Local and municipal government
City Mayors describes and explains the structures and workings of local government in Europe, The Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa

Local government in The Americas:
| Argentina | Bolivia | Brazil | Canada | Chile | Mexico | Peru | USA | Venezuela |

Local government in Europe:
| Cyprus | France | Germany | Gibralta | Greece | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Malta | Portugal | Russia | Spain | UK1 | UK2 |

Local government in Asia and Australia
| Australia | China | India | Indonesia | Japan | Malaysia | Philippines | Singapore | South East Asia | South Korea | Thailand |

Local government in Africa
| South Africa |

Mayors
in Europe
30 December 2008: A plethora of city leadership models exist across Europe, depending on history and political culture, though the challenges facing urban areas are mostly identical. While in France, Spain, Greece and Portugal the mayor is head of the party list on the council, in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands mayors are appointed by the central government for a six-year term. In contrast to the elected mayors of Poland and Romania, in Finland, Ireland and Iceland the council is run by an appointed manager. More

Arguments for and
against term limits
10 November 2008: Term Limits can be a productive if not blunt instrument despite the powerful passions they may evoke. Term limits are currently a revived topic for action at both state and local level in the United States. New York City and San Antonio are two major cities where this subject, the bane of elected officials and favored by their electorate, is once again on the front burner. In February 2008, California voters, rejected a move to alter the term limits earlier imposed by them, while in October 2008, New York City Council voted in favor to extend term limits from two to three consecutive terms of fours years for elected officials including the mayor. More

Stuttgart shows regional
consolidation can work
9 November 2008: If you want to see how regional consolidation works when it really works, take a look at Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany. A few years ago, Stuttgart needed a new exhibition center. The regional government, which has authority over economic development and land use policies, decided that the perfect location would be a big plot of land right next to the airport. The municipality that is home to the airport objected. The regional authority refused to back down. It took the municipality to court and won. More

Elected mayors are more
effective, says US study
16 August 2008: An historical study of mayors in US big cities finds that mayors who are popularly elected are more effective than those who come to office through other means. The study, by Andrew D. McNitt* of Eastern Illinois University, examined the performance in office of 846 mayors of 19 US cities -- including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, and Houston – between 1820 and 1995. More

UK should make elected mayors
focus of local government reform
29 June 2008: Wrenching power from central control is proving difficult. Despite a massive improvement in the quality and performance of English local government over the past decade, cross-party political goodwill for devolution, and managerial consensus that centralism cannot cope with the detailed challenges of frontline service delivery, there remains a disinclination to delegate power. Local councils and councilors remain stubbornly unfashionable among the national political classes, and there is a wariness and lack of trust acting as a roadblock to decentralisation. More

Local as well as state government must
address the issues facing large US cities
12 February 2008: The state of Massachusetts is rapidly losing its labor force through migration. The problem, which peaked last year, is a lack of affordable homes – with Boston being the primary engine in this human ‘hemorrhage’. Similar population shifts, with Massachusetts representing the most extreme example, are driven by a continuing need for suitable housing. The Great American Migration – a Forbes article in July last year – observed: “If jobs and strong local economies were the sole motivators, Los Angeles would not be hemorrhaging population at a faster rate than Detroit, and Chicago would not be losing people more quickly than Pittsburgh.” More

Cities are the most neglected
layer of American government
1 January 2008: Eighty per cent of Americans live in metropolitan areas comprised of hub cities and surrounding suburbs. Metro economies account for 87 per cent of America’s total economic output. Central cities, in other words, are major generators of wealth that attract business, labor, tourists, and investment. One might expect that the health of central cities would be at the forefront of debate during the presidential election campaign, yet candidates pay little attention to cities. More

English council leaders strengthened
by new local government legislation
13 November 2007: In October 2007 the UK government’s Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act was finally approved by Parliament and overhauled the system of governance in most English councils, seven years after the landmark Local Government Act, which introduced the elected mayor model for the first time. The new Act requires council leaders to be installed for four years, thus almost creating a Swedish-style indirectly elected mayor. More

