission and
the Metropolitan Airports Commission, both of which are fighting against being
placed under the jurisdiction of the Council. Some of the major cities and
counties are opposing specific policies that the Council would like the state
legislature to impose region-wide. Given the present unwillingness of the legis-
lature to give more powers or more independence to the Council, and the unwill-
ingness of the cities and counties and multi-county special districts to see the
Council have more powers, we do not see it becoming a regional government in
the near future. So, unless a similar arrangement in the Atlanta area makes a
significant breakthrough, the multi-county council of the Twin Cities type still
has some major problems as a regional governance form.
Out of our study of regional governments, we have one additional impression
with respect to multi-county special districts, and this is that urban counties do
not like to be subjected to the authority of such a district or to have major func-
tions within the county carried out by such a district, and generally are asking
the legislatures to take the activity out of the hands of the special district and
put it in the hands of the county government. So we believe that the prospects
of prolonged political conflict cloud the potential of multi-county special dis-
tricts as a vehicle for regional decision-making.
Finally, we found that it appears that the state government will have to play a
key role in metropolitan regional government, which is not particularly surprising
in view of state powers over local governments. But given what many people re-
gard as the poor record of the states in dealing with urban problems, creating
what many consider to be a kind of no man's land in metropolitan areas un-
touched by potential state powers and out of the reach of local powers, this
may not be a particularly reassuring finding.' Nevertheless, we found that in
most of our case studies Metropolitan Toronto and Metropolitan Nashville/
Davidson County are the exceptions local leaders viewed additional state ac-
tion as necessary before the existing regional structure could deal with what were
regarded as major problems. And you will recall that the regional arrangement
regarded as most innovative, the Twin Cities Regional Council, is a state agency.
The necessity of strong state urban regional policy was brought home to us by the
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one regional arrangement, federation, for which we had to look to an example
outside the United States because there was no example inside: Metropolitan
Toronto. It is well known that Toronto Metro was established by action of the
provincial government, not by local action, and that when the structure was
changed to combine some of the smaller municipalities, this was again done by
action of the province. Perhaps some local governments in the United States
will combine voluntarily into a two-tier regional system, but it doesn't seem
likely to happen soon because of our home rule tradition.
So, to summarize, what we found in the United States under the label of re-
gional governments is primarily urban counties and councils of governments, plus
some multi-county single-purpose special districts, and we think the prospects
of getting anything else very soon are not very good.
A Universal Problem: Where to Set the Regional Boundary
One of the striking commonalities of all of the regional governmental arrange-
ments found in our nine case studies was that each of them was facing the old
problem of adjusting their boundaries to cope with urban growth outside the
boundaries. This is, of course, one of the classic problems of regional govern-
ment (Fesler, 1949).
But it is also the problem that 5s at the root of the major criticism levelled
agahst the system of government in metropolitan areas for the past generation
or more: that the metropolitan community is split into a multiplicity of munici-
palities, whose boundaries are too small to deal with area-wide problems. The
local governments frequently respond to this situation with intergovernmental
agreements, a response which is viewed by the critics as being a temporary
amelioration that prevents or delays what they regard as the more adequate re-
sponse of unification of the urban area under a single area-wide government.
From this point of view, one obvious explanation of the present problem is that
the boundaries of the central city have not been expanded to include new urban
growth as it occurs. If the central city now included, in every metropolitan
area, all of the area in which urban growth had occurred, metropolitan reform
presumably would not need to be undertaken. The object of metropolitan reform
is almost always to establish a government whose boundaries include the entire
urban area. If trie boundaries can be expanded, the metropolitan problem will
be largely solved, if the literature of metropolitan reform can be believed.
(Committee for Economic Development, 1966).
Thus it is disconcerting to find that the regional governmental arrangements
found in our case studies have not solved this problem. In almost every case,
either the local leaders, or the state and federal officials whose programs are
concerned with the metropolitan area, feel that regional problems extend beyond
the present boundaries, and the future will bring more problems of this type.
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For example, as was noted in the chapter on Metropolitan Dade County, the
problems of a rapid transit system and of another major airport include a larger
region of from three to seven counties, bince there is at present no way of ex-
panding the regional boundaries to deal with this problem, it must be dealt with
by negotiation with the other counties concerned. Similar inter-county relation-
ships are troubling the Nashville region.
Because urban growth does not stop at the boundaries of the present regional
governmental arrangement, the regional boundaries are unable to keep up with
the urban growth and urban problems, just as in the past the boundaries of the
central city were not extended to keep up with urban growth.
And it is by no means clear that even if the regional boundaries could be ex-
panded to meet these problems, there would not be future problems that extended
across even those extended boundaries. For some problems of environmental pro-
tection, the eleven or twelve counties of South Florida would seem to be an
appropriate area.
One phase of the problem is the existence of federal Standard Metropolitan Sta-
tistical Areas and of state designated regional planning and development dis-
tricts. Both of these regional designations pose the threat of a regional entity
different from the existing arrangement in each of our case studies in the United
States.
In the case of Metropolitan Toronto, the problem has been dealt with by apply-
ing a fundamentally different principle than the one underlying the prevailing
metropolitan reform movement in the United States. The province of Ontario
has decided that any additional urban growth that spills over the boundaries of
Metropolitan Toronto will be in the jurisdiction of one of the neighboring re-
gional governments. This in the language of the metropolitan reform movement
in the United States, will result in fractionated government although it will
be fractionated government on a much larger scale than the kind that is cited as
a problem in the United States. Yet it appears to be a reasonably practical way
of dealing with the problem of fitting regional boundaries to urban growth: since
one must draw the line somewhere, draw it at the edge of what seems to be a
reasonably manageable metropolitan region such as Metropolitan Toronto. The
solution has been attacked by some Toronto leaders as being arbitrary. Similar
decisions in the United States would also be attacked as arbitrary.
Thus, the universal problem of where to set the boundaries of an urban metropoli-
tan area defies the rational solution of continued expansion as urban growth occurs,
because that means setting an ever-expanding limit until growth stops. The dilemma
is that a boundary is an arbitrary limit, and wherever it is set there will be problems
that extend beyond it. All of our case studies are of regional governmental ar-
rangements that have not been able to deal with this problem except by the use
of arbitrary boundaries. Regional government may solve some of the problems
caused by municipal boundary lines, but it does not eliminate them. Even with
regional government, the boundary problem must be dealt w'rth, usually in an
arbitrary fashion.
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Patterns of Regional Government
The pattern of regional governmental arrangements that has emerged trom our
study shows two basic patterns of organization. One pattern is based upon the
urban county/municipality as the operating unit, while the other pattern is
based upon the special district. The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto is
an example of a third pattern, the two-tier federation, which does not exist in
the United States.
There is a fourth pattern, the contract city and urban county system in operation
in Los Angeles County, which was not included in our study. This pattern does
not at present exist elsewhere in the United States. Since it is essentially a
voluntary system, it would seem to be more amenable to being instituted in the
United States than the mandatory state action needed to institute the Toronto
federated system. However, the Los Angeles pattern has existed for over twenty
years without being adopted anywhere else in the United States.
