Metropolitan Organization and Governance

Abstract

New conceptualizations are needed to encompass cumulating research findings that complex, multijurisdictional, multilevel organization is a productive arrangement for metropolitan areas. A local public economy approach recognizes (I) the distinction between provision and production, and the different considerations that bear on each; (2) the distinction between governance and government, and the multiple levels of governance; (3) the difference between metropolitan fragmentation and complex metropolitan organization, and the prevalence of the complex organization over fragmentation; and (4) the necessity for citizen choice and public entrepreneurship in crafting productive organizational and governance arrangements. It may contribute to a rethinking with respect to governance structures adapted to the diversity characteristic of American metropolitan areas.