Fragmented Regionalism

Abstract

This article addresses the extent to which metropolitan regions have continued to fragment and grown more disparate. We ask, why have comprehensive institutions not taken root to mitigate metropolitan fragmentation and how can we better understand its persistence? We call attention to the insufficiently understood and integrative role of public authorities as functional for fragmented metropolises and their continued splintering. That functionality is explained by a “regional paradox,” which states that centrifugal forces from autonomous, competitive local governments push against metropolitan integration while centripetal pressures for regional policy coherence pull toward it. The result is the embodiment of both tendencies in what we call fragmented regionalism—a condition where local autonomy is largely left intact while public authorities are able to manage selective regional pressures. We find that metropolitan regions have become more fragmented and more unequal. This pattern is concomitant with public authority spending, which has favored the most advantaged metropolises.

Keywords

fragmented government metropolitan regions urban development polycentrism monocentrism “back-door regionalism”public authorities

Monocentrists, Polycentrists, and Backdoor Regionalists

Regional governance has occupied an eminent place in the urban literature. The scholarship on the subject is rich, vast, and often geared toward political reform. Its origins go back nearly a century when Chester Maxey (1922), Paul Studenski (1930), and Victor Jones (1942) tried to simplify the jigsaw puzzle of the American metropolis. These pioneers objected to the messiness of so many crisscrossed jurisdictions and believed the nation’s vitality was sapped by contending towns, villages, cities, and special districts. The bane of the American metropolis was fragmentation, and its remedy could be found in the unified practices of “metropolitan government.” Only a metropolitan-wide perspective could do away with self-defeating interlocal competition, deliver service efficiencies, and provide for common metropolitan needs (Stephens and Wikstrom 2000). The capstone of this early scholarship was Robert Wood’s (1961) classic 1400 Governments. Like his predecessors, Wood lamented the profusion of jurisdictions in the New York area that prevented it from pursuing the benefits of collective regional policies.

Subsequent scholarship consisted of elaborating ways to bring about metropolitan integration. A distinct line of reasoning ushered forth from writers like Neal Peirce (1993), Myron Orfield (1997), David Rusk (1993), and David Miller (2002), who saw fragmentation feeding inequities and argued that only metropolitan government could resolve mounting socioeconomic problems. These writers came to be called monocentrists because they favored putting power in the hands of central decision makers. Their arguments rested on the ability of metropolitan governments to standardize policies, revenue raising, and planning across a whole area. With unified government begetting broad political authority across regions, the negative spillovers of uneven development could more fairly be absorbed or reduced. The positive spillovers of wealth generation could more equitably be redistributed or shared.

At an opposite corner, a group of scholars led by Elinor Ostrom (1990) found that America’s metropolises were already achieving interlocal cooperation, though hardly in the manner envisioned by earlier researchers. These writers were loosely referred to as polycentrists (joined by a smaller number of “local public economies” theorists), and they turned the vice of fragmentation into a virtue. Polycentrists demonstrated that decentralized, autonomous jurisdictions were capable of forging cooperative agreements over a patch quilt of governments. Rather than being chaotic, metropolitan areas possessed a heterogeneous and voluntary coherence of their own. The result, in the words of Parks and Oakerson (1989, 1993), was a “complexly organized systems” of governance knitted together by diverse, ad hoc arrangements.

As the debate matured, another group of writers concluded that fragmentation could not soon be reversed. It could, however, be circumvented by people working at multiple levels. They held that a large volume of popularly backed reforms could change metropolitan regions through the “backdoor.” Back-door regionalists stressed results that would ultimately cast a net of policy coherence traversing cities and suburbs. Championing this approach, Scott Bollens (2001, 2003) pointed out that racial integration, poverty alleviation, and environmental protection were slowly but surely gaining traction within metropolitan regions. Other teams of researchers saw the future belonging to social movements working at regional scales for affordable housing and income equity (Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka 2009; Pastor et al. 2000). Proponents cited wide and diverse accomplishments—interventions by federal or state authorities, legislation brought forward by pressure groups, and benefits produced by nonprofit organizations.

For all the motion toward regional governance, there has been little, if any, real movement. After many years, the country remains structurally unchanged. Critics doubted that America had made any progress toward regional integration (Frug and Baron 2008; Kantor 2010). This context of frustrated expectations inspires our own research into metropolitan regions.¹ The questions we pose call attention to the following: What has been the extent of metropolitan fragmentation and its concomitant disparities in recent decades? Why is it that comprehensive regional institutions have not succeeded in integrating metropolitan America?² And how can we better understand the persistence of fragmentation in the light of institutions that do fulfill some kind of regional mission?

