Metropolitan "Fragmentation": A Research Note

• DOI: 10.1177/027507407000400103
• Date: 01 February 1970
• Published date: 01 February 1970
• Author: Brett W. Hawkins,Thomas R. Dye
• Subject Matter: Articles

Metropolitan "Fragmentation":
A Research Note
BRETT W. HAWKINS
University of Georgia
and
THOMAS R. DYE
Florida State University
For many years the metropolitan reform movement devoted itself,
among other things, to ridding the nation’s metropolitan areas of &dquo;frag-
mented government&dquo; with its &dquo;ineffective, multiple local jurisdictions&dquo; and
‘‘inefficiencies and duplication of services.&dquo; Centralization of governmental
activity in metropolitan areas was given high priority in the recommenda-
tions of metropolitan reformers. &dquo;A metropolitan area is a single unit in an
economic and social sense, and it should be a single unit governmentally.&dquo;,
Recent research has challenged many of the assumptions of the
metropolitan reform movement, however. The political and social values
that are threatened by centralization have been identified 2
2 Much of the
metropolitan reform literature now appears naive in light of recent demands
to decentralize urban bureaucracies and establish local community control.
1
An interesting review of this and related arguments can be found in Anwar
Syed, The Political Theory of American Local Government (New York: Random House,
1966).
2
See Charles R. Adrian, "Public Attitudes and Metropolitan Decision Making,"
Institute of Local Government, University of Pittsburgh, 1962; Brett W. Hawkins,
"Public Opinion and Metropolitan Reorganization in Nashville," Journal of Politics
(May, 1966), 408-418; Thomas R. Dye, "The Local-Cosmopolitan Dimension and the
Study of Urban Politics," Social Forces (March, 1963 ) 239-246 ; Basil G. Zimmer and
Amos H. Hawley, "Local Government as Viewed by Fringe Residents," Rural Sociology
(December, 1958), 363-370; and G. R. Boynton and Marion Roth, "Communal Ideology
and Political Support," Journal of Politics (February, 1969), 167-185.
Brett W. Hawkins (Ph. D. Vanderbilt University) is Associate Professor of
Political Science at the University of Georgia. His publications in the field of urban
affairs include Nashville Metro: The Politics of City-County Consolidation, the Ethnic
Factor in American Politics, and articles in many scholarly journals. Currently he is
writing a book summarizing the research literature on the explanation of city politics.
Thomas R. Dye, Professor of Government at Florida State University, is author of
Politics, Economics, and the Public (1965), Politics in State and Communities (1969),
and other books and articles in professional journals on public policy and state and
local government.
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Yet to date neither reformers nor their critics have made much
effort to measure comparatively the extent of &dquo;fragmentation&dquo; in each of
the nation’s metropolitan areas (although the Bureau of the Census has).
Also there has been little systematic, comparative analysis of the conditions
associated with fragmentation, or the consequences of fragmentation.3 The
purpose of this note is to measure fragmentation in all 212 (1962)...