ABSTRACT
More than any other topic in this volume, city-county consolidation has been studied through case studies. Comparative analyses of structural boundary changes such as municipal annexation and special district formation are very common, and many cross-sectional analyses of service provision through interlocal contracting and functional consolidation have been published over the years.1 In contrast, city-county consolidation has been examined almost exclusively through case studies. This is especially true for analyses of the politics of city-county consolidation, as most of the few comparative studies examining consolidation analyze the effects of forming these governments on local government spending and economic development. This case study literature has left us with rich, detailed knowledge of the consolidation ef forts in a few communities, but the literature has been less useful for devel oping the broad-based knowledge necessary for building and testing our theories about how these efforts unfold. It is often not clear from these stud ies which of the conclusions about the event are unique to that community and which apply more generally.
