On the flexibility of municipal boundaries

Abstract

In models of systems of communities, the assumptions concerning the ease with which boundaries, once drawn, can be adjusted play a central role. Even in a system with many jurisdictions, flexibility of boundaries is a key factor in determing how land rents get allocated within and across communities. We argue that, of the variety of observed types of boundary change, only landowner-initiated detachments (removal of land from existing jurisdictions) are likely to correspond to the type of flexibility needed for Tiebout-like outcomes. We show that detachments are empirically rare in the United States and that institutional rules governing boundary change tend to make detachment difficult. Thus, neither the evidence on the frequency of detachments nor the evidence on institutional rules governing boundary change supports the flexible-boundaries hypotheses.