The first pattern, based on 'the urban county/municipality, has one or more large
urban municipalities (urban counties or predominant municipalities) that are the
controlling or operating agencies tor water, sewer, transportation or other serv-
ices that are regarded as of regionwide importance. While they control or
operate the activity only within their own boundaries, those boundaries contain
all or a significant portion of the metropolitan region.
Generally, Dade County, Davidson County, Montgomery County and the City
of San Antonio fit into this pattern. In this pattern, there is usually a regional
or multi-county council of governments, of which the municipality is a volun-
tary member. There may also be one or two multi-county single function special
districts that function in the municipality. These districts were usually established
by the state government, and the municipality usually prefers that things be done
differently, but has. no choice in the matter. Finally, in this pattern there are
usually not very many other local governments providing services in the region.
The second pattern is one in which the controlling and operating agency for what
are regarded as services of region-wide importance is a special district or authority
The authority may technically be a subordinate unit of a city or county, for
example the Detroit Water Department as the major supplier of water for the
Southeast Michigan Area, but in this pattern those departments that are area-
wide purveyors of services tend to be structured much like an independent
authority. Generally, the Bi-btate Development District, the Municipality of
Metropolitan Seattle, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, and the
Twin Cities Metropolitan Council fit into this pattern. The pattern also includes
a melange of cities and counties with wide variations in population and areas.
There is also a multi-county umbrella/coordinating council, usually a voluntary
council of governments. The council is usually in a rivalry relationship with the
special districts, and is actively seeking powers of coordination and control over
them.
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These two patterns (urban county/municipality or special district), plus the pat-
terns of Metropolitan Toronto and Los Angeles County, are what is found in
governmental arrangements that are labelled as regional government or metro-
politan government in the literature of metropolitan reform.
If one can believe this literature, these four patterns are different from the pat-
tern that usually exists in most metropolitan areas of the United States. That
pattern is generally described as consisting of fragmented government. The im-
pression given is of a metropolitan region with a multiplicity of local governments
usually 100 or more consisting of a central city completely surrounded by small
suburbs, which in turn are surrounded by another ring of small suburbs. Often the
larger close-in suburbs are described as now having the same problems as the cen-
tral cities. The counties in this typical metropolitan area do not have modernized
structures, and do not undertake urban services. Special districts, when they
exist, tend to be separate, uncontrollable, and with areas too small to deal with
area-wide problems.
It is difficult to tell how accurately the general pattern of regional government
presented in the literature reflects what actually exists in our metropolitan areas.
The Census Bureau tells us that in 1972 the average (mean) number of governmental
units in Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas is 83, which tends to support the
view of a multiplicity of governmental units.
Yet of the 247 SMSA's in existence on July 1, 1971, 121 or nearly 50% contained
one county or less (SMSA's in New England states often contain only part of a
county). Of the 99 SMSA's with under 200,000 population, 73 contained only
one county, and 90 contained only two counties or less. (U.S. Bureau of the
Census, 1971, pp. 890-893). This suggests that about half of our SMSA's consist
of metropolitan areas that have a manageable number of local governments; while
it is possible to have a multiplicity of municipalities in one county, it does not
happen very often in the smaller metropolitan areas. And of the 148 SMSA's in
1971 with over 200,000 population, 29 had less than 30 units of government.
Thus it seems possible that about half of the SMSA's in the United States do not
fit the pattern of fragmented government generally presented in the literature.
They may instead follow a pattern of a dominant central city, a few smaller
municipalities, and a relatively large proportion of their populations residing in
unincorporated urban areas and depending upon the county for such urban services
as they receive.
At the other end of the scale, the very large metropolitan areas with very large
central cities tend to tit the pattern of the badly fragmented metropolitan area
such as the widely noted 1400 local governments in the New York City metro-
politan area (Wood, 1961). In between the very large v.etropoI itan areas and
those with under 200,000 population are a group of 100 or so SMSA's that tend to
resemble our pattern two. Except for the Southeast Michigan Council of Govern-
ments, all of our case studies fall into this group of medium-sized SMSA's.
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Evaluation of Major Patterns of Regional Governmental Arrangements
As was noted in Chapter I, the present state of comparative urban research does
not offer any satisfactory methods for evaluating the performance of different
types of governmental organization. Our evaluation is based on asking identi-
cal questions of informants in each of the nine cases, supplemented by informa-
tion from our monitoring of a newspaper in each area for several months. The
focus of the evaluation on the issue of the limitation of growth, and on the en-
forcement activities directed at noise pollution and visual pollution gives us a
comparison based on specific activities related to environmental management.
Given 'the present state of the art of comparative evaluative research, this
appears to be a crude but reasonably effective measurement.
Our approach, then, to the question of how well the governmental structures
in our case studies performed was to attempt to assess their effectiveness in terms
of two criteria: (1) effectiveness in raising issues, and (2) effectiveness in en-
forcing policies.
For each of the three patterns of governmental arrangements illustrated by our
case studies, the two criteria will be applied by asking two questions about
their activities in environmental protection: (1) was the issue of controlling and
limiting growth articulated? and (2) how effective was the regional agency in
enforcing regulations against noise pollution and visual pollution?
Both of these are questions that explore non-routine activities of issue raising and
regulation, because the actions involved are controversial in most communities.
If we were to evaluate the patterns and case study agencies in terms of how well
they raised the issue of region-wide sewage disposal needs and how well they en-
forced water pollution controls, each pattern would appear in a more favorable
light, because this issue and this enforcement action are more widely accepted as
proper activities for urban regional government to undertake.
It should be noted that the two questions we are asking might be regarded by some
as being unfair to some of the agencies included in our case studies, because these
agencies do not have the powers to undertake issue-raising or enforcement with
respect to the specific activities being discussed. However, it seems to us that
the lack of power is an important disadvantage for these types of agencies in ac-
tivities related to environmental management.
In Pattern One, the urban county or the predominant city has generally provided
an arena in which the issue of controlling and limiting growth could be raised.
However, the issue has been raised more forcefully in Dade and Montgomery
counties than in Davidson county and San Antonio. In all four cases there is
public discussion by the governing body of the desirability of moderate growth
and the possibility of limiting growth. But in discussions in Dade and Montgomery
counties the idea of no growth and the possibility of an ultimate limit on growth
have been brought up, while in Davidson county and San Antonio the no growth
issue has not yet been raised. And the governing bodies in Dade and Montgomery
counties have taken action to down zone the density of proposed developments
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and redeve lopments to a much greater extent than has been the case in Davidson
county or San Antonio.
it Is difficult, then, to conclude that the governmental structure is the decisive
factor in the extent to which the issue of controlling and limiting growth was
articulated in these four cases. Rather, the governing bodies were reflecting
the extent to which the issue was being raised by their constituents, that is the
extent to which it was a community issue outside the governmental structure. In
Dade county and in the State of Florida, there has been a considerable reversal
of public opinion about growth in the past five years, as the en roads of rapid
growth upon the Florida life-style and the environment has become more apparent.
