GOLD Report I - UCLG

263ferent ethnicity or race, the integration ofthe newcomers can give rise to conflicts witha national majority, as well as between thenew minority and the resident majority.Immigration and citizenship issues havethus provoked both populist backlashes andresurgences in minority-rights movementsin the cities of Europe, Japan and the UnitedStates. In the growing number of large citieswith pervasive ethnic or racial divisions, suchas Mumbai or Los Angeles, group identityregularly furnishes flashpoints for social tensions,political clashes and inter-group violence.institutional designs for metropolitan governance.At the beginning of the 1940s, one ofthe leading representatives of the ChicagoSchool of urban studies, Louis Wirth (1942),called for formal institutional consolidation:“We live in an era which dissolves boundaries,but the inertia of antiquarian lawyersand lawmakers, the predatory interests oflocal politicians, real estate men, and industrialists,the parochialism of suburbanites,and the myopic vision of planners have preventedus from a full recognition of the inescapableneed for a new planning unit in themetropolitan region.”In many countriesthe numberof partiesand political groupsrepresented inlocal assemblieshas grownsubstantiallyA fourth element of the new urban strife ispartisan conflict over ideologies, programsand strategies. The influence of distinct partiesand coalitions differs considerably,depending on location and context. Reflecting,at least in part, trends in other dimensionsof conflict, political parties have alsodeveloped new forms. In many countries thenumber of parties and political groups representedin local assemblies has grown substantially.In Europe new ecological andpopulist parties have appeared. In the Southdecentralization and the establishment of localdemocracy has helped foster new interestgroups in the local partisan landscape.Partisan organizations traditionally haveexerted only limited control over local politicsin many Southern cities. Now upstartreligious and ethnic parties compete openlyand with some success with the establishedparties. As in Europe, these new groupsthreaten traditional single – or two-partydomination, and further complicate the alreadyfragmented local party system.IV. Institutional alternatives forgovernance within metropolitanareasIn early 20th Century North America, widespreadsuburbanization created some of themost extensive and dispersed urban regionsever seen. Under conditions of high geopoliticalfragmentation, a debate emerged thatto this day continues to shape choices aboutUp to the 1970s academic opinion throughoutthe global North reflected this view. Thewave of reorganization of local governmentin the 1960s and 1970s in Europe, NorthAmerica and parts of the South drew onthese critiques. Two arguments were essentialto the case against fragmentation. First,the essential tasks and responsibilities ofgovernance – from infrastructure to socialequity – spilled over fragmented jurisdictionalboundaries in ways that demanded consolidatedinstitutions. The second, opposing,concept posits that larger governmentalunits could take advantage of economies ofscale, providing public services at lower costthan smaller governments.Applied to vastly different regional, nationaland socio-political contexts, a decades-oldargument has coalesced around two generalstrategies: supra-community reformationand territorial polycentrism.IV.1. Supra-community reformTo those in favor of creating overarchingmetropolitan governments to replace a multitudeof existing local authorities, a salientfailing of the multi-government model is itsweak performance as a democratic institution.This is evidenced by a decline in localpolitical and electoral participation in manycountries. In addition, many local governmentsare perceived as inefficient and disconnectedfrom the expectations of theircitizens.