ABSTRACT
A constant reference point in historical reviews of local government is what was achieved in the City of Birmingham, under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain, from the 1870s onwards. This chapter identifies four pre-2010 eras, which have characterised as 'Municipal Enterprise', 'Municipal Socialism', 'The Era of Services Domination', and 'The Increasing Domination of the Centre'. It emphasises the proactive, innovative governmental character of the municipal- enterprise era. That capacity for community governance has waxed and waned since, and is currently dormant, but remains a key requisite of a healthy local government system. Several aspects of the way in which local government operated from 1945 to 1975 would suggest that this period might merit the epithet of a 'golden age'. The chapter explains the increasing central dominance of a whole range of services and aspects of local government: finance; housing; education; higher education; local planning responsibilities; and the requirement to put selective services out to tender.