Often overlooked in the literature on regionalism are public authorities. We call attention to their role as regional integrators and to their capacity for collective action across jurisdictions. Public authorities actually mimic regional institutions, though in very selective ways. Public authorities are not the only actors on the metropolitan stage. Still, they tell us what an organization has to do and what it must become to succeed among fiercely independent and competing jurisdictions. Before addressing that issue, we turn to conditions underlying this environment.

The Paradox of Fragmented Regionalism

The typical Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of about 635,000 residents holds about 104 local jurisdictions. Numbers of jurisdictions will vary by area of the country—the Northeast contains upward of 150 localities, whereas the Midwest includes 130. The South holds 57 such jurisdictions and the West a bit more than 100 (Calabrese, Cassidy, and Epple 2002; Miller 2002; Stephens and Wikstrom 2000).

With all these independent localities in place, we can imagine the enormity of factors pushing them away from one another. The sheer responsibility required of localities to raise most of their own revenue arouses a very robust competition to attract investment and employment. Fragmentation has teeth that can bite away at neighboring jurisdictions and create cycles of bidding wars, pirated industries, and a race to the bottom. This is made all the more potent by a local resort to “defensive incorporation,” where individual hamlets lock in their own resources, revenues, and land values. At the same time, local governments are known to lock out less affluent residents and unwanted industry through exclusionary zoning. The advantages of local autonomy are considerable and constitute formidable structural incentives, while also reducing incentives for collective metropolitan action.

There is another, contradictory side to this metropolitan picture. Also in play is a pulling together of jurisdictions because of pressures stemming from local interdependence. We know that central cities and suburbs are better off when they prosper together and many leaders recognize this advantage (Barnes and Ledebur 1994; Foster and Barnes 2012; Savitch et al. 1993; Voith 1998). Metropolitan areas are effectively wrapped in common economic and physical needs. The exigencies of economic development entail modernized infrastructure, educational facilities, and pooled resources that only supralocal institutions can provide. Social needs are no less critical and require decent housing to accommodate new families, expensive recreational facilities to attract a well-educated labor force, and a safety net for the most destitute. At an ecological level, environmental protection knows no boundaries. Problems related to air pollution, water purification, storm drainage, land preservation, and sustainable development are all regional in nature.

Simply put, this can be described as an inordinate tension between local and regional needs. More complexly, we have a situation where local preferences become intertwined with regional ones, thereby producing a push-pull of diverse forces. We see here a desire for local autonomy pushing away from regionalism, whereas the necessity for collective action pulls toward it. The result is the embodiment of both tendencies in what we call fragmented regionalism—a condition of piecemeal, partial, and selective processes that induce some kind of a metropolitan-wide action while guaranteeing local prerogatives.

The paradox before us is that the success of local independence triggers countervailing pressures, which threaten that very independence. Metropolitan regions are beset by growing centrifugal forces at loggerheads with mounting centripetal pressures. The paradox sits on two sides of the same coin. On one side, vigorous economic growth fills metropolitan regions with more differentiation and more specialization. This invariably leads to a more independently minded middle class with a capacity to protect its assets (land values, revenue sources, school systems). On the other side, the maintenance of this prosperity brings about a need for better coordination, common policies, and shared public goods.

Localities have sought to reconcile this paradox by bundling some services that fit within their territorial boundaries and unbundling other functions whose delivery necessitates a larger geographic scale. Unbundling requires that burdens be shifted to “third parties,” like public authorities, whose territorial scope crosses multiple jurisdictions.

In a very real sense, individual public authorities have taken up the responsibility for tasks that localities were unable to achieve by themselves. From a polycentrist or “public economies” perspective, this has produced varying solutions to varying problems—namely, identifying an institution that is best suited to carry out functions for differently constituted territories with differently formed preferences. Unlike formal regional governments, public authorities are flexible and fungible. They can be used in different ways, they are able to operate at different scales, and they have the capacity to shape missions that, more or less, correspond to variegated situations.

In the language of the polycentrists, public authorities have overlain complexly organized metropolises with “catchment basins” for collective action. This experience suggests that institutions arise incrementally, messily, and organically to selectively fill integrative roles. We should not underestimate the advantages derived from having muddled through to this “solution.”