Even the Chamber of Commerce, locally and state-wide, considers preservation of
the present Florida environment and life-style to be a value of such commercial
importance that growth may need to be limited.
I
What is at stake in this issue, of course, is the extent to which the community and
its local governments can tell the property owner and developer that he may notA
develop his property. In part, Dade and Montgomery counties reflect a less con-
servative attitude toward property rights because they are in metropolitan areas
that have been gaining rapidly in population in the past two decades. Many of
their citizens have moved to the area during that period, and have found that in-
creasing population has made life more difficult for them, and so they are willing
to consider limiting growth and protecting their own property rights by telling
other property owners that no more development and growth is wanted. In David-
son county and San Antonip, the general body of citizens remains more traditional,
as do the business leaders of the community, in their attitude toward development.
This may be a factor of population size and growth, or of the area of the country,
or of some other value-influencing factor such as the degree of urbanization, or the
perception of the need to expand the area's economic base. There is also the factor
of leadership, which we did not attempt to evaluate. Our tentative conclusion is
that leadership and a concerned citizenry interact with each other and tend to ap-
pear together.
Structure, then, appears to be less important than political, personality, and
situationai rectors in bringing the issue of limiting growth into the arena for dis-
cussion.
The two kinds of organization of the executive found in pattern one, the appointed
administrator and the elected executive, both appeared to facilitate the articula-
tion of the issue of growth limits. We did not have any cases In pattern one with
the so-called weak executive type, so we have no data about its effectiveness.
The second criterion, of how successful were the structures in pattern one in effec-
tively enforcing controls on noise pollution and visual pollution, reve.als much the
same pattern as on the criterion of issue raising on limiting growth. There was a
tendency for Dade and Montgomery counties to have more effective enforcement
than Davidson and San Antonio. None of the four had had much success in limit-
ing visual pollution generally within their jurisdiction, although San Antonio had
devised a way of doing so in the relatively small Paseo del Rio section of downtown,
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and Dade and Montgomery counties are using their planning and zoning powers
to induce developers to minimize visual pollution in new development.
As was the case with the issue of growth, structure did not seem to be the de-
termining factor in enforcement of controls on noise and visual pollution. Rather
the general state of public opinion was such that visual pollution and noise pollu-
tion were not viewed as policies that should be effectively implemented, and the
structure permitted local action to reflect public opinion.
To sum up, our judgement is that the structure of regional government in pat-
tern one appear to provice an arena in which the issues of growth could be raised,
but were not very effective in controlling noise and visual pollution. The exist-
ence of a reformed governmental structure of the type of pattern one (urban
county/municipality) may be a surrogate for an informed citizenry and an alert
leadership. And the structure of pattern one did provide an arena in which the
issue could be raised, and a mechanism by which enforcement could be made
effective when a sufficient body of public opinion wanted this done.
The second regional government pattern, with basic responsibility for services of
regional importance assigned to region-wide special districts, will be considered
with respect to the same two questions.
On the question of how well did the regional agency raise the issue of controlling
and limiting growth, the cases with the special district pattern tend to be less effec-
tive than those in pattern one. The Bi-State Development District of the St. Louis
area and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments in the Detroit area did
not really raise the issue at all, and the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle did
only slightly better, being primarily concerned with carrying out its functions to
enable growth to continue. The issue was raised by the Twin Cities Metropolitan
Council, and the Council intended to make a major effort on the problem of
growth policy beginning in mid-1973. Even in this case, however, it was not
clear that the constituent municipalities or the state legislature were ready to
consider the issue . The central cities were concerned about declining popula-
tions, and the outer ring suburbs were concerned about developing their vacant
land, and it was not clear that the Council could develop much support for growth
limitation even if it were to choose to adopt such a policy.
There is difference in the extent to which a pattern based on special districts is
able to respond to the issues of whether growth should be limited, as compared to
a pattern based on general governments. Special districts tend to be so narrowly
focused on one or two functions that they are less sensitive to an issue such as
growth. Theoretically general governments, on the other hand, have to consider
many different aspects of growth as it affects their wider range of activities.
On the question of how effectively they enforce regulations on noise pollution
and visual pollution, the structure of Pattern Two again was judged less effective
than the structure of Pattern One. In none of the case studies did the regional
special district structure or council have enforcement responsibility, except for
one very specialized power of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council to regulate
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airport noise. In all four cases the enforcement power was lodged in the general
purpose local governments of the metropolitan area, usually the cities. The
Twin Cities Metropolitan Council did, as a part of its responsibility for planning
in the metropolitan area, have the ability to study and consider how such things
as control of noise and visual pollution should be undertaken in the metropolitan
area.
Thus, on both criteria, the regional structures of Pattern Two were fudged less
effective than the structures of Pattern One. The Twin Cities Metropolitan
Council was sufficiently different from the other three cases of Pattern Two,
however, so that it was judged to be more effective than the other three cases
in raising the issue of growth.
The third pattern, the federated two-tier system of the Municipality of Metro-
politan Toronto, can be evaluated by use of the same questions applied to the
other two patterns.
In Metropolitan Toronto, the issue of controlling and limiting growth has been
raised by the second tier municipalities in opposition to the pro-growth position
that has been taken by Toronto Metro. For example, the city of Toronto has
imposed a 45 toot height limitation on buildings in an attempt to decelerate
growth downtown until the urban facilities such as public transportation are ade-
quate to accommodate the increased population generated by the current build-
ing boom. Some of the other municipalities have raised the no growth issue in
their municipal councils, and have acted to reject any further high-rise apart-
ment buildings because facilities such as schools were not adequate for a larger
population.
Thus, while the issue of controlling and limiting growth has been raised effec-
tively in metropolitan Toronto, it has been done by the municipalities and not
by the regional government. It is the size and relative strength of the second
tier governments that has resulted in the issue being raised. If it were not restrained
by the actions of the second-tier municipalities, it appears that Toronto Metro
would be growth-oriented and would do little to limit growth. Nevertheless,
through the actions of the second-tier municipalities, in our judgement the fed-
erated system in metropolitan Toronto has been as effective in raising the growth
issue as were Dade and Montgomery counties. Thus Pattern Three compares
favorably to both Pattern One and Pattern Two.
Toronto Metro and its constituent municipalities come out equally well on the
question of the effectiveness of enforcement mechanisms in noise pollution and
visual pollution. With encouragement and support from the Ontario officials
concerned with these problems, Toronto Metro in our judgement has as effective
an enforcement program as the best of those found in the other eight case studies.
