Interlocal interactions, municipal boundaries and water and wastewater expenditure in city-regions

Abstract

Urban regions derive social and economic benefits as local governments supply water and wastewater services. We analyse differences in water and wastewater spending programmes in US city-regions. The municipal provision of water and wastewater services is situated in a regional context, examining how cities respond to different needs for services within regions. We use pooled data from 2002 to 2017 to examine changes in municipal water and wastewater expenditures. Our central finding is that water and wastewater programmes vary considerably across city-regions. Additional findings are that the municipal provision of these programmes appears to be correlated with the interaction between adjacent cities and changes to their jurisdictional boundaries. City governments may adapt their allocation of resources to water and wastewater functions according to the regional conditions surrounding city jurisdictions. This article connects theories of boundary change with systems of interlocal cooperation that support water and wastewater functions in urban regions.

Discontinuities in regional economic development due to administrative boundaries: Examining the mechanisms of the boundary effect

“…Furthermore, the model also used the local fiscal revenue per capita and local tax revenue per capita. Local fiscal expenditure is the core of the Tiebout hypothesis (Tiebout, 1956) and is widely used as a variable representing the overall supply of public services in an area (Leon-Moreta and Totaro, 2023). Local tax revenue is related to regional taxation, which can affect the disposition of population and economic activity and partially reflects the orientation of regional policy (Basten et al, 2017).…”

“…Among the various boundaries, Administrative boundaries are closely linked to local factors, such as fragmented regional power structures or regionalism (Savitch and Adhikari, 2017), making their discontinuous effects more prominent. These boundaries have significant implications for various aspects, including place-based policies (Shenoy, 2018), service provision (Leon-Moreta and Totaro, 2023), taxation (Basten et al, 2017), economic integration (He et al, 2022), as well as more intangible differences like local and regional data systems (Kitchin and Moore-Cherry, 2021) and local and regional reputation (Otero et al, 2022). Empirical evidence has demonstrated that these factors vary across administrative boundaries and can result in regional discontinuity (e.g., Capello et al, 2018a; He et al, 2022; Shenoy, 2018).…”