PBAF/URBDP 560
METROPOLITAN FRAGMENTATION AND
FISCAL COMPETITION
Recap and Today
 Participation Assessment
 Recap
 Yet on more sprawl
 ISTEA and its successors (or their lack)
 Transportation policy and equity
 Today
 Metropolitan Fragmentation
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/11oct_sprawl.htm
RECAP SPRAWL
Sprawl vs. Growth
Los Angeles, CA
Natural Color Image of Sprawl
http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery/quickbird-urban-sprawl.html
Bogotá, Colombia July 2009
Former “Pirate” Neighborhood
Bogotá, Colombia July 2009
In Usme, at the south of the metro area. At the rear of the photo are places that were
quarried for sand or building clay. And construction at the top of a hill is illegal.
More “pirate” development
Usme. Note the housing going on the tops of these hills. This is outside Bogotá’s Urban
Growth Boundary and sprawling into its main urban watershed.
More in the “Pirate” Neighborhood
Also in Usme. Pirate does not mean shanty…
Another sprawl definition
 Sprawl is about the rate of urban expansion
occurring at a rate greater than population
growth.
 Without regard for regional environmental
needs.
TRANSPORTATION EQUITY
METROPOLITAN FRAGMENTATION
AND FISCAL COMPETITION
Number Local Governments
2007
Type of Local Government
County
Municipal
School District
In WA
39
281
296
In US
3,033
19,492
13,051
Special District*
Total
1,229 37,381
1,845 89,476
*Special Districts in WA include: 170 Natural Resources,
387 fire protection, 41 Housing and Community
Development
Source: 2007 Census of Governments
http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/cog/2007/wa.pdf Accessed 1/20/2009
Metropolitan Fragmentation
& Fiscal Competition
 19,400 cities; 89,000 local govs
in federal system.
 Local diversity in policy, tax
burden, services
 Changing revenue mix-decreasing tax dependence
 Diversity leads to policy
experimentation?
 Fragmentation-> Disparity?
Inefficiency? Efficiency?
 Policy efforts to deal with
efficiency and equity issues
 Political (& practical) feasibility
questionable
Percent Local Taxes of
General Revenues from Own Sources
1967
1992
2007
Local
76%
64%
63%
School
District
83%* 83%*
81%*
Counties
77%
60%
60%
Cities
76%
61%
61%
*97% of school tax revenue is local property tax
Local Reactions
 Fiscal zoning
 Competition for tax base
 Lead to
 Economic stratification
 Land use planning that pushes growth outward
 And, therefore
 SPRAWL
Solutions: Efficiency or Equity in
Fragmented Metro Region?
 Market
 Banfield/Tiebout, Public Choice
 Privatization
 Consolidation
 Annexation, Elastic cities





Two-Tier
Regional Government
Regional Tax-base Sharing
State redistributive solutions
Intermunicipal cooperation
For discussion
1.
Orfield is concerned with reducing metropolitan fiscal
disparities in order to reduce the burden on the hardestpressed jurisdictions and increase services for the most
underserved populations.
 Can policies that promote regional equity also help in mitigating
sprawl? How?
 Could revenue sharing promote/accelerate gentrification?
2.
Is it possible that our desire to characterize the various
metropolitan forms (Hanlon, et al.) contributes to
metropolitan fragmentation and disparity?
 How might policies designed to promote fiscal equity
(institutional aid programs, state-aid programs, and tax-base
sharing) work with the New Metropolitan Reality Model?
3.
Can fiscal zoning policies be used to create more
equitable regions? How?