University of British Columbia Press Redrawing Local Government Boundaries: An International Study of Politics, Procedures, and Decisions

Local governments today are under extreme pressure to undertakeboundary reform. The global trend toward urbanization has brought withit economic, environmental, social, and regional demands that havesevere implications for local governments and their territories. As aresult, changing the areal jurisdiction of this most basic level ofgovernment has become a persistent and pressing challenge around theglobe. This collection examines the legal and regulatory proceduresinvolved in such municipal restructuring. Case studies from eightnations -- the United States, Canada, Spain, Germany, Israel, Korea,China, and South Africa -- investigate how and why local governmentshave been enlarged in scope and reduced in number within each country.Four key aspects are examined: the geography of the local governmentboundary problem, the procedures associated with boundary reform, theroles of institutions and actors in boundary reform, and theimplications for urban and regional governance. Redrawing Local Government Boundaries offers a broadtheoretical understanding of local government boundary reform andinforms the wider scholarly discussion about institutional change,state structures, and the areal jurisdiction of local governments. Thefirst international comparative study of local boundary reform, it willbe a valuable reference for scholars and students of political science,public administration, geography, urban studies, and urbanplanning.