The Tiebout Hypothesis 50 Years Later: Lessons and Lingering Challenges for Metropolitan Governance in the 21st Century

Abstract

More than five decades have passed since Charles Tiebout wrote his seminal 1956 paper, often cited as the classic apologetic for locally based systems of metropolitan governance. This essay traces the impact of Tiebout’s work and subsequent scholarship in public choice, identifying important lessons and lingering issues. Although public choice has demonstrated that polycentric systems are adept and flexible in producing and providing municipal services and a variety of interlocal agreements, the presence of municipal boundaries gives rise to a host of spillover problems, such as urban sprawl and segregation. These spillovers are particularly nefarious because, unlike the natural cooperation that seems to occur in service provision, municipalities tend to assert narrow self‐interest in the face of these types of externalities. The essay proposes that, commensurate with the growing salience of equity among the pillars of public administration, interjurisdictional spillovers and their attendant equity impacts will be the central challenge for thinkers studying metropolitan governance in the 21st century.

Community characteristics associated with local intergovernmental cooperation.

“…Parks and Oakerson believe that metropolitan governance can occur without metropolitan government even in highly fragmented metropolitan areas (Oakerson, 1999;Parks & Oakerson, 2000). Even though jurisdictions compete for the provision of urban services and infrastructures, the production of those services need not be an outcome of a competitive process (Howell-Moroney, 2008;V. Ostrom, Tiebout, & Warren, 1961).…”

“…It is easier to realize collective benefits in urban services requiring large-scale investments such as solid-waste disposal and waste-water treatment, or assetspecific seasonal services such as snow removal and road maintenance; however, mutual benefits are not easily visible in issues related to land uses, parks and recreation, and tax policies. That is probably why skeptics of cooperative governance are concerned that interlocal cooperation is achieved easily in "systems maintenance" services but not in "lifestyle" services (Howell-Moroney, 2008;Norris, 2001;Williams, 1967). Norris (2001) even argues that the way localities avoid cooperating on pressing lifestyle issues resulting from fragmentation is the primary weakness of governance without government.…”

Policy of Delay: Evidence from a Bayesian Analysis of Metropolitan Land‐Use Choices

“…The urban literature on competition dates back to decades‐old conceptualizations of local governments as “growth machines” and whether consolidated‐versus‐decentralized system of government achieved greater economies of scale or better captured negative externalities (Bickers, Salucci, & Stein, ; Hawkins, ). A more recent stream of research is built on public markets for goods (Peterson, ; Tiebout, ), and treats local governments as competitors seeking to grow their tax bases and add revenue‐generating economic development projects in an environment where services are delivered not just by rival municipalities but special districts and modernizing counties (Hendrick, Jimenez, & Lal, ; Jimenez & Hendrick, ; McDonald, ), often with negative ramifications for income disparity and segregation (Howell‐Moroney, ). Fragmentation has been described as a mechanism to improve service delivery when citizens are able to easily compare tax rates and service‐delivery effectiveness and efficiencies across numerous nearby jurisdictions and lobby their own government officials to improve their performance (Schneider, ).…”

Climate Adaptation and Citizens’ Participation in Denmark: Experiences from Copenhagen

“…Despite such boasts and the extensive policy action in some big cities, adoption of municipality-based climate action plans and general sustainability policy actions remains low overall (Svara 2011;Homsy and Warner 2012). Further, a decentralized governance approach can result in negative externalities, spillovers, regional inequity, and capacity constraints (Howell Moroney 2008;Pastor et al 2009;Feiock 2013). …”