Development Of Metropolitan Regions Research Articles

Metropolis is a figure of speech. It is not a unit of government, but a concept that is foggy in spots and fuzzy around the edges. Definitions have been offered and are being utilized currently, but they are not completely satisfactory. Nevertheless, while we grope for satisfactory definitions and interpretations, an acute problem exists which we variously designate as metropolitanism, urbanization or decentralization. It challenges the best thinking of our time in many different branches of learning. It is the underlying thesis of this paper that there is no reasonable expectation that the problems of adequate financing for local government services can be either fully or permanently solved through governmental reorganization, whether that takes the form of annexation, consolidation or a new super unit of local government imposed on a metropolitan or regional basis. Progress can, and undoubtedly will, be made along all of these lines, so that here and there, and for temporary periods, the situation will be considerably ameliorated. But the current and potential forces of technological, economic and sociological change are so dynamic that the governmental scientists and reformers will not be able to devise and bring into existence new patterns of government that will be comparable in stability and permanence to those that have existed in the past. There has been a great increase in the rate of depreciation and obsolescence on governmental structures as well as on industrial machines and business techniques. This will be particularly true if those who are trying to devise the new patterns simplify the current metamorphosis merely in terms of increasing urbanization. The so-called urbanization appears paradoxically to be resulting partly from the outward push of the population away from congested urban centers, and even from smaller centers, and partly from the tremendous spurt in population growth. As the city residents push out from the center of the city they tend to engulf

Read full abstract