To sum up, in our judgement the general purpose urban units of Pattern One such
as Metropolitan Dade County, Metropolitan Davidson County, San Antonio^and
Montgomery County were :vore effective or potentially more effective in raising
issues of growth and in enforcing controls of noise and visual pollution than were
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the special districts and councils of Pattern Two. An exception must be made
for the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, which is fudged to be more effective
than the other cases in Pattern Two, and to be more effective than San Antonio
and Davidson County but somewhat less effective than Dade and Montgomery
counties in Pattern One. The federated two-tier system of Metropolitan Toronto
is rated as more effective than Pattern Two and about as effective as the bast
organizations in Pattern One.
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SECTION XIII
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
This chapter will explore some of the relationships between governmental form
and environmental management. The first part of the chapter will consider what
kind of regional government might be possible in the next ten or twenty years
that would, in Mogulof's terms, appear to be stronger than councils of govern-
ment (Mogulof, 1972), and the conditions necessary for developing regional
government. The second half of the emptier wrll .attempt to assess the useful-
ness of regiongl government structures for environmental protection purposes and
discuss some of the issues raised by the interaction of federal environmental
protection policies with regional government.
General Considerations
Environmental protection is closely related to fundamental fac'tors such as popu-
lation growth, economic growth, and industrial technology. Controlling pollu-
tion may require the adoption of restraints,on growth and the imposition of addi-
tional costs on the economy. Thus, ideally a regional governmental structure
that can effectively manage the environment should be able to restrict growth
and impose the necessary economic costs on the regional economy.
But it is clear that even the national government does not have full power to re-
strict growth and impose economic costs, and that substantial forces exist that
limit the amount of control that will be imposed by the Congress,.the Executive
Branch, and the Courts. It follows that no regional agency can be expected to
impose controls that the national government cannot1 impose, despite the hopes
of some federal officials that decentralization to rKe local level will enable us
to solve problems that cannot be dealt with at the national level.
Therefore it is best to understand at the outset that we must not expect too much
of regional agencies; where the national government is unable to impose restraints
on growth or to impose the full economic costs of pollution control, we must not
expect that any regional agency would be able to do so. Regional government
will not be able to manage the environment except in the context of state and
national policies and regulations.
Nevertheless, the question of what kind of regional government might be possible
is relevant to agencies concerned with environmental management. In the pre-
vious chapter, we concluded that the urban municipality, usually an urban county,
was the basic unit to be found in the majority of metropolitan regional governmental
arrangements that exist in the United States. It appears that modernizing county
government or merging a central city with the county are the kinds of changes in
the direction of regional government that are found acceptable by local citizens,
in preference to more drastic forms of changf in governmentql structure.
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Thus it appears that for those interested in environmental management programs
at the regional level, what might be possible would be to have a regional agency
composed of some rather large size urban counties as the building blocks from
which regional programs could be developed.
If the basic unit of a regional government is to be urban counties or comparable
municipalities, the guiding concept in putting them together into a regional unit
should be the concept of a relative balance among the basic units; the components
should be urban units large enough to be effective taxing and service units (Will-
bem, 1973, pp. 59-62) for providing local government services (including regu-
lation of pollution), and also large enough to be effective cooperators in regional
matters when they want to work together.
To achieve this balance between units, it would be necessary to see that none of
them were so much smaller or larger than the rest they could not deal with each
other on relatively equal terms. Seven units, for example, is what Metropolitan
Toronto has ended up with after a period of trying to operate with a larger num-
ber, some of which were much smaller than their largest colleagues.
The kind of regional government that might be attainable would of course vary
with the size of Hie metropolitan area and the present mix of local government
units. For those metropolitan areas with over one million, it may not be possible
to develop any kind of balance without breaking the central city into somewhat
smaller units, which would probably not be politically feasible. However, in 21
of the 32 SMSAs with over a million population, the central city had less than 42%
of the total SMSA population in 1970, and many of the central cities were losing
population. So it might be that, if some consolidation of suburbs were politically
possible, a balance between the central city and the consolidations could be
achieved. It is not clear that the urban county/municipalities approach would
not be effective even in some of the larger metropolitan areas; for example,
Washington, D.C., has over 750,000 population, but almost all of the popula-
tion of the metropolitan area is contained within 7 municipalities.
Perhaps the best extant model for metropolitan areas with very large central
cities would be the Los Angeles County contract city model. In some metropoli-
tan areas this would require the consolidation of several counties into one county
large enough to provide urban services to smaller units throughout the metropolitan
area, but would leave the central city and suburban cities intact. In 1970, there
were thirteen metropolitan areas whose central city had more than one million
population, so they are few enough so each of them might be approached on an
ad hoc basis.
At the dther end of the scale there are the 99 metropolitan areas (1971 SMSA's)
that have less than 100,000 population. As was noted in the last chapter, most
of them do not suffer from undue fragmentation of local governments at the present
time. An upgrading of the powers and capabilities of the county government, or
an extension of the jurisdiction of the central city, would provide an adequate
kind of regional government in almost all of these metropolitan areas. The same
kind of upgrading would probably also suffice for the 48 one-county SMSA's that
217
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had populations between 100,000 and 200,000 in 1970.
This leaves about 130 SMSA's with a total population of more than 200,000 and
with a central city no larger than 750,000. It is this group of metropolitan areas
in which the development of one or more urban counties or a combination of major
cities and urban counties might be possible. It is metropolitan areas of this size
in which almost all of the regional metropolitan governments we have were es-
tablished during the past twenty-five years, which suggests that metropolitan
regions of this size are amenable to innovation in regional government.
It is in these metropolitan regions, then, that some kind of balanced structure of
urban counties, with subordinate special purpose districts and a unifying federated
council might be possible, although difficult to achieve.
Conditions for Developing Regional Governments
In the previous chapter we stated that officials of all of the regional governmental
agencies included in our case studies felt that additional state action was necessary
to enable the agencies to do their jobs properly. The possibility of developing re-
gional metropolitan agencies that would be able to manage environmental protec-
tion programs would also depend heavily upon state action. There would be a
need for enabling legislation, for a state policy of encouraging regional arrange-
ments, and for a state agency to supervise and regulate the development of metro-
politan regions. The state policy would need to include a policy on growth of
urban areas.
More specifically, the kind of state regulation that might be needed would in-
clude the following: (1) Firm limits, both geographic and population limits
beyond which the metropolitan area would not be allowed to grow. The geo-
graphic limit would be of the type applied in the Torotito area by th« Province
of Ontario, which requires that urban growth outside this limit will be under the
jurisdiction of another regional government. Most states in the US have es-
tablished multi-county regions for planning and development purposes, which w
might be the basis for metropolitan regional geographic boundaries. This poHey
requires firm enforcement, because the procedure in the past has been that when
a county becomes urbanized enough to want to be joined to a metropolitan region,
the state has authorized the transfer or the federal SMSA designation has been
enlarged, and the metropolitan region has welcomed the new county as a part of
its growth. The idea of limits on growth will be difficult to translate-into a firm
set of geographic boundaries for metropolitan regions. Population growth limits
will need to have somewhat flexible guidelines, but with real sanctions agdinst
an area exceeding the population limit set for it. Once the value judgement is
made that a population limit is desirable, the actual limit set will necessarily be
arbitrary. While it is clear that pollution problems increase with increases in
population size, the present state of knowledge does not support any particular
population size as ihe most desirable limit.1
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The existing mechanisms for enforcing population limits all have disadvantages.
