ABSTRACT
Metropolitan amalgamation1 or consolidation provides an interesting confluence of past and current dialogue about central urban concerns. The potential benefits of local government amalgamation have been framed in many ways: increased effectiveness and efficiency, increased equity, reduc tion in governmental overlap and fragmentation, and as an antidote to the costs of urban sprawl. Yet, little consolidation research has focused upon implementation issues and even less on the potential effects of how the con solidation was instigated. Almost universally in the United States, city-county consolidations “bubble up” from the communities in which they occur and generally are predicated on some sort of plebiscite. There has not been a mandated consolidation in the United States since 1898 in New York City; Indianapolis’s Unigov does not qualify because the incorporated municipali ties continue to exist (Sancton 2001). However, “top-down” amalgamations are common in Canada where provincial governments have historically had much greater power vis-a-vis municipalities than in the United States. Does the impetus for amalgamation matter in the process and outcome of a mu nicipal consolidation? Can top-down amalgamations engender the kind of local support necessary for successful long-term implementation? Or, are “forced” amalgamations destined to cause political conflict that will ulti mately lessen the potential positive effects of such a reorganization?