To be sure, there are no cost-free exits to the regional paradox. The reliance on public authorities has not halted a proliferation of localities or mitigated inequalities. Certainly, the scope of responsibilities undertaken by public authorities is incomplete. Also, by unbundling and effectively sloughing off responsibility for their own collective action, localities deprive their constituencies of democratic accountability. Finally, like other special purpose governments, public authorities are prone to dominance by interest groups, increasing the costs to democratic rule (Berry 2009). Warts and all, there is still a good deal to be said about the functions public authorities perform as well as how easily they fit into the skin of metropolitan fragmentation.

Why Public Authorities?

As used here, the public authority is a corporate entity, chartered by one or more governments, administered by an appointed board, and responsible for various functions that are conducted in metropolitan regions (Foster 1997; Mitchell 1992; Walsh 1979). Public authorities raise vast amounts of money from publicly traded money markets, they levy user charges for public functions, they have the right to sue or be sued, they hire staffs and manage their own personnel systems, they receive grants from state and federal governments, and they possess the power of eminent domain (Axelrod 1992; Mitchell 1992; Walsh 1979).

Our sample of the largest public authorities showed expenditures at more than 49 billion, amounting to an annual injection of nearly one billion dollars into the average MSA (U.S. Census Bureau 2005). Public authorities were established precisely because local governments were not able to cooperate and because they lacked regional governance. Public authorities do not “collect” the wills of individual localities and they do not “produce” a process of interlocal collective action. But they do produce the effects of collective action, they do manage to transcend local interests, and they often act in consultation with metropolitan localities. Although we cannot say public authorities are actual “governments,” they do very much “govern” in selective ways by making binding, authoritative decisions.

In the absence of more comprehensive regional governments that have not materialized, we turn to the public authority because it has proven itself. As we see it, examining an institution that has weathered the conditions of the American metropolis enables us to better understand those conditions. These institutions have managed to conduct their operations with minimal intrusions into local prerogatives and without upsetting the delicate balance between localism and regionalism. Public authorities possess the distinctive quality of being able to consummate large-scale projects that are divisible, chargeable, and often beyond the reach of local governments (Foster 1997). In the main, these are “consensus functions” achieved by working with local governments to build and maintain connective infrastructure and other facilities. Public authorities have eased the costs to local governments for connective infrastructure by displacing them onto private users, bondholders, and other governments.

New York dramatically illustrates the extent and complexity of regional integration. The metropolitan region holds 19 million people, has almost 2,000 local governments, and generates a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of more than a trillion dollars (Kantor et al. 2012). Each day, people rely on its highways, bridges, tunnels, railways, metros, reservoirs, communications, flood control, trade centers, affordable housing, and more. Finances flow, goods are manufactured, commodities delivered, and negotiations are transacted across hundreds of jurisdictions. All made possible by public authorities.

Although public authorities are very important, they are not uniquely important. In the larger scheme of complexly organized metropolises, they are joined by other supralocal institutions like councils of government (COGs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and special districts. These organizations are “catchment basins” that operate in different and complementary ways to carry out collective metropolitan action.

Differences are also consequential—especially when we compare public authorities with COGs and MPOs. Some distinctions are qualitative and pertain to more encompassing political/legal prerogatives, whereas others are quantitative and pertain to much higher numbers of revenues and expenditures. When it comes to basic political discretion, COGs and MPOs undertake relatively modest functions, largely monitoring localities and acting as pass-through entities for disbursements of federal aid (National Association of Regional Councils 2010; Vogel and Nezelkewicz 2002). Their staffs are small, often temporary, and they frequently rely on other local governments for personnel policies.

The comparison between public authorities and special districts is more complicated. Official census counts list public authorities within the broad category of “Large Special Districts” (Census of Governments 1997, 2005). Fortunately, every public authority is separately designated, and we were able to select 437 institutions from within the largest MSAs. Our purpose was to identify the weightiest metropolitan actors, those that were more likely to be charged with multipurpose missions, those that encompassed multiple jurisdictions (sometimes crossing state lines), and those that undertook heavy expenditures. By contrast, the great majority of special districts conduct business at subcounty levels, and only 10% of them exceed a single county (Berry 2009; Foster 1997). Typically, special districts are single function entities that manage schools or cemeteries or libraries or some other very particular function.