Government purchase of deve lopment rights would be the most effective, but it
would be expensive. And it,will be some time before public opinion will support
compulsory sale by property owners of development rights to their property.
Another mechanism would pe the refusal of rezoning and development permits
for any kind of Construction as the region nears its growth limits. This mechanism
faces more legal hurdles than does the mechanism of outright purchase of de-
velopment rights, so it is not a mechanism that will be fully available in the
near future. But state policies limiting growth could specify the withholding of
state and local approval of .bond issues and expenditures for the construction of
roads/ water mains and sewers to service facilities whose construction would pro-
vide jobs or residences in excess t>f those needed for the projected population
limit of the region* So population limits would be difficult, but not impossible.
Some mechanisms of this sort would seem to be anticipated In present EPA re-
quirements of state planning controls for major developments in sub-state regions,
for example major regional shopping centers.
(2) The limitation, previously suggested,- to provide balance of the population
size of the basic governmental units of the regional government. For example,
no one of them might have less than 10% nor more than 25% of the total popula-
tion, and the total Dumber of units might not exceed five or seven. The purpose
of this
-------
on which its neighbor could not intrude, not to prevent effective state or federal
regulation.
(4)^Within the basic urban county/municipal units, there might need to be a pro-
vision for decentralization, so that the urban county would be a two-tier govern-
mental system with some powers and services delegated to relatively small neigh-
borhood units. It appears that this could be done without weakening the basic
strength of the urban county/municipality as the building block for regional
government.
(5) State regulations would need to protect the operating powers of the urban
counties by prohibiting, or severely limiting, the use of region-wide special pur-
pose districts. This kind of limitation might add to the cost of some service pro-
grams in those situations in which county operation of facilities did not provide
the same economies of scale as operation by a larger special purpose district.
Regional Structure and Environmental Management
Within the framework of national and state programs for environmental protec-
tion, it appears that a regional metropolitan structure based on the urban county/
municipality and a coordinating council would meet the needs of environmental
protection at the regional level. This structure could perform the monitoring and
inspection activities needed for control of air, water, solid wastes, nuclear,
noise and similar types of pollution. Subject to periodic auditing by state or
national agencies, this regional structure could also be the enforcement agency
for many kinds of violations. Both the monitoring and enforcement functions are
now being performed by at least some of the urban counties described in our case
studies. Of course, no munictpal unit could opt out of federal or state regulations.
i
The urban county/municipality regional structures would also appear to be ade-
quate as political arenas in which environmental issues of regional concern could
be articulated and discussed. If there was sufficient regional agreement on the
issue, action could then be taken by the constituent urban county/municipalities.
If there was not agreement at the regional level, the issue could be referred to <
the state level for further discussion and possible establishment of a policy which
then could be implemented on the regional and local level.
There do not appear to be any special needs of federal environmental protection
programs that could not be met through this kind of regional metropolitan organi-
zation backed up by state government. Obviously, just as there is a need for
statewide policies even with a strong regional 'system, there would also be a need
for nationwide programs and regulations. The inability of most metropolitan areas
to control air pollution without some sort of nationwide control requiring that
polluting automobile exhaust emissions be curtailed is a case in point. Similarly,
regional governmental organizations, as well as states, need to be protected by
national regulations against economic threats by national and multi-national
corporations to move their plants our of the area if pollution control requirements
are adequately enforced. Other questions need to be considered, and perhaps
220
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national policies and regulations need to be developed on such questions as the
balance oetween the right of regional or local governments to exclude certain
types of industrial or commercial establishments and the right of corporations to
be protected against unreasonable requirements by local regional governments.
Of primary importance for the kind of monitoring and inspection functions to be
performed at the local level in environmental management is to have this done
by a unit of government large enough to be able to provide the kind of profes-
sional and paraprofessional personnel needed. In the medium-sized metropolitan
areas the urban county/municipality would appear to be adequate for these pur-
poses* In the smaller metropolitan areas, the existing'city-county health de-
partments might be adequate for inspection purposes with a little better financing
and additional staff, and with some upgrading of county government, no struc-
tural change would be necessary for improved environmental management.
Issues of Regional Government for Federal Environmental Protection Programs
Four issues of regional government structure for federal environmental protection
purposes should be noted. The first issue is the broad one of whether any federal
agency should encqurage a.pqrtlcular kind of regional structure at the local govern-
ment level, or whether the state and local governments should have the right to
decide on the kind of regional structure that is to exist, and the federal govern-
ment agencies should then work with whatever kinds of regional structures that
emerge from the state and local decisions.
Given the American preference for a strong system of local government, there is
much to be said for leaving the responsibility for regional structure up to the states
and their local governments. But there would seem to be no objection to various
federal agencies indicating their preferences, based on their program needs, when
the states and localities are considering governmental restructuring at the regional
level.
Whether there is justification for further federal leverage of the type found in
some grant programs that provide preferential treatment for regional comprehensive
agencies and general purpose local units of government or require the designation
of special districts is a more difficult question. Local self-government requires a
considerable amount of trust that the long-run values of local decision-making
outweigh the short-run needs of specific federal programs. At the same time,
experience indicates that environmental protection can not be left primarily to
local governments without the risk of losing effectiveness, because there are
localities where other values take preference to those of environmental protec-
tion. But if a relatively strong national and^state set of policies are established
for environmental protection, perhaps the actual regional metropolitan govern-
mental structure could be left to state and locaf decision.
The second issue is whether, in terms of environmerrtd management needs, there is
any preference that migh> be established for a particulariype of regional metro-
politan governmental structure. Here, the needs would seem to be for a structure
221
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that had an adequate area and adequate enforcement powers, plus the ability to
raise environmental issues for discussion even though costs to important segments
of the community might be involved. As was stated in the last chapter, our case
studies indicate that structure alone does not seem to be the determining factor
in whether issues are raised or enforcement is effective. While we have suggested
that a^ regional structure based on the urban county/municipality as the basic unit,
and with a coordinating council, might be a more effective structure for environ-
mental management than the structures that now exist in most metropolitan areas,
it may still be to the advantage of federal pollution control programs to not specify
or favor specific kinds of regional governmental organization. In many metro-
politan areas, the efforts of the federal pollution control programs to encourage
governmental reorganization might be viewed as unwarranted interference and
might alienate some of the groups in the community whose support is necessary
for environmental protection in those communities.
A third issue is whether general purpose governments, such as the urban county/
municipality that we have suggested, are preferable to large special districts for
purposes of environmental management. The special district that encompasses a
watershed has been suggested as the kind of regional governmental organization
required for water pollution control purposes,, and possibly for other pollution con-
trol activities as well. There is considerable debate in the literature about the
merits and deficiencies of special districts. Generally technological considera-
tions are urged in their favor and considerations of democratic decision-making
are urged against them.
