ancient cities

Structures of local government can vary between
two poles, stressing either the political or administrative
aspects of governance. In the United States,
for example, urban local government can be legally
either mayor–council or council–manager in form,
although in practice most cities are a mix of these
two models. In the United Kingdom, the 2000
local government law permitted localities to choose
from three distinct structures, with or without a
directly elected mayor. Only a minority of countries
permit local choice over the organizational
shape of local government. The majority of local
governments, particularly in the developing world,
are highly constrained and controlled by central
government, both in form and in content.
Most municipalities are responsible for basic
maintenance of the streets and parks, for sanitation
and solid waste management, and often for
local traffic management and policing. Local governments
typically are also responsible for urban
land-use planning. More expanded functions
include infrastructural development and construction
(such as roads and sewerage systems). Some
large municipalities may be responsible for social
services such as health care and education and
even welfare policies.
Economic Aspects
Local government (sometimes referred to as fiscal
federalism) is studied extensively in the economic
literature from the point of view of the efficient
spatial allocation of public goods in an intergovernmental
system. The principles of accountability
to the full range of interests and intensity of needs
in the community and responsiveness to the heterogeneous
and time-varying needs in the local
community underlie justifications for decentralizing
functions from central to local governments.
Decentralization is justified where preferences for
a given public good meet the following criteria:
(1) they are heterogeneous, (2) there are few jurisdictional
spillovers or externalities, (3) there are
few economies of scale, and (4) central government
has less access to information about local preferences
than local government. If these conditions are
not met, then decentralizing to local governments is
inefficient. Furthermore, if the sociocultural conditions
necessary for democratic citizenship (such as
education or the presence of plural local political
Local Government
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and associational life) are absent at the local level,
then decentralization to local governments is
unlikely to advance democratic accountability.
Thus, the consensus in the field is that there cannot
be any a presumption that decentralization
will represent the interests of the poor more equitably
or that it will necessarily improve the efficiency
of public service delivery.
Democratic Aspects
A venerable assumption is that local government
is a crucial arena in which individuals and groups
can learn the arts of cooperative, participatory
democratic governance. This is because local governments
are responsible for issues of immediate
concern to most people and operate at a scale
accessible to ordinary people. For example, when
conflicts arise over local government plans for
physical urban development (such as urban
renewal or road construction) that threaten local
communities, democratic participation is a way
for residents to express their (potentially conflicting)
views on local matters.
In Democracy in America, published in 1835,
Alexis de Tocqueville advanced the founding
statement of this assumption: “Town-meetings
are to liberty what primary schools are to science;
they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach
men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may
establish a system of free government, but without
the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have
the spirit of liberty.” This claim was echoed
famously by J. S. Mill in 1859 and 1861; he saw
local government as an arena in which citizens
were educated in the habits and dispositions necessary
for the exercise of free democratic government.
This tradition continues to inform advocates
of grassroots democracy.
History, however, has treated both the quantitative
and qualitative aspects of this claim harshly:
Rather than being an arena of vibrant and extensive
political participation, local government today
is less vibrant than national politics in terms of
political activity, participation, and interest. Voter
turnout rates, for example, are generally lower in
local as opposed to national elections. Scholars
have identified two main reasons why local
politics is less appealing than national politics:
(1) there are fewer institutional mechanisms at the