The persisting functional and jurisdictional problems generated by rapid urbanization and technological change have rekindled interest in the role of counties in the governance of the Nation's metropolitan areas. A number of reformers have become disenchanted with councils of governments, areawide planning and development districts, and other recent regional approaches because of their limited capacity to deal authoritatively with certain conditions found in the metropolis. These include the flight of higher income residents and industries to suburbia, the proliferation of special districts, the inability of many municipalities to expand their boundaries through annexation to encompass urbanizing areas, and the inequities and diseconomies involved in central-city financing of regional services. As a result of its geographic scope, political base for party organization, administrative responsibilities as an arm of State government, fiscal powers, and functional capacity, reform proposals are increasingly focusing upon the county as a unit of areawide government.2

To some observers, the county-oriented approach to metropolitan governmental reorganization is the most politically feasible way to meet public service needs since it would not drastically alter the jurisdictional landscape.3 It would involve a gradual change in the county's role as an administrative agent of the State to a full-scale urban government capable of performing a range of regional and municipal functions. 4 As early as 1942, for example, it was noted, "A fruitful course of action (for metropolitan reorganization) might be, first to reorganize the urban county, to give it a municipal structure, and, then, to consolidate it with its municipalities or to enlarge its functions and transform it into an effective unit of metropolitan government."5

To others, the county does not represent an across-the-board approach to solving structural or service delivery problems. Rather, it embraces a variety of institutional and program practices, combinations of which are used in varying degrees by counties in metropolitan areas across the country to meet the changing needs of their citizenry.6 These observers see a piecemeal, gradual, and unsystematic future development of the Nation's metropolitan counties. In certain instances, the county would be the governmental unit responsible for performing areawide functions, while local functions (single jurisdiction in scope) would continue to be handled by municipalities.7 In other instances, the county would assume responsibility for delivering certain services in unincorporated areas, and would continue to do so even after incorporation. In still others, the county would be authorized or mandated by the State to undertake new functions on an area wide basis not provided before by constituent municipal governments.8

In sum, a range of servicing options is available to metropolitan counties: (1) delivery of services to unincorporated areas; (2) assumption of responsibility for functions transferred from cities under State law and provision of these new or additional functions on a countywide basis; (3) expansion of old functions or assumption of new ones voluntarily on a countywide basis; (4) involvement in cooperative arrangements with other units of government within its area for the provision of services; and (5) comprehensive governmental reorganization, simultaneously reallocating certain urban-type functions from the municipal to the county levels. 9

Most authorities, then, agree that the county is pivotal in any functional rearrangement of the metropolitan governance system. They acknowledge that in many instances the county has the requisite geographic scope and can be endowed with the necessary fiscal, structural, and organizational powers to become a unit of areawide government. Moreover, they recognize that every successful major metropolitan government reorganization, except in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, has involved a single restructured county. 10 However, there is less. consensus on the types of functional and institutional approaches most appropriate for singlecounty and multicounty SMSA's.

In unicounty metropolitan areas, the county is usually the prime target of reorganization efforts. Here the county, government is in a strategic position to perform areawide functions by itself or in combination with constituent cities and to implement long-range policies that will guide metropolitan development. Its actions will affect all the governments within the area. But the extent to which the county assumes responsibilities will depend on such factors as State constraints and support, the number of activities of general purpose local governments and special districts in the area, county and municipal fiscal conditions, and citizen demands for public services.

In sharp contrast, restructuring of the county alone cannot produce a vehicle for areawide governance in multicounty metropolitan areas. This is particularly the case where a considerable portion of the metropolitan population resides outside of the central county. In these areas, variations of the regional council and special district approaches have been considered and occasionally implemented. 11 Consequently, county reorganization has been proposed mainly where all or the preponderant majority of the metropolitan population resides within a single county. In many of these areas, suburban counties serve as the major building block in a metropolitan governance system.

This chapter focuses upon the areas for which counties are potentially the most suitable units of

areawide government - single

county Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Although the 127 unicounty SMSA's include only 4 percent of all county units in the United States, they comprise almost half of the SMSA total and govern 38.2 million people. Some comparative analysis will also be undertaken in connection with multicounty SMSA's and their central and suburban-fringe counties. Of particular interest are (1) the characteristics of unicounty metropolitan areas; and (2) the extent to which single-county SMSA's are performing and financing areawide functions, engaging in interlocal cooperation, and serving as organizational units for Federal and State substate programs.

For purposes of this chapter, the term "metropolitan county" will be used in connection with both. single-county and multi-county SMSA's. The term. "urban county" will be used in reference to certain jurisdictions that provide a wide range of municipaltype services on a countywide basis-such as police and fire protection, water and sewer systems, waste disposal, transportation, and libraries- as a result of transfers from subcounty governments or the assumption of new functional responsibilities.