Last, we consider the intellectual significance of public authorities. These institutions have been portrayed as great change makers but rarely as regional integrators. Most notably, public authorities were popularized by Robert Caro (1974) and Jameson Doig (2002) for their charismatic leadership. There is too a raft of scholarship on public authorities as distinct and powerful organizations, but again, none of these seriously deal with their functional roles in fragmented metropolises (Adams et al. 2008; Aron 1969; Axelrod 1992; Danielson and Doig 1982; Foster 1997; Mitchell 1992). We take a different perspective by treating public authorities in a more heuristic way—as windows on metropolitan fragmentation—as well as by offering a functionalist interpretation of their integrative role—as necessary bridges situated on the local/regional divide (Hempel 1968; Merton 1968).

Approach and Method

We take a series of snapshots of metropolitan fragmentation and public authorities at different periods in time and derive themes around long-term trends. We selected 51 MSAs on the basis of having one million or more residents and collected from the decennial censuses of 1990, 2000, and 2010.³ Metropolitan fragmentation is measured by an index and calculated as the number of local governments per 10,000 people, with higher numerical ratios of government to population indicating greater fragmentation (Census of Governments 1997; 2005; 2012).⁴ Similarly, we selected all public authorities with expenditures of $10 million or more operating within the 51 largest metropolitan areas as reported in the Census of Governments 1992 and 2002. Our selection included a total of 437 public authorities in the census year 1992 and 242 in 2002. Our own sample of these organizations showed 27% engaged in multipurpose missions. Public authorities operating in larger MSAs were more likely to undertake multipurpose functions.

In examining metropolitan fragmentation and public authorities, we focus on Gini coefficients. These coefficients capture inequality at two different levels: (1) inequality between MSAs and (2) inequality within MSAs. A Gini index between MSAs quantifies these differences by per capita personal income and compares MSAs with one another. Gini coefficients within MSAs are calculated by using average income of selected cohorts within each territorial unit and measures internal disparities.⁵

Finally, although we use correlation coefficients to measure associations between these variables, we make no claims about the causal links between them. Rather, our concern lies in elucidating outcomes and drawing observations about the course of development in metropolitan regions.

Vitality and Inequality

First, we can say that fragmentation has continued to increase, occurring concomitantly with greater inequalities between and within metropolitan regions. Indices of fragmentation show it is not a passing phenomenon but has continued at a slightly accelerating pace. The steady increase in numbers of localities that dot metropolises exceeds their demographic growth, and this tells us something about the diffuse configuration of metropolitan growth.

Table 1 brings the picture to light by showing the progression of MSAs over the last 20 years or more. Here, we see the continued splintering of 51 metropolitan areas, as summarized by the rising number of governments and a higher fragmentation index. The table also depicts Gini coefficients to measure economic inequality between within and between MSAs

Table 1.

Fragmentation and Inequalities Between and Within MSAs: 1990s–2000s.

Variables	Year	Average	% Change (circa 1990–2012)
Number of local governments	1992	305.35	+21.72
Number of local governments	2002	345.74
	2012^a	371.69
MSA population	1992	2,746,046	+13.48
	2002	2,933,552
	2012	3,116,177
Per capita income (in dollars)^c	1992	22,567.73	+20.94
Per capita income (in dollars)^c	2002	27,991.13
	2012	27,293.01
Fragmentation index	1992	1.25	+4.0
	2002	1.27
	2012^a	1.30
Gini coefficient (between MSAs)^b	1990	6.81	+13.95
Gini coefficient (between MSAs)^b	2000	7.24
	2010	7.76
Gini coefficient (within MSAs)^b	1990	36.9	+29.38
Gini coefficient (within MSAs)^b	2000	46.44
	2010	47.74

Source. Number of local governments for 1992 from Table 28, 1992 Census of Government, Vol. 1, No. 1, Government Organization (http://www.census.gov/prod/2/gov/gc/gc92_1_1.pdf); Number of local governments for 2002 from Table 16, 2002 Census of Government, Vol. 1, No. 1, Government Organization (http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/gc021x1.pdf); 1992 and 2002 numbers of local government by state are obtained from Table 3 Census of Government, Vol. 1, No. 1, Government Organization 1992 and 2002; Number of local governments for 2012 by state are obtained from U.S. Census Bureau 2012, “Census of Governments: Organization Component Preliminary Estimates” (http://www2.census.gov/govs/cog/2012/formatted_prelim_counts_23jul2012_2.pdf); MSA population counts are obtained from the “American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates” published by the Census Bureau for the years 1992, 2002, and 2011 (latest available); 1990 population in household income cohorts for MSAs (for calculation of Gini coefficient) and per capita income are obtained from Social and Economic Characteristics, 1990 Census of Population (http://www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/cp2/cp-2-1c-3.pdf); Per capita income and household income for 2000 are obtained from Summary Social, Economic, and Housing Characteristics, 2000 Census of Population and Housing (http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-2-1-pt1.pdf); Per capita income and household income for 2010 are obtained from the American Community Survey 2010, 1-Year Estimates (http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t#none); Public authorities expenditure for 1992 obtained from the Census of Government, Government Finances 1992, Vol. 4, No. 2 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2/gov/gc92-4/gc924-2.pdf); Public authorities expenditure for 2002 obtained from the Census of Government, Government Finances 2002, Vol. 4, No. 2 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/gc024x2.pdf).

