ABSTRACT
The creation and growth of metropolitan regions, although permanent and irreversible, may be viewed simply as an outcome of the process of urbanization. Yet today's metropolitan areas are quite different, quantitatively and qualitatively, from urban settlements of the past. Quantitatively, their population is often greater than that of a medium-sized state. Qualitatively, the density resulting from this physical concentration not only gives rise to different principles of social behaviour but also calls for new technical solutions to ensure the proper functioning of the settlement. In turn, these changing physical, social and technical conditions demand new and more adequate organizational and administrative systems for the metropolis and indeed for the nation as a whole. Thus the emerging metropolitan systems are seen as products of the various demands being made upon them and it is the nature of these various pressures being exerted and the response by way of metropolitan governmental and administrative structures that is the subject of examination here.
