Academic Avenues

“Taking advantage of a quasi-experimental setting and drawing upon analysis of electoral results and a survey of voters, this article explores the political costs of reform through the example of the 2009 local elections in Denmark. The article finds that the local parties of mayors were punished at the polls for implementing municipal amalgamations decided by the central government. However, the effect on the mayoral parties’ electoral result is more indirect than direct.

Analyses of the electoral results demonstrates that the political parties holding the mayoralty in times of amalgamations tend to nominate very tenured mayors as candidates, thereby missing the positive first-term incumbency effect, which a new mayor could have acquired. And analyses of a survey of voters demonstrates higher levels of dissatisfaction with the municipal service in amalgamated municipalities, leading to a higher cost of ruling for mayoral parties which have led the implementation of an amalgamation.”

Published in Local Government Studies | Ulrik Kjaer | 2015, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/What-are-the-Local-Political-Costs-of-Centrally-of-Kjaer-Klemmensen/0d35b5149cc06d14c15b3df8ba8face3361327d4, https://consensus.app/details/analyses-survey-voters-demonstrates-levels-kjaer/a27f92073de257f380be9ebad4c2b3f3/

“The London, Ontario, suburb of London West (1874 to 1897) provides an example of a community that strove to maintain its municipal autonomy. Composed of independent wage earners, artisans, and small-business owners, London West cultivated a sense of identity separate from that of its neighbouring city. While a devastating flood in 1883 devalued property and greatly soured relations between the village and London, it buttressed community unity in London West. The flood similarly caused the villagers to insist upon the maintenance of certain controls in order to assure the security of their property and families in their negotiations with the city for amalgamation.

After several protracted periods of discussions, the village tenaciously held out against the city until 1897, when ratepayers had little alternative but to accept London’s less than satisfactory conditions. While the ultimate decision to join the city in 1897 was based more upon the village’s dismal financial situation, London West’s protracted resistance to municipal amalgamation indicates that nineteenth-century suburbs in Ontario were complex communities in their own right and not simply undifferentiated adjuncts that craved amalgamation with their urban neighbours.”

Published in Urban History Review-revue D Histoire Urbaine | Gregory Stott | 2000, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Safeguarding-%E2%80%9CThe-Frog-Pond%E2%80%9D%3A-London-West-and-the-Stott/d503dde2ed0b33d5c8ccd9b7c564fbb8f2ea483a, https://consensus.app/details/while-decision-join-city-1897-based-upon-villages-stott/aad706bb780b5cc89843e88fd3158187/

“This paper concerns municipal preferences for state-imposed municipal amalgamations, focusing on factors that may explain municipal acceptance of, or objection to, a state-imposed amalgamation decision. The empirical analysis is based on the extensive municipal reform that occurred in Sweden in 1952, which reduced the number of municipalities from 2498 to 1037. In 66 per cent of the amalgamated cases, at least one municipality complained.

The results show that income differences affected the willingness to amalgamate; high-income municipalities opposed amalgamation with less wealthy municipalities. The results also indicate that the size (absolute and relative) of the municipalities affected their willingness to amalgamate. Small and large municipalities were most likely to accept the amalgamation decision and equally sized municipalities were less likely to amalgamate voluntarily.”

Published in Urban Studies | N. Hanes | 2012, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Municipal-Preferences-for-State-imposed-An-Study-on-Hanes-Wikstr%C3%B6m/12f7d27d5ab18942fb007ea6ea9b2e68751ecdf7, https://consensus.app/details/results-show-income-differences-affected-willingness-hanes/a63df43127fd5c87843afd3090b1139b/

“This article considers the structure of the Halifax Mechanics’ Institution, located in one of the principal manufacturing and commercial towns in the nineteenth-century West Yorkshire, based on the local primary sources, printed sources and my original historical computer database. Although some established works have described Mechanics’ Institution as one of the most active societies in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the hitherto-research has paid little attention to an aspect of its urban public institution.