Note. MSA = Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Based on 2012 Census of Governments: Organization Component Preliminary Estimates

The Gini index is reported in double digits. Gini index within MSA is calculated for each MSA using information from household income cohorts. Gini index between MSA is a single numeral (not an average) that has been calculated using information on per capita personal income across all 51 MSAs.

Per capita income adjusted to 2010 dollars.

Notice that in our selected metropolitan areas, the average number of local governments began with 305.35 in 1992, increased to 345.74 in 2002, and rose further to 371.69 in 2012. Local governments increased by 21.7%, and this occurred as population increased by a lesser rate of 13.5%. This amounts to an 8.2% net increase above the population gain. Aside from considering population, our fragmentation index showed a net gain of 4% between 1992 and 2012.

We take note of the historical record and what writers had to say about jurisdictional proliferation 30 or 40 years ago. At the time, historians attributed metropolitan fragmentation to the rise of suburbanization. Often cited were national policies that created interstate highways and low interest rates on home mortgages, which led to a demographic exodus and commercial migration from central cities (Gelfand 1975; Jackson 1988). Naturally, more people living elsewhere meant more local governments. The accretion of local governments was also bound up with efforts to achieve better services, retain low tax rates, and preserve racial homogeneity (Burns 1994).

Our own point of view is that fragmentation is not confined to a particular era of development. Fragmentation persists regardless of extant national policies or public attitudes toward services, tax, or race. This persistence tells us that fragmentation is strongly associated with a number of other structural factors. Very much at the forefront are (1) political incentives for keeping local governments small and independent; (2) economic requirements for the development of highly specialized areas along spatially distinct lines, such as separately incorporated industrial parks, shopping malls, and residential subdivisions; and (3) the organizational success of public authorities in furnishing selective benefits to localities (and obviating the need for comprehensive government).

Another component of this picture lies in a marked increase in economic disparity between as well as within MSAs. The table shows that Gini coefficients also continued to increase. The index of inequality between MSAs rose from 6.81 in 1990 to 7.24 in 2000, and by 2010, the index stood at 7.76. Over a recent 20-year period, inequality between metropolitan regions increased by almost 14%. Even sharper increases occurred within metropolitan regions. The average Gini coefficient within an MSA remained at 36.9 in 1990, but by 2000, it had climbed to 46.4, and it increased slowly to 47.7 in 2010. In total, inequality within metropolises rose by an astonishing 29% during barely a generation. One might have thought these trends would occur during a period of depression, but in fact, they transpired while per capita income had increased by more than a fifth. We should keep this picture in mind, but before taking up these variables again, we proceed to a brief discussion of public authorities.

Next, we underscore that public authorities are irregularly bounded institutions whose existing and increasing emphasis on economic development has filled MSAs with hot spots of development. The architecture of public authorities resembles Hooghe and Marks’s (2003) Type 2 institutions of governance. They often jump across local and state jurisdictions. These disjunctive boundaries tend to balloon investment in some areas and depress it in others, especially as public authorities insert mega projects into already highly invested “hot spots.” Investigators have noted that the geostructural basis of public authorities often lead to greater spottiness in urban growth and development (Foster 1997; T. Wells and Scheff 1992). Brenner (2004) goes further by injecting political agency into the issue; he argues that the goal of state institutions is to intensify uneven spatial development.

Equally important is what public authorities do. At their inception, public authorities were supposed to fill development gaps, mitigate regional imbalances, and even take up the task of redistribution through low and moderate income housing (Walsh 1979). In practice, a good deal of their missions concern economic development (Aron 1969; Axelrod 1992; Danielson and Doig 1982). This finding has been reinforced by what Kathryn Foster called an “upward spending bias” by special purpose governments toward building an infrastructure for economic development. Over time that “upward spending bias” has grown stronger and sharply contrasted to the social welfare priorities of general purpose governments (Foster 1997, pp. 165–84, 214).

