The Need for Local Government Reform in the United States

Abstract

F OR A NATION which has displayed so much administrative and political ingenuity and has been so much concerned with the deduction of systematic general principles from detailed studies of governmental organization, the United States has shown a curious disregard for the over-all problem of local government. Even scholars in the field have tended to compartmentalize local units into various types rather than to relate the different units to one another as parts of a total level of government.' No public attempt, for example, has been made to explore the implications of new sociological, political, and administrative conditions for the traditional forms, areas, and functions of local government. By way of contrast, this country has experienced several successive waves of official as well as private studies of administrative organization at both national and state levels; and more recently a number of attempts have been made at reappraising the intergovernmental relationships involved in the federal structure, including, most prominently, the Report by the President's Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. In terms of further contrast, the British, from whom the United States inherited its local structure, have been much concerned with the general problem of local government. A long list of royal commissions could be cited whose investigations and reports have influenced the structure and functions of local government ranging in time all the way from the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, 1834, to the Local Government Boundary Commission which submitted reports in 1946 and 1947. The unitary nature of British government makes possible uniform treatment of local government through acts of Parliament, such as the Municipal Corporation Acts of 1835 and 1882 and the Local Government Acts of 1888, 1894, 1926, 1933, and 1948. This is not to suggest that local government in Britain functions perfectly and meets all the needs of a highly urban society in 1955. Actually there has been continuous and insistent demand for local government reform, especially since 1945, but the political strength represented by local political organizations, the association of local public officials, and other interest groups has prevented far-reaching reforms. This