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In American local government, a consolidated city-county, metropolitan municipality or regional municipality is a city and county that have been merged into one jurisdiction. As such, it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation; and a county, which is an administrative division of a state. This is the opposite of an independent city, which is a city that is not located within the boundaries of any county, but is separate from the neighbouring county. All cities in Virginia are independent cities, and Baltimore, Maryland; Carson City, Nevada; and St. Louis, Missouri are as well. The highest concentration of large consolidated governments in the United States is in the lower midwest and upper south, where Indianapolis, Indiana; Nashville, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; and Lexington, Kentucky are located.

The terms "metropolitan municipality" and "regional municipality" attempt to distinguish between a city-county containing urban areas that formerly existed as independent municipalities (New York City and Philadelphia), or a city-county containing urban, suburban and even rural areas, some of which may have never had an independent, subcounty government (e.g., Indianapolis or Jacksonville). Individual sections of a metropolitan or regional municipality may retain some autonomous jurisdiction apart from the city-wide government. New York City, for example, consists of five counties/boroughs, each of which retains certain local powers through their own borough councils and presidents.

Consolidated city-counties may also be called metropolitan governments and metropolitan counties -- however, "metropolitan county" can also refer to jurisdictions like Arlington County, Virginia, and Baltimore County, Maryland, both of which are counties that contain no municipalities.

England has six "metropolitan counties" created in 1974: Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire. From 1986, they do not have County Councils but rather joint boards for certain functions. Modern unitary authorities are similar, and are known as county boroughs in Wales. In Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh are functionally "independent cities," though the term is not used.

Similar arrangements exist in other countries such as Seoul, South Korea which is a "Special City".

Wyandotte County, Kansas uses the term "unified government" to refer to its consolidation with Kansas City, in which other cities and towns remain separate jurisdictions within the county.

Political opposition

It could be argued that a truly "metropolitan" form of government would actually involve the entire metropolitan area of a major city, not just the county in which the major city is primarily located. While this would seem to be true, this is rare in practice, largely because U.S. counties and their politicians are traditionally very jealous guardians of their powers and very wary about developments that would tend to weaken or eliminate them. While there are many successful regional transit, utility, and planning agencies, there is very little in the U.S. of what might be called metropolitan government in its purest sense. Perhaps the arrangement closest to this is the one in Portland, Oregon where there is in fact a Metro agency created by and responsible to the voters of a multi-county area. That this practice should spread to other areas would seem to be common sense, but political realities tend to prevent it in most instances. The creation of such a body requires a very major commitment of time and effort by many private citizens and business leaders as well as politicians, and an electorate fairly concerned about municipal issues. Most voters in the U.S. are not deeply involved in politics, particularly at the local level, and discussions of most local issues do not generate much involvement in most areas until the citizens are directly affected by a particular issue, at which point it may well be too late to do anything to change it. General discussions about how to improve local government rarely occur, and are widely ignored when they do. Until and unless this situation changes, there will be very few examples of true "metropolitan government" in the U.S.

Another issue will tend to make true metropolitan government more difficult to achieve, or at least temper its success. Many large metropolitan areas cross state borders, making cooperation more difficult because the United States Constitution requires Congressional approval of any agreement between states (Article I, Section 10). This in fact has somewhat tempered the success of Portland's Metro agency; it operates only on the Oregon side of the Columbia River (admittedly, the side with the large majority of the region's population) and not on the Washington side.

Often, the aversion to another level of government leads municipalities to form coalitions — essentially governmental organizations which are not empowered with any lawmaking or law enforcement powers. This is the case in the Atlanta metropolitan area, where the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) studies and makes recommendations on the impact of all major construction and development projects on the region, but generally cannot stop them. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) is a true government agency of the state of Georgia, and does control some state transportation monies to the cities and counties, but otherwise has very little authority beyond this small power of the purse.

List of consolidated city-counties:

"City and Counties" (or county equivalents) that have existed as such since their creation:

Cities and counties, formerly separate entities, that have since merged and are now coextensive:

Cities and counties, formerly separate entities, that have since merged; however, some parts of the county remain as independent municipalities:

Five cities in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia were formed by the consolidation of a city with a county — Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. However, in each case an independent city was created and as such they are not consolidated city-counties. Similarly, Carson City was consolidated with Ormsby County, Nevada in 1969, but the county was simultaneously dissolved. The city is now a municipality independent of any county.

Potentially consolidated city-county governments

  • Aurora, Colorado, split between three counties, explored the creation of a new consolidated city-county in 1996; the effort subsequently failed in a referendum. However, five years later nearby Broomfield was successful in creating a new city-county from portions of the four counties it had been a part of. Encouraged by Broomfield's experience, an Aurora city councilman has recently proposed consolidation again, which could happen as early as 2008.City and County of Aurora? by J.C. O'Connell. The Aurora Daily Sun & Sentinel, January 30, 2006.
  • Roanoke County, Virginia and Roanoke City, Virginia held referenda in 1969 and 1989 to consolidate the two governments. Both times, city voters approved consolidation while county voters were opposed. The independent city of Salem, Virginia, which would've been surrounded by the consolidated entitity, did not participate in the referenda. Vinton, Virginia would've retained its status as a town in the 1989 referendum. The consolidation issue has been dormant since 1989.
  • A proposal has been made to merge Johnson County, Kansas and Wyandotte County, Kansas and the cities located in those two into a single consolidated city-county, name to be determined.Johnson-Wyandotte merger? by Jesse Truesdale. The Springs Chieftain, February 2, 2006.
  • In 2005, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio published a series of articles exploring the possibility of the city's merging with Cuyahoga County.A Region Divided. Special series of The * Plain Dealer, published throughout 2005.

A number of other cities in the United States have considered merging their governments with the county that contains them:

Formerly consolidated city-county governments

  • The City of Boston and Suffolk County, Massachusetts operated with a consolidated government for most of the twentieth century, but this was not a true consolidation because three municipalities (Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop) never amalgamated with Boston but remained separate jurisdictions within Suffolk County. The special relationship between Boston and Suffolk County ended in 1999 as part of the gradual abolition of county government in that state.

References

Subnational entities

Ciudad-condado consolidada | Intercommunalité | Intercommunalité

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Consolidated city-county".

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