Functional responsibilities of municipal government: Metropolitan disparities and instruments of intergovernmental management

Abstract

This paper examines the functional responsibilities of municipal government, in the context of intergovernmental interactions in metropolitan areas of the USA. It presents an operationalisation of the functional responsibilities of municipal government: measures of size and breadth of those responsibilities assess the reliability of the findings across those related measurements. Alternative explanations are tested for differences in the functional responsibilities of municipal government in metropolitan (metro) areas. The central finding is that the functional responsibilities of municipal government vary widely; additional findings are that regional and intergovernmental contexts shape those responsibilities, based on a pooled time-series analysis of municipal governments. The paper reports census-normalised data that can be utilised for research extensions. Although its primary contribution is to research on functional responsibilities of municipal government, the paper also proposes a local public economies approach to identify factors influencing the breadth of those responsibilities in metropolitan areas.

An exploration of structural determinants driving racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths in Michigan

“…For instance, segregation is known to contribute to stark racial inequities in home values and race-related access to well-paying jobs, affordable housing, and adequately funded school systems. As the revenue derived from property values and the costs associated with poverty are critical to local government fiscal health, racialized inequalities in income and wealth may shape local governments' budgeting decisions, investment priorities, infrastructures, and service levels-producing material differences in public life and population health (Eisenberg 2021;León-Moreta 2019).…”