Introduction

Relations between local governments and state governments in the United States have been of considerable interest to scholars from a wide variety of disciplines including law, political science, economics, history, sociology, public administration, and public policy. Many have focused in one way or another on local autonomy or local home rule. State and local officials bring different jurisdiction-serving perspectives to the job, be they members of commissions on intergovernmental relations or of financial control boards overseeing the affairs of some municipality. Tensions among state–local officials are also inevitable because the distribution of authority, finances and responsibilities among them is often unclear. The local home rule movement first gained momentum in the late nineteenth century in response to what many saw as an excessive wave of state intervention in the affairs of large cities. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.