The World Pattern of Administrative Area Reform

Abstract

Spatial patterns of administrative area reform at the international level and their underlying considerations have been identified through a survey of relevant literature on the theme. While the First World countries of Europe reorganized their local authority areas into bigger and fewer ones with a view to adapting them to the emerging patterns of daily life, their counterparts in North America and Australia did not deem this necessary. The Second World countries invariably replaced their traditional structures by new ones, seeking a unity between administrative and economic organization of space. The Third World countries generally continued with their inherited structures, with some occasional ad hoc modifications mostly toward subdivision. In general, administrative area reform was influenced more by political ideology than by the development level of different countries.