POPULATION CHARACTERISTICS

Defining a metropolitan county as a by-product. of population density and of economic and social integration presents more difficulties than considering it as a vehicle for metropolitan governance. Since 1958, the Bureau of the Census has used a set of criteria established by the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) with the advice of the Federal Committee on Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 12 for the purpose of defining and designating SMSA's. These criteria build upon the Census' definition of an urbanized area. The concept holds that a metropolitan area is an integrated economic and social unit with a recognized large population nucleus located within and including a county (often referred to as the central county) or town (as in New England) or involving more than one county. 13

In addition to criteria of population size and density, SMSA's are also characterized by a considerable amount of social and economic interaction. In multicounty areas, for example, outlying counties are considered to be socially and economically integrated with the central SMSA county if 15 percent or more of its population works in the central city, or if 25 percent of its labor force resides in the central county. 14

Given this backdrop, a metropolitan county may be: (1) a single-county SMSA jurisdiction, urbanized, having either a central city or twin cities which satisfy the population, social, and economic criteria

these units and designated metropolitan counties lies in their absence of an urban center. While nondesignated counties have urbanized areas, they do not have single or contiguous urban centers of over 50,000 population.

The existence of these potential SMSA's has brought about a revision in the OMB criteria for metropolitan area designation. In a November 1971 action, the Office of Management and Budget indicated that a metropolitan area must contain one city with 50,000 or more inhabitants, or a city with a minimum population of 25,000 with contiguous incorporated and unincorporated places having a density of at least 1,000 persons per square mile and a population of at least 25,000. 16 Under these new criteria expanding the definition of an urban center, potential unicounty SMSA's may achieve metropolitan designation in the near future.

Unicounty and Multicounty SMSA Contrasts

The 127 single-county SMSA's that comprise 48 percent of all SMSA's are distributed across the United States. 17 With the exception of Massachusetts, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Vermont, and North Dakota, every State that has organized county government or its equivalent has at least one unicounty metropolitan area.

The States with the largest number of singlecounty SMSA's are Texas (14), California (13), and Florida (11). Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia have only one such SMSA within their boundaries. Only Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, and South Dakota do not con

(b) Connecticut has no organized county governments.

tain more than one metropolitan area. Table IV-2 shows the distribution of single and multicounty SMSA's by State.

Unicounty SMSA's cover a broad population range-from just under 60,000 in Brazos County, Texas, to over 7 million in Los Angeles County, California. Five such SMSA's have populations of one million or more; 19 have populations of less than 100,000. The largest single-county metropolitan areas are found in California and Florida; the smallest are dispersed throughout several States in the South, Southwest, and Midwest. As shown in Table IV-3, the bulk of the single-county SMSA's in 1970 as well as in 1960 fell in the 100,000-400,000 population range. Less than 15 percent of these SMSA's were in the over-400,000 population class in both 1960 and 1970, compared to over half of all multicounty metropolitan areas in both years.

Multicounty SMSA's also have widely varying populations, from the 11.6 million inhabitants of the sprawling New York megalopolis to the 56,000 of Meriden County, Connecticut-the newest smallest entry. Table IV-3 reveals that the number of multicounty SMSA's increased by 9 percent during the past decade. This expansion occurred in all but three of the population categories. One-quarter of all multicounty SMSA's are located in population centers in excess of one million people. At the other end of the spectrum, however, 48 percent exist in smaller population concentrations (fewer than 400,000). The proportion of multicounty SMSA's with more than 400,000 people declined 12 percent

from 1960 to 1970. Hence, it is only partly correct to perceive the multicounty SMSA as a highly urbanized megalopolitan area.

Unicounty metropolitan areas exhibit other population characteristics that differentiate them. from most multicounty SMSA's. First, their overall rate of population growth has surpassed that of metropolitan areas as a whole. White total metropolitan population expansion between 1960 and 1970 averaged 17 percent, in unicounty SMSA's the central-city figures exceeded the national averages. Central-city growth rates in all metropolitan areas and in unicounty SMSA's were 5 percent and 22 percent, respectively. At the same time, suburbs in unicounty SMSA's grew more slowly than suburban areas as a whole; the rates were 23 percent in unicounty SMSA's and 28 percent in all SMSA's.

Not only are most unicounty SMSA's of smallsize (under 400,000), but they also tend to have large central cities. As Table IV-4 indicates, central cities in a majority of single-county metropolitan areas usually contain the major proportion of the metropolitan population. Central-city growth rates did not lag appreciably behind those of their suburban areas mainly because of the aggressive annexation policies. that were followed during the 1960's, when well over 60 percent of central-city population increases resulted from annexation. Central city governments in most single-county SMSA's, then, exhibit rather dynamic growth characteristics, unlike the central cities of most larger, multicounty SMSA's.

This metropolitan central city contrast becomes