For purposes of environmental management, special districts appeal to many as
the best structure because their boundaries can be made to approximate the
problem area, e.g. the watershed or the airshed. This form of organization
also is appealing to those who believe that technological knowledge is what the
organization needs to apply, because it is easier for a special technological con-
stituency and professional staff to control a special district. The classic example
is the school district controlled by the professional educators, a control that has
come under increasing challenge in recent decades.
But there is also the need in environmental protection activities to have input
from non-technological sources, for example from those groups generally
classified as environmentalists. And in something so important as the environ-
ment, environmental management may be too important to be left to the techno-
logists and the environmentalists; it may be so important that everyone ought to
be involved in the decision-making process, which means general governments
should be used instead of special districts.
Then, too, there is the matter of political power in the larger political system.
General governments tend to be more in the mainstream of the larger political
systems than do special districts. The history of the U S Soil Conservation Service
may be instructive on that score. The Service started with a preference for water-
shed as the boundaries for its local soil conservation districts, based on both logical
and technological considerations. But it ended with districts co-terminous with
counties because of political considerations. The county-wide district fitted into
222
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the political and legislative system of the states, and that political and legisla-
tive support turned out to be more important to the Soil Conservation Service than
the logical and technological considerations (Morgan, 1965).
Finally, there is a fourth issue that has been raised indirectly in the previous
discussion in this chapter. That is the issue of what things regional governments
are going to be allowed to decide for themselves. To what extent can they be
permitted, for example, to refuse to participate in federal and state programs
they don't want? This is the fundamental issue of a governmental system based
on local self government, as against a government based primarily upon the
centralized national government. In both Great Britain and the United States
over the past six or seven decades the concept of local self government with a
minimum of interference by the ra tional government on a few matters of major
national importance has been eroded as more and more matters have been desig-
nated by the national government as being of such major national interest that
it must intervene. The national government in the United States has increasingly
bought its way into local government decisions through programs of grants in aid
that require local governments to accede to national requirements. It may be
that environmental management programs are of such overriding national importance
that national requirements must prevail; on the other hand, if reasonably viable
local regional governments are wanted, they must be given some reasonably im-
portant decision to make. Considerable restraint on the part of the national
government may be called for.
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SECTION XIV
SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
In the previous chapters, we have described the regional governmental arrange~
ments in nine different metropolitan areas, and the basic patterns of regional
arrangements that seem to us to be emerging. We have indicated what kinds of
regional government might be possible, and how those organizations might fit the
needs of environmental management, and pointed out some of the unresolved
issues of regional government for environmental protection activities at the fed-
eral level.
This chapter will reemphasize some earlier observations, and introduce some addi-
tional observations that flow from a review of our case studies. At this point, it
bears repeating that the county appears to be a significant force to reckon with
in metropolitan reform.
One observation is that no pattern of regional governmental arrangements should
be regarded as fixed in its final form. A number of arrangements that ten years
ago appeared to be one kind of organization have taken on different characteris-
tics in the interim, and those we have reported on in our case studies may look
considerably different ten years from now. Thus any models that are used as the
basis for desirable kinds of regional government structures should be periodically
reevaluated in the light of further experience with them.
In each of our nine case studies, there is local dissatisfaction with the present
structure or functions. Often the dissatisfaction is expressed by citizens or offi-
cials of the central city. In Nashville-Davidson county, residents of the urban
area feel they are paying for or are being asked to pay for the extension of serv-
ices to residents of the general services area. In the Twin Cities, Minneapolis
and St. Paul officials, and county officials, have led the opposition to legisla-
tion proposed by the metropolitan council. In Toronto, after twenty years of
metropolitan government, the city of Toronto still would prefer a unified metro
government rather than a federation. Taken together, these examples suggest
that major difficulties for regional government come not from the suburban areas
but from the central cities, and that the two-tier federation model may not be
attractive to central cities.
A second observation is that in most of the case studies, the structure and powers
of the regional agency were adequate to deal with many regional problems. What
was lacking was the political will to deal with the problems. In most cases, there
were substantial local interests that did not want regional policies and programs,
and the officials of the regional agencies either followed a policy of compromise
or did not have enough political power to bring about regional approaches.
Governmental structure at the regional level can help by guiding and focusing
power, but structure is not a substitute for political power. The aggregation of
political support within a region for regional policies requires officials with the
political will to make the attempt. In most of our case studies, the attempt was
224
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only partially being made, because the barriers in the political system were
judged to be such that regional policies could not win.
The third observation is that traditional local government structures such as
counties and cities have more potential as the building blocks of regional govern-
ment than do special districts, and all of these are stronger than councils of
government. We are here concerned with local government based on regional
organizations, notfederal or state oriented regional councils. The local govern-
ment based region model appears to require relatively large scale urban counties
and cities as the major structural elements. In most metropolitan areas, counties
and central cities are rivals of councils of government. But so are multi-purpose
special districts; the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, for example, will
have to eventually face the question of merger with King county, which will then
be strengthened as a major component of regional government. And the Bi-State
Development District of the St. Louis area appears to be losing out to the regional
council of governments, which regards it as an obstacle to regional progress.
Thus, in the St. Louis area the viable units are the cities and the counties.
If the two-tier federation is, as noted above, an uneasy compromise after twenty
years, the umbrella concept for a regional council is even more nebulous. It
floats above the counties and cities with no visible means of support. To the
cities and counties of the region, it is a voluntary association of local govern-
ments, which they control. In the Twin Cities area, the Regional Council is a
state agency, and does not have a local government base. This gives it some
independence from the local governments, a situation they would prefer to
change. The council is completely dependent upon the state legislature, whose
creature it is. It is a state umbrella, partially opened over the metropolitan
region.
The fourth set of observations focus on the regional government as an agency of
various federal programs and agencies. It is an umbrella suspended from the
federal ceiling, held up by cords of federal money. The federal clearinghouse
concept, as Mogulof said, means that the council of governments will be pulled
in two different directions. As a clearinghouse, it is expected to make judge-
ments and take actio ns that may be perceived as harmful by member counties and
cities. This contradicts its original function of protecting and serving its mem-
bers (Mogulof, 1971, p. 28). Further confusion is added when federal agencies
grant funds irrespective of the council recommendations. The federal categorical
programs have a fragmenting effect on any overall regional unity because they are
not subject to the decisions of the regional council.
\
The hope that some definitive regional structure can be brought into existence
which will save the federal administrator the difficulties of working through co-
operative arrangements with strong-willed local officials appears futile. The role
of the federal agency in guiding and promoting cooperative behavior among local
political jurisdictions for various program areas appears to be never-ending. At the
same time, from the point of view of the local governments, the federal umbrella
is merely a hurdle that must be climbed over with some loss of dignity in order to
get funds desperately needed for local programs.