The Mechanics’ Institution dealt with disputes within the institution, established hierarchical structure among its members, made social relationships inside and outside the institution, and aimed to have interrelationships with other urban bodies. Such practices were of vital importance for strengthening the ties between the institution and the urban local community of Halifax in order to bring about stability and order in the urban society.”

Published in Family & Community History | T. Iwama | 2008, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Voluntary-Societies-and-the-Urban-Local-Community%3A-Iwama/e07d74e7fe169b42a30a446e35f81649e3b04dfb, https://consensus.app/details/practices-importance-strengthening-ties-institution-iwama/dd7ae6e7b011587a9a33892315bba06a/

“As part of the broader Queensland local government amalgamation programme, in 2008 Noosa Shire Council, Caloundra City Council and Maroochy Shire Council were compulsorily merged into a new Sunshine Coast Regional Council. Five years on, unyielding public opposition and a new Queensland Government has secured deamalgamation of Noosa Shire from the Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

Given the almost complete absence of empirical literature on municipal de-amalgamation, the Noosa case provides a rare opportunity to empirically assess a de-amalgamation process. Accordingly, this paper provides a critical evaluation of the de-amalgamation analysis prepared by the Queensland Treasury Corporation. Far from placating residents, the de-amalgamation plans are likely to provoke further acrimony due not only to equity problems, but also a lack of democratic representation on key decision-making bodies. On a broader level, this case study serves as a template for the theory and practice associated with any municipal de-amalgamation—either in Australia or abroad.”

Published in Public Money & Management | J. Drew | 2014, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Separation-anxiety%3A-an-empirical-evaluation-of-the-Drew-Dollery/76784be00ef81900927d8f4377663b3318fb3dfe, https://consensus.app/details/level-case-study-serves-template-practice-associated-drew/d6760086045f5a6b86b4bde0402cc0ac/

“Debate over municipal amalgamations in Australian continues to dominate local government reform agendas, with the putative need to achieve economies of scale and scope consistently set against anti-amalgamation arguments designed to preserve extant communities. Following from an examination of recent episodes of consolidation in Australia, this paper reports on citizens’ attitudes to amalgamation garnered from a national survey of 2,006 individuals.

We found that generally, citizens are ambivalent toward amalgamation, although attitudes were influenced by particular demographic characteristics and attitudes to representation, belonging, service delivery requirements and the costs thereof. The results suggest that, away from the local government sector itself, structural reform may not be the vexatious issue it is often portrayed as. The implications of this are explored here.”

Published in Australian Journal of Public Administration | R. Ryan | 2016, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Australian-Experience-of-Municipal-Asking-the-Ryan-Hastings/e5e231a14ddc99bc106fd12ff4deaccee92ab850, https://consensus.app/details/found-generally-toward-amalgamation-although-attitudes-ryan/307f182c1e2b5c759e1f58e75f4b9077/

“The city of Auckland has recently been reconstituted through the amalgamation of eight territorial authorities and their constituencies. The new city was designed to provide coordinated economic, infrastructural and resource management for a territorial social economy given form and meaning by economic and infrastructural connections and daily movements of people and things.

In this paper, we examine how this rationale has been translated into a vision for making and performing Auckland as a unitary space and ask whether the initial excitement over the new city has been captured as potential for delivering a more progressive city. We explore the shift from sustainability to liveability as a guiding imaginary for a new Auckland and the formation of the Auckland Anchors network as a group that might play a leadership role in shaping it.

We conclude that whilst the process of amalgamation undermined much of its potential to achieve a more coordinated metropolitan governance, it has revealed possibilities for the practice of a new constructive urban politics.”

Published in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit | N. Lewis | 2015, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Anchor-organisations-in-Auckland%3A-Rolling-with-Lewis-Murphy/d0ca1f1965d7d63e98ded9f94c72ceb8ba879e48, https://consensus.app/details/conclude-whilst-process-amalgamation-undermined-achieve-lewis/d2b16dd8626f5925b3f23c999b2e9a68/