GOLD Report I - UCLG

METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE260United Cities and Local GovernmentsAs measured bythis index, Franceappears as themost territoriallyfragmentedcountry in Europetitutional fragmentation (3). The highestvalues appear in countries where pre-industrialmunicipal boundaries largely survive,such as France (32), the CzechRepublic and Switzerland (21), Germany(18), the United States (15) and Hungary(12). It may seem surprising that thesevalues are much higher in Hungary and inthe Czech Republic, former communistcountries, than in Poland (3) or in otherpost-communist countries such as SlovakRepublic. This higher level of fragmentationis a result of planned programs for municipaldisaggregation carried out by the Czechand Hungarian national governments.Overall, the IMO data show geopoliticalfragmentation to be highest in those developedcountries where metropolitanizationhas proceeded amid continued legacies ofolder town and village settlement andadministration (France, Germany, Switzerland,the eastern portions of the UnitedStates). Fragmentation is also progressingrapidly in a number of other countries wheremetropolitanization is relatively new, suchas the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain andIsrael. By contrast, far-reaching reformshave succeeded spectacularly in reducingfragmentation in Scandinavia, Canada, andthe United Kingdom.A geopolitical fragmentation index developedby Brunn and Zeigler (1980) combinesthe two previous indicators into a singlemeasurement. This enables a summarycomparison among the IMO countries.As measured by this index, France appearsas the most territorially fragmentedcountry in Europe with a value of 11. Thisindicates considerably more fragmentationthan the average for the United States (7),which is more or less the level for Switzerland.International comparison of the Zeiglerand Brunn scale shows that there is nouniform North American model: Canadianmetropolitan areas are institutionally verydifferent from those in the United States,and recent consolidation reforms haveplaced Canada closer to the NorthernEuropean model. Similarly, it is not possibleto put all countries in Eastern Europe inthe same bracket. While they were all subjectto waves of mergers during the communistperiod, the fragmentation of thepost-communist Czech Republic (3) presentsa completely different profile fromHungary (1.7) or Poland (0.6). Because ofa recent, less-pronounced metropolitanizationprocess, Spain (0.5) appears to becloser to the Netherlands (0.5), Sweden (0.3)and Norway (0.8) than to neighboringFrance. Germany (6) is highly fragmented,and has higher levels in eastern metropolitanareas, as well as some western metropolitanareas, including Koblenz.Other than South Africa, which is includedin the IMO project, no comparable data areas yet available to measure geopoliticalfragmentation in the developing and transitionalcountries of the South. However,South Africa provides a dramatic exampleof governmental restructuring in the South.Post-apartheid reforms in South Africa effectivelyeliminated geopolitical fragmentationby reconfiguring municipal boundaries tocorrespond with the economic and socialoutline of the major metropolitan areas.Similar moves toward metropolitan consolidationtook place earlier in other developingcountries during the period when governmentalconsolidation was fashionable in NorthernEurope. In 1973, the Brazilian militaryregime created nine metropolitan regionsthat are still functioning today. In Republic ofKorea, the regime instituted metropolitanregional governments for Seoul and severalother cities. Many Southern countries alsoestablished some form of metropolitan territorialauthority for their capital city regions.In the South, these consolidation efforts havegenerally failed to eliminate the problem ofgeopolitical fragmentation. There as in theNorth, the problem remains especially evidentin the largest urban regions. Laqian, in arecent survey of governance in Asian metropoles,calls political and administrative fragmentation“[t]he most serious problem thatmany of them face” (2007, p. 145). In some