There is renewed interest among public officials, government administrators and academics for regional approaches to metropolitan governance, and one of the principal structural reforms is city-county consolidation (Carr, 2004; Feiock, 2004). According to its neo-progressive proponents, city-county consolidation can do many things: [It]... invigorates local democracy... and provides a mechanism to... redress environmental externalities and urban sprawl and reduce income inequality and income differentials in metropolitan areas. (Carr, 2004, p. 5) Other claimed benefits of a consolidated form of government include public service economies of scale, elimination of duplication of services, enhanced economic growth, reversal of geographically uneven development, and more accountable government (Hawkins et al., 1991; Feiock, 2004; Leland & Johnson, 2004).
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