Table 2 displays the varying priorities of public authorities. These are defined by their designated missions and expenditures for 1992 and 2002. All monetary amounts have been adjusted for inflation. Also listed are the percentage changes between these periods.

Table 2.

Public Authorities by Function: 1992 and 2002.

Functions	1992				2002				% Change 1992–2002
	Count		Expenditure		Count		Expenditure
	n	%n	Total	%Exp	n	%n	Total	%Exp
Transit, ports, and airports	62	12.4	19,770,714,960	53.11	51	20.3	25,057,738,240	50.86	+26.74
Housing	156	31.2	5,087,776,920	13.67	38	15.1	6,376,587,520	12.94	+25.33
Hospital	49	9.8	3,332,338,960	8.95	36	14.3	5,444,019,200	11.05	+63.37
Water and environment	88	17.6	4,028,023,680	10.82	34	13.5	5,200,300,800	10.56	+29.1
Education	14	2.8	353,928,400	0.95	21	8.4	355,162,880	0.72	+0.35
Utility	38	7.6	2,718,849,400	7.30	18	7.2	3,250,228,480	6.60	+19.54
Civic-recreational-industrial	30	6	695,725,720	1.87	23	9.2	1,114,151,680	2.26	+60.14
County improvement	9	1.8	129,541,960	0.35	6	2.4	243,810,560	0.49	+88.21
Finance	24	4.8	259,610,360	0.70	5	2.0	171,808,000	0.35	−33.82
Solid waste	6	1.2	412,414,080	1.11	3	1.2	294,133,760	0.60	−28.68
Others	24	4.8	436,937,000	1.17	16	6.4	1,758,982,400	3.57	+302.57
Total	500		37,225,861,440		251		49,266,923,520		+32.35

Source. Based on information provided in Table 14, 1992 Census of Government, Vol. 4, No. 2 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2/gov/gc92-4/gc924-2.pdf); and Table 13, 2002 Census of Government, Vol. 4, No. 2 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/gc024x2.pdf).

Note. Both 1992 and 2002 expenditure figures have been deflated for 2012 value using consumer price index (CPI) deflator. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)

We also see an increased emphasis on economic development via investments in infrastructure. During the period shown, transit, airports, and ports took the highest priority, amounting to more than a 20% share in designated missions and 50% of expenditures. Other functions related to economic development like public utilities accounted for an additional 7.2% of designated missions and 6.6% of expenditures for the latest period. When combined, these economic development categories accounted for more than 28% of designated missions and 57% of total expenditures. By contrast, the redistributive policy of housing remained stagnant at 13%.

Furthermore, already significant investments in economic development were boosted between 1992 and 2002. Expenditures for transit, shipping ports, and airports rose by nearly 27%, whereas expenditures for utilities rose by nearly 20%. In total, expenditures for all functions amounted to more than $49 billion, nearly a third more than the previous decade. Last, and not displayed in the table, we find that per capita public authority expenditures increased from $198.40 in 1990 to $255.56 in 2000 to an estimated $306.37 in 2012. All told, this amounted to a 54.42% jump in per capita metropolitan investments (U.S. Census Bureau 1997, 2005, 2012).

Our last observation is consistent with the investment behavior of public authorities described earlier. Metropolitan areas that already enjoy high levels of prosperity and economic vitality receive a significantly greater proportion of public authority expenditures than those that are less well off. As unequal investment pours into metropolitan regions, so too does it reinforce an existing splintering of metropolitan America.

In short, where there is selective investment there are selective benefits and perforce even sharper territorial polarization. Metropolitan splintering is not just a circumstance of the past but an ongoing consequence of current practices. This observation may also explain why regionalism has never been able to achieve its integrative promise. The very difference in economic wherewithal between MSAs feeds an asymmetrical relationship between public authorities and the metropolitan areas in which they function.

Table 3 displays a correlation matrix comparing major characteristics of our 51 MSAs against per capita public authority expenditures as a measure of their “activity.” The MSA characteristics include GMP and others that are closely associated with advanced economies. These include educational attainment (bachelor, graduate, or professional degrees) and employment associated with advanced postindustrial economies (finance, insurance, and real estate [FIRE]; professional, scientific, and technical; and information services).

Table 3.

Metropolitan Characteristics and Per Capita Public Authority Expenditures.

