Auckland: an examination of local government in the region

Abstract

To-day, all over the world, there is a growing consciousness that the major problems confronting metropolitan areas cannot be solved by conventional local government. "We do not rule out the possibility that in some measure we may even leave behind present concepts of counties, cities and districts. We may even have to devise a new name for a new concept in local government . . . perhaps 'Metro' or "metro-county" or 'metro-city'. In any event, we must abandon inflexible ideas and start thinking in terms of meeting the needs of our communities". Edward G. Brown, Governor, State of California, Statement to Governor's Commission on Metropolitan Area Problems, 1959. Existing urban populations have mushroomed, but local government territorial boundaries have remained relatively static. Cities, and the surrounding towns and communities, have become metropolitan without adequate change in governmental structure, despite the fact that the existing local governments have been unable, singly or collectively, to cope with the metropolitan problems. Basically, a metropolitan community is a complex of urban areas, geographically situated so as to be socially and economically interdependent, and having one or more dominant centres of activity. The net result is that what is essentially one large metropolitan community by cultural, social, economic, geographic and political relationships, is divided into many disintegrated governments.