ABSTRACT
The local government landscape is changing. The role played by local gov ernments in determining who gets what from government has been greatly increased over the past two decades as responsibilities have been continually devolved to subnational governments. Devolution has also increased the fis cal demands and service responsibilities of local governments. More than at any other time in our history, cities are now being asked to do more with less. City and county governments have found that they have increased responsi bility for many issues with regional implications, such as environmental policy, economic development, and growth management. Public officials, govern mental administrators, and academics alike have once again begun to look toward regional approaches for dealing with these problems. These include efforts to forge cooperative arrangements among local jurisdictions and ef forts to reorganize local government institutions and structures. Chief among the structural reforms proposed is city-county consolidation: the merging of a county government with one or more municipal governments in a metro politan area to create a single unified governmental unit.
