Consolidation as a Local Government Reform Why City-County Consolidation Is an Enduring Issue

Consolidation of local government units is not a new idea. Merging the func­ tions, structures, or both, of a city (or cities) and a county has been on the agenda as early as the nineteenth century. The first wave of city-county merg­ ers included large cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and New York (Zimmerman 1970: 531). Since then, hundreds of communities have pondered consolidation and it appears to be an enduring issue in local government reform.