Academic Avenues

“Over the past two decades, a large body of literature has examined the fiscal consequences of city/ county consolidation. Much of this research suggests that consolidation results in expansions in local budgets and in the scope and quality of municipal services (Erie, Kirlin, and Rabinovitz 1972; Benton and Gamble 1984; Seamon and Feiock 1995).

Recent studies suggest that consolidation also benefits local economic development efforts (Owen 1992; Rusk 1993; Savitch and Vogel 1995). Unlike these public-sector tax and expenditure effects, the impact of consolidation on overall local economic conditions has not been subjected to systematic empirical tests.

This research note begins to fill this lacuna by building on Benton and Gamble’s analysis (1984) of the effect of consolidation on taxes and expenditures in Jacksonville, Florida. We employ a similar design, but also include private-sector growth and use a Box-Tiao time-series model (Box and Tiao 1975), together with more contemporary data to identify the overall economic development effects of a city/county merger.”

R. Feiock, Jered B. Carr | Sep 1 1997 | Economics | State and Local Government Review https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Reassessment-of-City%2FCounty-Consolidation%3A-Feiock-Carr/62d102b10f0255f3e5af43949e46be0281fad5f3

“The most persuasive argument in favor of city–county consolidation has been—and remains—economic development through the formation of a strong and attractive regional community identity. Empirical evidence consistently demonstrates that appeals to voters based on reducing inner-city/suburban socioeconomic inequity and enhancing administrative efficiency are a recipe for failed consolidation campaigns.”

Published in Public Administration Review | K. Thurmaier | 2006 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Frame-the-Consolidation-Debate-with-a-Sound-A-Reply-Thurmaier-Leland/e045cf81ff4dcc57dfea0e07b3271df433be31ba

This might be the most intersectional or “woke” take on urban studies I’ve seen yet. That it’s from 2004 is surprising, first wave woke, an early adopter certainly in terms of the topic of municipal consolidation.
Marriage is a union, the basis of the family unit in the ideal and a solemn contractual obligation, that it’s used in regard to local government, rule of law and the conduct of individual cities as political units seems completely appropriate. Self government as a gift to bestow on future generations, a democratic inheritance that represents both freedom and responsibility, concerns that certainly align with progeny and lineage along with other aspects of the familial frame.

“We argue that consolidation is represented in gendered and sexualized terms so that the question of municipal expansion became insulated from moral, racialized, and environmental concerns about the “threats” of the big city. Our analysis has contemporary relevance because it suggests the sexist and heterosexist norms that may be embedded in the noblesse oblige of contemporary municipal consolidation. It also suggests a way of looking at contemporary municipal boundary changes through a normative lens that takes us beyond economic notions of self-interest.”

In this article, we examine the processes by which urban space became sexually coded through municipal consolidation in the nineteenth century. Our analysis covers the union of Van Vorst Township to Jersey City in 1851 and the absorption of the City of Brooklyn to “Greater New York” in 1898. In both cases, urban space was gendered and sexualized through courtship and marriage metaphors used by local newspapers.

Published in Urban Affairs Review | Richardson Dilworth | 2004 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/When-Cities-Get-Married-Dilworth-Trevenen/a2ca8f17cce491477a6811e6fa66874c7a7820fe

Voter acceptances of city-county consolidations have been few. Since the end of World War II, consolidation has been attempted twenty-four times and has succeeded only in Baton Rouge, Nashville, Jacksonville, Columbus and in three Virginia areas. The difficulty of obtaining voter support for consolidation has now become part of Political Science conventional Wisdom.

The case-study literature on city-county consolidation has offered many reasons for its lack of success. Among reasons offered were: lack of grass-roots support, participation of few mass-based interest groups, voter apathy, and the relative satisfaction with existing governmental arrangements and services. Public officials and the “power structure” are rarely the initiators of city-county consolidations. The case-study literature also offers contradictory reasons concerning factors which affect support levels in consolidations.

Although the case-study literature offers many reasons for lack of voter support for consolidation, there have been few systematic comparative examinations of consolidation referenda. In fact the literature indicates that unusual and situational factors accompanied the successful consolidations. Brett Hawkin’s study shows that non-transportable circumstances made the Nashville-Davidson success sui generis. Nashville’s raising of taxes, aggressive annexation policy, and the institution of a “green sticker tax” on all automobiles using city streets all contributed to consolidation success. Grand jury indictments of ten local officials and the disacreditation of the local schools triggered success in Jacksonville-Duval. Thomas Scott has argued that each successful consolidation must be treated as a deviant case and that abnormal circumstances were involved in the successful consolidations.”

Published in Political Research Quarterly | V. L. Marando | 1973 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Voting-in-City-County-Consolidation-Referenda-Marando/b3d116e06a23ab60507655cd6911d927faf9eb01

“This study found that metropolitan cities that have access to numerous municipal service providers in a county are more actively involved in interlocal cooperation than those that do not have such access.

