Metropolitan Arrangements - Philippine Institute for Development ...

Metropolitan Arrangements inthe Philippines 63
side by side with a second-tier governance structure within the metropolitan
area. This structure is very common in the United States
but examples in developing countries do exist, notably Metro Manila,
Sao Paulo, Lima, Rio deJaneiro and metropolitan areas in South
Asia.
Geographic or jurisdictional fragmentation is usually a spontaneous
phenomenon stemming from the expansion of the metropolis
beyond the primate or core city. This model promotes economic
efficiency by bringing the government closer to the people and, consequendy,
making it more responsive to local preferences. However,
it has the disadvantage of being less able to capture the benefits from
economies of scale and to address problems associated with spillover
effects of certain types of services. The creation of the second-tier
governance structure in this model is precisely aimed at counteracting
this inherent weakness in jurisdictional fragmentation.
The upper-tier structure takes various forms in different places
around the globe. One may have a metropolitan development council,
metropolitan development authority or a metropolitan government.
The difference among these three options lies in how power is
shared among the LGUs in the metropolitan area and the leadership
structure in the second-tier.
Metropolitan development council (MZK2)
A common and less complex form of metropolitan structure is
a metropolitan development council (MDC). In this structure, the
powers of LGUs composing the council are maintained. Metropolitan
leadership rests on the council composed of mayors representing
the cities and municipalities and whose chairmanship is appointed
from among the members.
A similar model can be found in most large U.S. metropolises
such as the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
(WASHCOG), which is an association of federal, state and local governments
concerned with the Washington metropolitan area. The
metropolis covers a land area of 4,000 square miles located in three
states (Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia) with a population
of about 4 million people.
The MMA is a form of MDC. Metro Naga's adopted structure is
one vari_/nt that follows the RDC type of organization, minus the
agency representations. Instead, it has purely local government composition.
The Metro Davao3 model also has semblance to this structure.
The difference between these existing models is their respec-