225
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Our final observation is that each of the regional governmental arrangements in
our case studies demonstrates the possibilities of successful structural reform. It
has been done in the states of Washington, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee,
Maryland, Florida and Texas, as well as in Indiana, Louisiana, Virginia and
California which were not included in our case studies. If structural change has
come about in these states, it can be done in almost every state, if the desir-
ability of such change can be demonstrated. But thus far, the changes that have
been brought about have primarily strengthened the counties and the major cities*
This suggests that a possible agenda for regional governmental reform could be
aimed at state programs to make counties and cities more effective, combined
with state controls on the incorpordtion and development of new municipalities.
226
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SECTION XV
REFERENCES
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION
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CHAPTER II - SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS
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1974
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--
CHAPTER IV - THE MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN SEATTLE
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1969
CHAPTER V - BI-STATE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF ST. LOUIS
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231
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CHAPTER VI - ANNEXATION: SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
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1973
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CHAPTER VII - THE URBAN BOUNTY; MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND
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\
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233
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CHAPTER IX- NASHVILLE-^DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE
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Apr Staff Report: Selected Metropolitan Alternatives and Experiences
1972 in America.
Comer, James C. , -
1969 Nashviire Davidson County: A Study of Metropolitan Government
(Mimeographed).
Duncombe, Herbert Sydner
1966 .'' County Government in America. Washington, D C: National
1 Association of Counties Research Foundation.
Elazar, Daniel J.
1961 ' A Case Study of Failure in Attempted Metropolitan Integration:
Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Chicago; National
Opinton Research Center of the University of Chicago.
Erie, Stephen P.,. Kirlin, John J., and Rabinovitz, Francine F.
1972 "Can Something Be Done? Propositions on the Performance of Metro-
politan Institutions," in Lowdon Wingo, ed., Resources for the
Fistarlo, Inc, Reform of AAetropoIJtan Governments. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Felling, William E. : "
F^b 26- How.Si^Re,giQnVOrganized to Deal with Their Environmental Manage-
27,, ment Problierns. San Diego; The IREM/USIU National Conference
1973 (mimedgrqphe3).
Fillerbrown, F. Scott
May "The Nashvi I le Story," National Civic Review, VoI. LVI11, No. 5.
1969
234
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First Environmental Workshop
Dec 5&6 Environmental Planning and Munugemenr rrojecr. iNasnvine,
1972 Tennessee.
Grant, Daniel R.
July "Opinions Surveyed on Nashville Metro." National Civic Review.
1965 ~~
Sept "A Comparison of Predictions and Experience with Nashville 'Metro,111
1965 Urban Affairs Quarterly, op, 34-54. <
1966 "Nashville's Politicians and Metro," in Michael N. Danjelson, ed.f
Metropolitan Politics/A Reader. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
1969 "Political Access Under Metropolitan Government: A Comparative',.
Study of Perceptions by Krtowledgeables." in Robert T. Daldnd, ecf.
Comparative Ur^an Research. Beverly Hills, Calif,: Sage Publica-
tions, pp. 249-272.
1970 "Political Stability in Metro Government," in Gerald F. Brown and
Thomas P. Murphy, eds. Emerging Patterns in Urban Administration.
Lexington, Mass.: D. C."heath and Company, pp. 34-63.
Hawkins, Brett W.
1966 Nashville Metro; The Politics of City-County Consolidation.
Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Horton, Robert A.
Feb 26- Local Government ,Will'It (And We) Survive Or Perish? San Diego,
27, Calif.: Presented at the Regional EnvironmentaI Management Con-
1973 ference. (Mimeographed).
Martin, Roscoe C.
1963 Metropolis in Transition; Local Government Adaptation to Changing
Urban Needs. Washington, D C.t US Housing and Home Finance
Agency, Government Printing Office. ;
i t '
McArthur, Robert £.
June Impact of City-County Consolidation of the RufahUrban Fringe;
1971 NashyTTTe^avidsorrCpuntyJ Tenn, Agriculture Ecohomic Report
No. 206. Economic Research Service, U S De|bar^ment of Agrfcgh -:
ture*
May "The Mtetropolitan Government of Nashyj He and Davidson County,"
19/3 in Subrtqte Regionalism ana' the FederdI System: Volume p *". Case
Stuches. Advisory Commission on IntergovemnteYitdl Relations.
WasRTngtonY D C: Government Printing Office.
235
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Metropolitan Government Charter Commission
Apr The Charter of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and
1962 Davidson County, Tennessee.
Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County
Feb A Brief Description of the Environmental Planning and Management
1973 'Project. Environmental Planning and Management Project.
(Mimeographed).
Metropolitan Planning Commission
June A Profile of the Nashville Economy
1972
Mid-Cumberland Council of Governments and Development District
Apr 15 Preliminary Development Plan; 1972-2000.
1972
Nation's Cities .
Nov "A Nation's Cities Interview: Three Mayors Review Their Govern-
1969 merits, " Vol. 7, No. 11.
Office of the Mayor, Metropolitan v3overnment of Nashville and Davidson
County.
May 24 1973-74 Proposed Operating Budget. Programs for the 70's.
1973
Stone & Youngberg
Nov 1 Water and Sewerage Facilities Financing Plan; Metropolitan Govern*
1972 ment Nashville and Davidson Cojjaily:, Tennessee. :.
The Tennessean
1973
Feb 14 "Council Needs to Be Certain" (editorial)
Feb 15 "NAACP Raps,Qverton Slaying"
Mar 21 "City Pay Plan Noted by Council, " Wayne Whitt.
Mar 31 "Briley Warns of Water Crisis Without Comprehensive Plan, "
Nancy Varley.
Apr 5 "Metro Health Board Raps Corps' Priest Sewage System/1 Keel Hunt.
Apr 18 "Water Up 95%, Metro Employe Pay Hike 5%, " Wayne Whitt.
May 16 "Afterward, Some in Near PI sbe lief."
May 19 "Protagonists On Same Side in Noise Fight," Keel Hunt.
May 22 "'Councilmanic Courtesy1 Not in Public Interest, " (editorial).
236
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The Tennessean (cont.)
June 26 "Mott Designation Asked by NAACP, " Henry Wai ker.
July 1 "Mass Transit Future Clouded,'1 John Haile.
July 2 "Radnor Heads Metro Water, Sewer Work/1 Nat Caldwell.
July 10 "2 Metro Aids Sever Energy Advisory Ties," Aobert Gore Jr.
July 11 "All-Inclusive Zone Bill Set, " Wayne Whitt.
July 12 "Air Pollution Level Still High," Keel Hunt.
July25 "Garbage Problems Pilirig Up, " Kathelen Gallagher.
Sept 8 "Council Panel Plans Landfill Problem Study."
Sept 12 "4.Groups Ask Water Law Enforcement."
Sept 20 "Bus Service A 'Necessity1 for the Poor. "
Oct 1 "Police Professionalism Chief Mart's Main Lack" (editorial).
Oct 10 "Public Needs More Facts About Police and Drugs" (editorial).
Oct 11 "Grand Jury Asks Mot* to Testify," Albert Gore Jr.