In the case of counties, city-dominated counties that have professional county administrators (or council-elected executives) are more likely to be involved in interlocal cooperative arrangements than county dominated rural counties with no professional county administrators (or elected county executives). This is because professional county administrators (or council-elected executives) in city-dominated counties could easily find municipal service providers in their county.

Thus, the availability of qualified municipal service providers appears to be one of the most important factors in facilitating interlocal cooperation in American cities and counties. This study also found that the pattern and the level of interlocal cooperation diverge somewhat between cities and counties, in part due to differences in the functional responsibility between counties and cities.”

This study analyzes the patterns and determinants of interlocal cooperation by examining the interlocal expenditures made in 2,684 American cities with a population over 10,000 and all 3,034 counties for the fiscal year 2002.

Published in International Review of Public Administration | Chang-Go Jung | 2009 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Patterns-and-the-Determinants-of-Interlocal-in-and-Jung-Kim/5544982aac4eff6fd71be08eb65a90fd9cc0b1cb

“Despite planning schemes encouraging urban consolidation, the results indicate that cadastral change is characterized by ad hoc redevelopment, favoring lots that are easily transformed, rather than guidance from regulatory bodies. This contradicts consolidation policies, as redevelopment occurs only where financially and statutorily viable, while further cadastral fragmentation portends that future consolidation will be made more difficult.

We argue that policy mechanisms must address cadastral structure more directly, and that the difficulty of cadastral change may incentivize urban sprawl on greenfield sites.”

Cadastral structure exerts a significant influence on urban form. Efforts to adapt the built environment to accommodate social, environmental and economic shifts are often at odds with cadastral structure inflexibility, and urban consolidation can be particularly hampered by lot size and shape. This research utilizes spatial analysis to examine the influence of cadastral change on infill development.

Published in Urban Geography | Rachel Gallagher | 2020 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Targeted-urban-consolidation-or-ad-hoc-The-of-and-Gallagher-Sigler/1a3a2c298b3c917c1d3ca8bc7e4e07f7098f3b0c

“Data revealed little evidence of consistent economies of scale from consolidation, however both case studies and interviews indicated that consolidation generated economies of scope and what may be termed ‘strategic capacity’.

While it was not possible to disaggregate the data for particular sizes of local authority, enhancement of strategic capacity was more obvious through processes of consolidation in larger ones and less so in smaller, more remote ones.”

This article draws from a major research project examining the impact of various forms of municipal consolidation in Australia and New Zealand. Its wide-ranging research involved studies of 15 cases of different forms of consolidation, including amalgamation, together with a series of interviews with senior practitioners from the local government sector.

Published in Local Government Studies | C. Aulich | 2014 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Fresh-Look-at-Municipal-Consolidation-in-Aulich-Sansom/bc35a26041114becb9e52641c75d14a1c95b4ca2

“It is found that residents of the municipalities that can internalize a large amount of public goods spillovers through municipal consolidation tend to favor consolidation. This result supports the theoretical inference that spillovers in local public goods affect utility gains from jurisdiction integration, thus serving as one of the key impetuses for boundary reform.

Moreover, after controlling for the spillover effects, economies of scale, population share, differences in median income, and unconditional grants can help explain consolidation preference.”

The fact that jurisdictional consolidation overcomes externality problems in the provision of local public goods is one of the best-known benefits of consolidation in the theoretical literature. Nevertheless, previous studies provide little evidence of how public service spillover effects influence consolidation decisions. This study empirically tests the hypothesis that spillovers induce consolidation, using voting data on the consolidation of Japanese municipalities. The extent of spillovers is measured by estimating the demand function for public goods with externalities.

Published in Empirical Economics | T. Miyazaki | 2018 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Internalization-of-externalities-and-local-evidence-Miyazaki/d50c2cc37b95e3fcd9527ace6797826b5e74a600

“History provides many examples of benevolent dictators who become increasingly repressive and new democracies that take years to improve public welfare. I account for this temporal variation in public goods provision by considering how regime consolidation changes leaders’ incentives to provide public goods.

To stay in office, all leaders must maintain a sufficient level of support from those possessing the power to replace the leader via institutional processes. Leaders of unconsolidated regimes face additional threats posed by viable extra-institutional challengers, such as coup plotters and revolutionaries.

Tests on public goods spanning political freedoms, government expenditures, education, and health generally suggest leaders’ incentives for public goods provision change as regime consolidation insulates leaders from these extra-institutional threats to power. Regimes with inclusive institutions spend more on public goods as they consolidate and become less vulnerable to elite demands.

Exclusive regimes spend more on public goods when they are vulnerable to the excluded masses, but become increasingly repressive as they become insulated from popular uprisings. Consequently, consolidation magnifies the positive effect of democracy on public goods provision. These findings have important implications for the literatures on public goods provision and regime survival.”

Published in International Studies Quarterly | C. Bell | 2011 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Buying-Support-and-Buying-Time%3A-The-Effect-of-on-Bell/a357ee74182b9ce234b82de75c4129f2709be0df