Louisville Metro has shown other regions
how mergers can change balance of power
24 December 2006: The merger of Louisville (Kentucky) with neighboring Jefferson County has created much excitement in US regions looking at this option to improve their local conditions. The Louisville merger, which took effect on 6 January 2003, after voter approval in November 2000, has gained much attention. It was the first large consolidation of an American city with its surrounding county in 30 years, when Indianapolis and Marion County (Indiana) merged. More

Council managers are running
more and more American cities
In an age when local governments in general, and urban local governments in particular, have been subject to increasing fiscal stress as a result of receding federal and state aid together with a more regulatory environment that has made municipal management more complex, the council-manager system has risen to dominance in the United States. In a council-manager system, policymaking is vested in elected representatives and management in an appointed professional manager. More

Rochester gives its citizens
the power to shape their city
One of the boldest and most successful experiments in citizen empowerment in the United States has been underway in Rochester, New York, for over ten years. Through the Neighbors Building Neighborhoods, or NBN, process, Rochester residents plan for the future of their city and help establish the city’s budget priorities. More

Report recommends elected
mayors for Britain’s big cities
Greater Birmingham and Greater Manchester should have elected mayors who control spending on transport, regeneration, skills and the power to raise business tax according to a recently published report. It recommends England’s two biggest ‘city-regions’ should be in charge of their own economic development. It argues for around £1.2 billion a year to be devolved from regional development agencies, transport boards and the Learning and Skills Council. More

UK government studies
the case for city regions
A London-based think tank with the ear of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has published proposals for a city region-based system of local councils in England, which have attracted the support of government and opposition alike. The New Local Government Network was originally established in 1998 to encourage the new Labour government to bring about elected mayors as means to invigorate local democracy and to quicken the pace of modernisation in other areas. More

US voters are not convinced that
big is better in local government
Federal and state aid to US towns and cities is dwindling in an age when costs are rising for local government. Increasingly communities are looking to the consolidation mechanism as a way of achieving efficiencies of scale in response to citizen demands for services. However, voters are more often than not reluctant to approve mergers between neighbouring communities. More

Federated local government offers advantages
over more centralised or fragmented systems
The collective experiences of France, Canada, the UK, US, Singapore and India’s West Bengal offer instructive lessons on how to unlock the potential of substantive federated local government systemic frameworks - as well as offering demonstrative evidence of either successful or problematic adaptations. More

New relationship needed between
big cities and provinces in Canada
The digital revolution and the rise of the information economy, coupled with vastly expanded global trade and international economic competition, has vastly increased the economic importance of Canada’s biggest cities. It is time, therefore, for a new intergovernmental focus – exploring how Canadian big cities fit into the political fabric of the country in the 21st Century and how the relationship between big cities and their provinces needs to be renewed. More

Karachi’s federated structure has led
to more responsive city government
Karachi, Pakistan, with its 14 million inhabitants, is the largest city by population with a federated city government structure. The federated city system was implemented in Karachi over a three-year period - from 2001 to 2003 - and has been followed by other cities in three different regions of the world, including Birmingham (UK), Los Angeles and Montreal and, more recently, Baghdad. More

Demands for governance reforms
in London hit by partisan backlash
The Commission on London Governance was formed in 2004 with the remit to examine the workings of all aspects of government in the capital and recommend an outline for reform. Since then the 2004 Greater London Authority elections have intervened and the subsequent reduction in Labour representation saw the Commission lose its chairman and reference to consider the future of the 32 London Boroughs, but it has continued to examine the status quo and hear evidence from a number of key groups. More

Multi-tier local government systems
adopted in many parts of the world
Anyone living in a region where there are counties, or similar counterparts with different terminology, and municipal units is familiar with what can be termed a federated (multi-tier) local system. However, what is not commonly known is that from the 1950s onwards, integrated federated frameworks were, and still are, being increasingly adapted for local regions. More

The City of London offers on one square mile
history, feudal governance and global finance
The landmarks of the area covered by the historic City of London Corporation are known to many – St Paul’s Cathedral, the Old Bailey, and now the Swiss Re Tower, to name but three – but less is known about the Corporation itself.  The City of London is often confused with Greater London (the area covered by the Greater London Authority), but the two concepts are indeed very distinct and separate. More