Metropolitan Characteristics	Expenditure of Public Authorities
Metropolitan Characteristics	1992	2002	2012^a
Educational qualifications
Bachelor’s degrees per capita	.328* (.107)	.26 (.067)	.366* (.133)
Master’s degrees per capita		.322* (.103)
Professional degree per capita		.418** (.174)
Graduate or professional degrees per capita	.454** (.206)	.349* (.121)	.359* (.128)
Doctorate degrees per capita		.259 (.067)
Employment sector
FIRE employment per capita	.285* (.081)	.174 (.030)	.053 (.002)
Professional, scientific, and technical employment per capita	.442** (.195)	.367* (.134)	.423** (.178)
Information sector employment per capita			.531** (.281)
GMP per capita (in millions)		.344* (.118)	.369* (.136)

Note. Values in parenthesis represent coefficient of determination (r-squared) between the two variables. FIRE = finance, insurance, and real estate; GMP = gross metropolitan product.

Correlation is significant at the .05 level (two-tailed). **Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed)

The 2012 values are estimated using linear regression method on the basis of data from four previous consecutive time periods

As we can see, the variables of education and “postindustrial” employment are strongly associated with the most active public authorities. Educational attainment varies by level of higher education and almost all levels show moderate to high correlations.

Turning to employment, we see that FIRE shows a moderately strong correlation coefficient for the year 1990. All the other relationships are stronger. Positions in professional, scientific, and technical sectors explain close to 20% of the variance in public authority expenditures for 1990, more than 13% in 2000, and nearly 18% for 2010. Employment in the information sector is especially significant showing a strong correlation coefficient that explains 28% of the variance in public authority expenditures for 2010. Finally, GMP for 2000 and 2010 are also positively correlated with public authority activity with coefficients reaching .344 and .369, respectively.

Clearly, in this context of fragmented regionalism, those MSAs benefiting from public authorities have the best educated and the most advanced economies. Although we cannot ascertain where the causal arrows point, we can establish that even these limited instances of metropolitan collective action are highly uneven.⁶

Also in order are some brief remarks about public authority expenditures and the social conditions of metropolises. Taken cumulatively, they present a picture of public expenditures favoring the most affluent metropolitan areas and feeding into inequalities. A simple bivariate analysis between per capita income and per capita expenditures of public authorities showed correlations at .308 in 1990 and .239 in 2010. Although this association is modest, the data do reveal that expenditures are economically stratified. This is reinforced by another bivariate relationship between per capita public authority expenditures and earnings inequalities (as measured by Gini coefficients). The correlations stand at .395 for 1990 and .326 for 2010, demonstrating the extent to which public authorities are associated with social imbalances.

Metropolitan regions also replicate national trends of increased affluence occurring simultaneously with sharply rising inequalities. On this count, the correlations between higher-income and higher-GINI coefficients stand at .745 for 1990 and .791 for 2010.⁷ That wealth accumulates in one area while distress seeps into others may not be a surprise; more revelatory is that public authorities contribute to it.

Overall, much can be said for the vitality of metropolises, their growing affluence and their industrial prowess—in no small part helped by the collective action of public authorities and other special purpose governments. Occurring alongside this vitality, we see a tearing apart of richer from poorer MSAs and polarization of social classes within them.

Stepping Back for Perspective and Looking Forward to a Path

Metropolitan areas are a product of long-term, embedded structural traits that developed by periodic incremental steps. Their politics are based on a historically rooted system of local autonomy. From the early days of the American republic, independent localities grew into their current state. First, by evolving from trading hubs, later into industrial centers, and finally into fragmented postindustrial metropolises. Rather significantly, metropolises became increasingly differentiated, specialized, and socially heterogeneous. Complexity engendered a need for help and coordination, especially as urban agglomerations swelled with new governments. The strings were gradually pulled together by interlocal agreements, special districts, bistate compacts, and federal or state agencies.

Public authorities were a major overlay onto this system—an organizational patch that dealt with the metropolises’ most important functional problems. From one perspective, the arrangements have been enormously “messy,” “disorganized,” and not always democratic. From another perspective, they were efficient and custom-made to fit political exigencies. At its heart, public authorities (and other special purpose governments) addressed immediate problems with concentrated attention to tangible and achievable solutions.

