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The central aim of this article is to examine trends in the municipal government workforce in metropolitan (urban) areas. It explores, from a local public economies perspective, how the intergovernmental organization of municipalities influences their workforce capacities. The article situates the local labor market in state‐local systems and examines how local governments respond to fragmentation in a metropolitan area. The main finding is that the employment capacity of municipalities varies widely across metro areas, with local and intergovernmental factors affecting municipal workforces and labor expenditures. Local capacities and the state's labor framework appear to be influential in the level of government employment. Facing various challenges, municipalities adapt their workforce levels to changing conditions in urban areas. While its main contribution is to research on local government capacity, the article also draws from the intergovernmental literature to identify factors that influence the workforce capacity of municipal governments.

Urban regions derive social and economic benefits as local governments supply water and wastewater services. We analyse differences in water and wastewater spending programmes in US city-regions. The municipal provision of water and wastewater services is situated in a regional context, examining how cities respond to different needs for services within regions. We use pooled data from 2002 to 2017 to examine changes in municipal water and wastewater expenditures. Our central finding is that water and wastewater programmes vary considerably across city-regions. Additional findings are that the municipal provision of these programmes appears to be correlated with the interaction between adjacent cities and changes to their jurisdictional boundaries. City governments may adapt their allocation of resources to water and wastewater functions according to the regional conditions surrounding city jurisdictions. This article connects theories of boundary change with systems of interlocal cooperation that support water and wastewater functions in urban regions.

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