One hundred and thirty municipalities
Local control is worth defending. Local control over a trash contract is not what anyone means when they defend it. The useful question is narrower: which functions genuinely benefit from local judgment, and which are simply being duplicated across a fragmented region because nobody built the shared alternative.
First entry April 13, 2022 most recent April 12, 2026
It separates the thing worth protecting from the thing being duplicated, which is the distinction the rest of the series depends on.
Local government matters because proximity matters. Communities differ, citizens should be able to influence decisions close to home, and many choices genuinely benefit from local knowledge and judgment. None of that requires every municipality to independently perform every function of government.
The useful distinction is between local governance and local production. A community may have good reason to make its own decisions about land use, public space, service levels or community priorities while having very little reason to independently procure commodities, operate specialized back-office systems, negotiate identical contracts or maintain capabilities that neighboring municipalities also struggle to sustain.
Regionalism should therefore not begin with consolidation. It should begin function by function, asking where local judgment creates value and where fragmentation merely duplicates cost and weakens capacity. The goal is not fewer communities. It is stronger communities with access to institutions operating at the scale the work actually requires.
- Sep 10, 2023The Significance of Regionalizing Waste Stream ManagementThe first concrete case, chosen because it is the one nobody defends on principle.
- Jan 26, 2025Regionalizing Fire and EMS Services is a No-BrainerRaised the stakes from procurement cost to public safety capacity.
- Sep 26, 2025Boundaries Don’t Breathe. Communities Do.Drew the line between local identity, which is real, and duplicated administration, which is not.
- Mar 16, 2026Stop Making 130 Municipalities Reinvent the Trash ContractReturned to the original case with a sharper account of what shared delivery actually requires.
8 essays, newest first.
Nothing matches .
Try a broader term, or a concept rather than a phrase: pensions, regionalism, streets, workforce.