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:
| 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 |


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

Canadian government offers cities
long-term partnership and funding
City mayors from all parts of Canada congratulated the federal finance minister, Ralph Goodale, on producing an excellent budget for cities. Bob Chiarelli, Mayor of Ottawa, said that the Minister’s second federal budget contained some very good news for Canada’s cities. “I think, all in all, it’s a good budget for cities”, he said. Regina Mayor, Pat Fiacco, echoed his comments by saying that communities now had the money to build bridges, fixing roads and upgrading transit systems. Toronto Mayor, David Miller, called the budget very good news. More

Canadian government announces
more details of new deal for cities
Official bodies at all levels of government throughout Canada have welcomed the explanation in February 2005 by John Godfrey, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, of many of the details of Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government’s ‘New Deal for Cities and Communities’. In particular he revealed the formula by which the federal government will allocate federal gas (petrol) tax revenues toward maintenance and development of municipal infrastructures. More

Commission reviews structure
of local government in London
In early 2004, the Commission on London Governance came into existence. Set up by the London Assembly, the commission followed press reports of a desired shake-up of London local government by London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone. The commission is on-going and is examining not only local government in the capital but also the Greater London Authority itself and the relations between it and central government. More

Japanese bureaucrats outraged by
cuts in local government subsidies
Cuts in subsidies to local councils by the Japanese government of Junichiro Koizumi (Liberal Democrat Party) will be a significant test for the new Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications following a reorganisation of the government department. A proposed cut in central government subsidies, agreed by the Cabinet in June 2004, has provoked a political outcry among the nation’s bureaucrats and lawmakers. More

Australian local government
sorely needs more resources
Australian local government is undergoing rapid change accompanied by significant problems. Only 30 years ago, local government councils were dominated by motifs originating in the nineteenth century: “rates, roads and rubbish” were the main concerns. In the past 20 years, however, while by no means shedding responsibility for those fundamental tasks, it has had to shift its focus to “a range of new and emerging human services. Local government will have a baby capsule ready the day you’re born – and burial plot ready the day you die. And it will provide around a hundred different services to keep you happy in between”. More