ABSTRACT
Metropolitan governance refers to the governing of metropolitan regions. This can be accomplished by a variety of mechanisms, ranging from a comprehensive metropolitan government to a variety of forms of cooperation among the numerous jurisdictions in a metropolitan area, which will be termed governance. Over the period of modern metropolitan development, there has, accordingly, been a debate among scholars and practitioners (in government and business) between the respective virtues of a single unitary metropolitan government on the one hand and a multiplicity of independent, autonomous jurisdictions on the other. The unitary form is said to promise efficiencies of scale and greater equity throughout the metropolitan area. The polycentric form, as it has come to be called, is said to promise public choice, which affords area residents as well as government and business interests a variety of choices of how to govern themselves and regulate local land use. This entry outlines both approaches.
