Abstract:
Localism and regionalism are normally seen as conflicting, conceptions of metropolitan area governance. Localism is the belief that the existing system of a large number of relatively small governments wielding power over such critical matters as land use regulation, local taxation, and the financing of local public services ought to be preserved.
Localism and regionalism are normally seen as conflicting, conceptions of metropolitan area governance. Localism is the belief that the existing system of a large number of relatively small governments wielding power over such critical matters as land use regulation, local taxation, and the financing of local public services ought to be preserved.
Regionalism would move
some power to institutions, organizations or procedures with a larger
territorial scope and more population than existing local governments.
Regionalism appears to be a step towards centralization, and the antithesis of
the decentralization represented by localism.
Yet, in the metropolitan
areas that dominate America at the end of the twentieth century, regionalism is
not just the enemy of localism: It is also localism's logical extension.
Localism is based on a set of arguments concerning the role of local
governments in promoting governmental efficiency, democracy, and community.
But in contemporary
metropolitan areas, the economically, socially, and ecologically relevant local
area is often the region. In these areas, concerns about efficiency, democracy,
and community ought to lead to a shift in power from existing localities to new
processes, structures, or organizations that can promote decision-making on
behalf of the region. Regionalism is,
thus, localism for metropolitan areas.
Localists, however, do
not become regionalists when they live in metropolitan areas. Indeed,
resistance to regionalism is intense in many metropolitan areas. Localism is
not simply a theory intended to advance certain normative goals. It is also a
means of protecting the interests of those who receive advantages from the
existing governance structure. Local self-interest, rather than the political
values localism is said to advance, plays a central role in the opposition to
regionalism.
This essay explores the
relationship between localism and regionalism. It considers the meaning of
regionalism in contemporary urban policy debates and the reasons why
regionalism currently enjoys so much attention from academics, urbanists and
policy analysts. It reviews the arguments for localism, and explains how,
despite the asserted conflict between localism and regionalism, the theories
underlying localism actually make a case for regionalism in contemporary metropolitan
areas.
Finally, it examines the
role of local self-interest in the resistance to regionalism, and the efforts
of regionalists to respond by making the case for regionalism in terms of local
self-interest as well.
Source: Columbia Law School, August 1999, Richard Briffault
Columbia Law School, Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper No. 1 Date posted: January 28, 2000
Comments:
This is where this drivel comes from. Regionalism is required by U.N. Agenda 21 to
destroy Localism. That means taking
local control away from voters, comrade. The “advantage” ‘Localists’ want to
keep a direct connection between the elected officials and the “will of the
governed”. If you elect a mayor and city
council to maintain your roads, you don’t want that responsibility given to an
appointed bureaucrat. The voters will
clamor to have the law establishing regionalism repealed and whoever passed the
law in the first place will get fired in the next election.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea party Leader
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