Polycentrists captured this complexity and saw its ability to grow with the challenges. Yet, at least for the early polycentrists, their vision was narrowed to bilateral and multilateral agreements that undertook “system maintenance.” Hardly receiving attention was the growth of public authorities and other special purpose that operated over entire metropolitan regions. These regional catchment basins operated in one way or another to help integrate the system. Ironically, they were the very entities whose regional functions were necessary for the vitality of local government and upon which polycentrists placed so much value.

Nor did the polycentric vision fully account for the imbalances that came from this system. Disparities are part and parcel of how liberal marketplaces work. We need not resort to conspiracies to appreciate that investments are made in areas that possess high-value assets, good locations, and high public-/private-sector capacity. Like any enterprise, public authorities followed marketplace rules, and this entailed wealth generation as well as inequities.

As for the back-door regionalists, they may well have guessed wrongly. Their thwarted hopes can best be explained by mistaken assumptions about the evolution of collective metropolitan action. They assumed the events they were witnessing were embryos of a larger movement that would grow into a force for redistribution and regulation. As we have shown, very much the opposite trends occurred. Metropolitan regions became even more fragmented and more unequal.

What explains these miscalculations is that back-door regionalists were drawing conclusions about regionalism’s sideshows, its short-term occurrences, and practices that were inherently stunted. Among the main shows were public authorities, and their performance was not about redistribution but about profitable development.

Finally, there is something to be said about the endemic quality of metropolitan fragmentation. Metropolitan fragmentation and its attendant inequalities are not just prevalent in the United States but appear to be a condition of advanced or advancing societies. It is expressed in metropolises as an outgrowth of modernity. The more a society advances, the more it is likely to splinter its jurisdictions and, as it turns out, experience rising social polarization (UN-Habitat 2013).

In the generic sense of the term, public authorities are increasing in other advanced economies. Fragmented regionalism is a long-term fixture of the metropolis, and its paradox makes public authorities indispensable. Public authorities of one sort or another have taken their place in metropolises around the world. In the United Kingdom, quasiautonomous nongovernmental organizations (QUANGOs) play a major part in bridging local governments. In France, établissements publiques d’aménagements (EPADs) serve as interjurisdictional authorities to build infrastructure, new towns, and commercial districts (Savitch and Kantor 2002). The metropolises of Buenos Aires and Santiago rely on public authorities to fill interjurisdictional gaps. Even metropolitan regions in Japan and China have experienced greater fragmentation and rely on functional, piecemeal, nondemocratic institutions to bring about regional collective action (Kantor et al. 2012; Ye, Savitch, and Gross 2014).

For good or bad, the regional future will continue to be decided by decentralized metropolises, boosted by public authorities or their functional equivalents. If past experience is any guide, public authorities will not be the instruments from which to reduce fragmentation, redistribute income, or solve social problems. Public authorities do best by building infrastructure.

Those who are serious about reformist possibilities could redirect the public authority growth machine toward lesser advantaged regions. In this way, public authority would act consistently with their purpose by adding to the sum of regional wealth. Granted, marketplaces are less lucrative in distressed metropolises, and pursuing this path requires large sums of public investment. On the bright side of these possibilities, distressed regions often contain the remains of still valuable infrastructure—rail tracks, airport terminals, utility lines, and drainage systems. Many still possess hospitals, museums, parks, and sports facilities. Older metropolises are “richly dormant” in their ability to restore themselves, and these are the raw materials with which public authorities can work.

Any other path toward reforming metropolitan fragmentation would require intercession by higher-level authorities at either state or federal levels. From time to time, this has occurred at the national level (1960s) and in some states (Maryland 1980s, California 1990s). A viable strategy requires an institutional base from which to go forward. Without that institutional base, popular movements are bound to fade. As we look back to go forward, we glean an important lesson from fragmented regionalism. The strengths of local government and public authorities are lodged in strong institutional bases. All the rest is postscript.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

H. V. Savitch is a visiting research fellow at the Metropolitan Institute, Virginia Tech, National Capital Region (NCR). He is also Emeritus Brown and Williamson Distinguished Professor at the University of Louisville. His publications include 13 books and more than 100 articles in journals, collected works, and other outlets. He served as a consultant to numerous governmental agencies. He has been a Lady Davis Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) and a Fulbright Scholar (France and Chile).

Sarin Adhikari is a postdoctoral fellow at the Urban Studies Institute of the University of Louisville. He specializes in metropolitan governance, interlocal relations, and urban policy. His research focuses on issues of fragmentation and inequality across urban localities and how a community’s characteristics affect its contribution toward extralocal cooperative policies.

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