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Metropolitan Government, 1975: An Extrapolation of Trends: The New Metropolis: Green Belts, Grass Roots or Gargantua?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert C. Wood
Robert C. Wood
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Extract

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses in the study of urban government today, one fact seems clear: a process of transformation is underway. How fundamental a restructuring of research and teaching is involved is not yet certain, for the tide of debate still runs strong. At the very least however, the new model will be longer, wider and indelibly stamped with the forward look.

The boundaries of urban study are no longer limited to the formal structure and administrative processes of local government; they now embrace the variety of public activities within metropolitan regions, whether local, state, or federal in origin. The ranks of political scientists are augmented by sociologists, economists, demographers, and planners demonstrating renewed interest in the field. And almost every analysis is dynamic in scope and method, designed to anticipate the policy problems yet to come.

This last characteristic deserves emphasis. Few areas in political science seem to have accepted more completely Harold Lasswell's injunction in the Presidential Address of 1956 to scan “the horizon of the unfolding future.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1958 , pp. 108 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1958

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References

1 Cf. Jones, Victor, Metropolitan Government, (Chicago, 1942)Google Scholar; Bollens, John C., The States and the Metropolitan Power (Chicago, 1956)Google Scholar; the National Conference on Metropolitan Problems, East Lansing, 1956, and individual metropolitan area surveys. Several of these rely on population trends almost exclusively to develop reform proposals. Hawley, Amos H., The Changing Shape of Metropolitan America (Glencoe, 1956)Google Scholar, analyzes demographic developments. SMA means the Census Bureau's “standard metropolitan area.”

2 The Future of Cities and Urban Redevelopment, Part II, Woodbury, Coleman, editor, (Chicago, 1953)Google Scholar, and Financing Metropolitan Government, a symposium conducted by the Tax Institute (Princeton, 1955)Google Scholar, place special emphasis on this trend.

3 For a general summary of this position, see Queens, S. A. and Carpenter, D. B., The American City (New York, 1953)Google Scholar, Chapter 7; McKenzie, R. D., The Metropolitan Community (New York, 1933)Google Scholar, Chapter 9; and Bogue, Don J., Structure of the Metropolitan Community (Chicago, 1949)Google Scholar.

4 Edward C. Banfield, “The Changing Political Environment of City Planning,” a paper delivered at the 1956 meeting of the Association.

5 This conclusion is a major point in almost every description of metropolitan government. Adrian, Charles, in Governing Urban America (New York, 1955)Google Scholar, Chapters 2 and 11, gives an able summary of this and the other negative consequences discussed earlier.

6 An authoritative review of past and current literature dealing with the character of the metropolitan community is found in Scott Greer's “Individual Participation in Mass Society,” a paper prepared for Conference Study of the Community, Northwestern University, 1956.

7 Arensberg, Conrad, “American Communities,” The American Anthropologist, vol. 57, pp. 1143–1162 (Dec. 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Reiss, Albert J., “Some Logical and Methodological Problems in Community Research,” Social Forces, vol. 33, pp. 51–57 (October, 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Manvel, Allen P., “Trends in Municipal Finance,” Municipal Yearbook, 1957Google Scholar, showing the doubling of annual revenues for the 481 largest cities between 1942 and 1955 and the six-fold increase in non-property taxes.

9 Projecting the municipal bond market is a risky business and certainly a strong case can be made that cities have explored this avenue to the limit in the last few years. Over the long run, however, if continued prosperity is assumed, it seems clear that municipal offerings will continue to play an important part in the investment market.

10 Non-property tax revenue accounted for 27% of all local revenue in 1953. State and federal aid was about 8 billion dollars. It is also worth noting that an inverse relation usually exists between grants and non-property taxes by local units of government, so that units incapable of exploring a broader tax structure are bolstered disproportionately by aid formulae. For a fuller discussion, see The American Assembly, The Forty-Eight States: Their Tasks as Policy Makers and Administrators (New York, 1955)Google Scholar.

11 Relatively little attention has been given to the subject of metropolitan voting behavior, and no general hypotheses seem firmly established. The Banfield analysis assumed a constant city Democratic majority of 60% and a Republican suburban majority of 60%. This assumption may be unrealistic after close analysis of the 1952 and 1956 national elections. For 14 metropolitan areas showing increasing Republican strength in 1952 over 1948, the gain in 8 central cities was greater than in their suburbs. In 1956, Republican central city gains continued, only San Francisco and Los Angeles managing a slight Democratic comeback. In spot Congressional elections in suburban St. Louis, sharp Democratic gains were registered between 1946 and 1954. A study of Boston metropolitan elections, state and national, between 1940 and 1954, showed 15 suburban towns growing increasingly Republican, 9 increasingly Democratic, and 13 changing from Republican to Democratic. While these analyses do not provide anything like a firm basis for positive speculation they do cast considerable doubt on the theory of suburban “conversion” to Republicanism, so prevalent in recent years.

12 In the following discussion of metropolitan economic developments, the analysis is based upon interim findings of the New York Metropolitan Region Study. I am indebted to Raymond Vernon, Director of the study, and the other economists on the staff for their patient revelations of the mysteries of regional economics. The study has not yet reached the point where the trends discussed can be stated in quantitative terms, and considerable modifications of the reasoning here summarized may take place before the project's conclusion in 1959. At the present time, however, these findings appear fairly well substantiated. The Study, and the economists therein are, of course, not responsible for the interpretations and inferences I have made so far as metropolitan government is concerned.

13 Duggar, George A., “The Tax System and a Responsible Housing Program,” unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1956Google Scholar, Ch. 6.

14 Arensberg, op. cit.

15 Reiss, op. cit.

16 Greer, op. cit.

17 Elkins, Stanley and McKitrick, Eric, “A Meaning for Turner's Frontier,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 69, pp. 321–353, and pp. 565–602 (Sept. and Dec., 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ibid., p. 325.

19 Ibid.

20 Duncan, Otis and Reiss, Albert J. Jr.,, Social Characteristics of Urban and Rural Communities, 1950 (New York, 1956)Google Scholar. The citations here are both with respect to conclusions in the book, as well as an indication of source data from which independent statistical series have been developed.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Burgess, Ernest W., “Urban Areas” in Chicago, An Experiment in Social Science Research, ed. Smith, T. V. and White, L. D. (Chicago, 1929), pp. 113–138Google Scholar, and Hoyt, Homer, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities (Washington, 1939)Google Scholar.

24 Otis, D. and Duncan, Beverly, “Residential Distribution and Occupation Stratification,” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 60, pp. 493–503 (March, 1955)Google Scholar.

25 Woodbury, op. cit., p. 367.

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