Oct 24 "Pollution Hike Seen in Fuel Oil Shortage, " Keel Hunt.
Oct 25 "Probe Secrecy Tightens, " Albert Gore Jr.
Oct 30 "Farmers Challenge TVA Land Powers, " Pat Welch.
Nov 10 "State to Use Coal, Not Gas, on Capitol Hill," John Haile.
Nov 12 "State Coal Move 'Not Necessary.1"
Nov 13 "Four Firms Plan to Ask Coa\ Permits."
Nov 29 "Early Action Necessary to Rebuild Police/Force" (editorial).
Dec 6 "2 Firms Hit by Pollution Suits,"
U S Bureau of the Census
1962 Census of Governments, Vol. I, GovernmentaI Organization.
1967 Washington, D C: Government Printing Office.
1972
U S Bureau of the Census
1972 County and City Data Book (A Statistlca 1 Abstract Supp I em en t),
Washington, D t: Government Printing Office, 1973.
/ ' .'
U S Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President
June Statistical Reporter, No. 73-12.
1973
US News and World Report
Jan 3 ". . . And a Look at Three Other Areawide Governments, "
1972 Vol. LXXII, No. 1, p. 36.
237
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CHAPTER X - METROPOLITAN TORONTO
Citizens Research Council, Detroit, Michigan
1969 "The Organization and Financing of the Municipality of Metropolitan
Toronto" (Draft Report>.
Crawford, Kenneth
1954 Canadian Municipal Government. University of Toronto Press.
Davis, Honourable William o., Premier of Ontario
June 16 "Design for Development: Phase Three," Statement to the Legislature,
1972
Farrow, R. M., Head, Regional Government Studies Section, Department of
Municipal Affairs, Province of Ontario
June 1 Speech: "The Role of the Municipality in the Three Level System of
1971 Government," to Annual Conference of the Municipal Finance
Officers Association of the United States and Canada.
Farrow, Ron, Director, Local Government Organization Branch, Ministry of
Treasury
June 11 Speech: "Local Government Reform, " before the Community Plan-
1973 ning Association of Canada, Ontario Division.
Globe and Mail
Sept 20
1973
Grant, Daniel
Sept "A Comparison of Prediction and Experience with Nashville Metro,"
1965 Urban Affairs Quarterly, pV>. 34-54.
Grumm, J. G.
1959 "Metropolitan Government: The Toronto Experience, " Lawrence,
Kansas: Governmental Research Center, University of Kansas.
Hickey, Paul, F.D.A.
1972 Decision-Making Processes in Ontario's Local Governments. Ontario
Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Kaplan, Harold
1967 Urban Political Systems; A Functional Analysis of Metro Toronto.
New York: Columbia University Press.
McKeough, Honourable W- Darcy, Minister of Municipal Affairs
Dec 2 "Design for Development, Phase Two," Statement before the Legisla-
1968 ture of Ontario.
238
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McKeough, W. Darcy, Treasurer of Ontario
June "Design for Development: Phase Three," Statement to the Association
1972 of Municipalities of Ontario.
Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board
Dec Metropolitan Toronto/1970.
1970
Nealson, Elizabeth, Metropolitan Information Officer
Apr 15 "The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto," pp. 4-10.
1970
Ontario Department of Energy and Resources Management (undated memorandum).
n.d.
Plunkett, Thomas J.
Jan/ "Structural Reform of Local Government in Canada, " Canadian
.Feb Public Administration.
Roberts, Honourable John, Prime Minister of Ontario
Nov 28 "Design for Development, Phase Two. " Statement before the Legisla-
1968 ture of Ontario.
Rose, Albert
1972 Governind Metropolitan Toronto; A Social and Political Analysis,
T953-1971.Berkeley: University of California Press.
Small wood, Frank
Apr "Guiding Urban Change," National Civic Review.
1965
Small wood, Frank
1963 Metro Toronto: A Decade Later. Toronto: Bureau of Municipal
Research.
The Toronto Star
Apr 25
Aug 25
Oct27
Nov 10, 1973
Jan 5, 1974
Zimmerman, Joseph F., Ed,
1968 "Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto, " Goyem-
! ment of the Metropolis. New York: Holt, Rinchart and Winston, Inc.
pp. 230-232.
239
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CHAPTER XI - EVALUATION OF CASE STUDIES OF REGIONAL GOVERN-
MENTAL ARRANGEMENTS
Committee for Economic Development
July Modernizing Local Government. New York,
1966 ~~
Fesler, James W.
1949 Area and Administration. University of Alabama Press.
Martin, Roscoe C.
1963 Metropolis in Transition; Local Government Adaptation to Changing
Urban Needs. U S Housing and Home Finance Agency. Washington,
D C: Government Printing Office.
Mogulof, Melvln B.
1972 Five Metropolitan Governments, Washington, D.C.: The Urban
Institute.
Wood, Robert C.
1961 1400 Governments, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
CHAPTER XII - ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND REGIONAL
GOVERNMENT
Mogulof, Melvin B.
W72. Five Metropolitan Governments. Washington, DC: The Urban
Institute,
Morgan, Robert J.
^^ Governing Soil Conservation: Thirty Years of the New Decentraliza-
fioru Iowa State University Press.
Willbem, York
May "Unigov; Local Government Reorganization in Indianapolis," in
1973 Regional Governance; Promise and Performance, Vol. II. Case
Studies, Substate Regionalism and the Federal System. Washington,
DC: US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
CHAPTER XIII - SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Mogulof, Melvin B.
1971 Governing Metropolitan Areas: A Critical Review of Council of
Governments and the Federal Role. Washington, D C: The Urban*
Institute. ~~~
«1S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1974 582-414/98 1-3
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SELECTED WATER
RESOURCES ABSTRACTS
INPUT TRANSACTION FORM
W
Regional Governmental Arrangements in Metropolitan Areas:
Nine Case Studies
C.J. Hein, Joyce M. Keys, G.M. Robbins
Institute for Community Studies
Kansas City, Missouri
Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Protection Agency report
number EPA-600/5-74-024, January 1974
801500
Final Report
A review of the experience with major forms of regional government in metropolitan
areas. Within four broad categories, case studies were done of nine different
types of regional governmental arrangements. Findings were that the core of what is
called metropolitan government in the United States is the county, usually reorganized
& given urban powers. There are no multi-county general purpose metropolitan govern-
ments in the United States. Another frequently suggested model, the multi-county, multi-
purpose metropolitan special district also apparently does not exist in the United
States. Patterns of regional governmental arrangements based on the urban county were
judged more effective in dealing with emerging environmental management problems than
patterns based on special districts and regional councils of government; the two-tier
federation was judged about equal to the best of the urban county arrangements. In
virtually every case, further state action was needed to make the regional arrangements
more effective. Metropolitan regional reorganization has occurred in over 2035 of the
states, and therefore should be possible in most urban states.
Send To:
WATER RESOURCES SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION CENTER
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
WASHINGTON. D.C. 2O240
Institute for Community Studies
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