ABSTRACT
This chapter presents one way of conceptualizing and thinking about the regions that Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) inhabit. Common to RIGOs in Non-Metro/Rural Regions is the apparent absence of any significant number of Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs). There is also an absence of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in all but a few isolated cases where a sliver of an adjacent region's MPO might affect a fraction of the RIGO's population. In Integrated Urban Regions, the MPO function is housed in the RIGO. The need for an MPO means that some portion of it meets federal density standards. In the Transportation-Centric Regions there is no RIGO present and only one organization that functions as the MPO. Some cases are just Unique Regional Organizations. In these instances, there may be an entity that is designated as the MPO but is a regional government or state.
