He is dead on. This problem, like the siting of sports stadiums, the care of and housing of dependent populations, the education and housing of the poor, the transportation system, and the siting of major medical centers are REGIONAL issues.
Yes.
How about going further to undo the dis-integration that began in earnest about a century ago and forming a single amalgamated municipality? In the book The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy, the author describes how fanaticism for local control and self-determination often led paradoxically to undermine municipal government in the United States
".. municipal fragmentation was unstoppable. State legislators thus cheered the forces of municipal cessation on. ...municipal subdivisions began breaking away around the turn of the (last) century in ever growing numbers; the more crowded and urbanized the county, the greater the fragmentation. By 1910, Minnesota had 645 municipalities, eighteen of them in Minneapolis's Hennepin County.... For the cities, the consequences were .. like being nibbled to death by ducks. They found themselves besieged by leafy, middle-class communities that skimmed off the most affluent citizens and the cleanest and most profitable businesses, leaving them with the dregs. Although well-to-do suburbanites still went downtown to shop, visit the doctor, or take in a concert, their property at home was beyond the reach of city tax assessors. In effect, they were given a license to avail themselves of city services without paying for them in return - in plain English, to steal."
Mike Jensvold East Isles
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