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“All forms of political organization have a bias in favor of the exploitation of some kinds of
conflict and the suppression of others because organization is the mobilization of bias.” E.E.
Schattschneider (1960)
City-County Consolidation as Radical Change
City county consolidation is one of the most important decisions a locality can take.
Basically, it represents a commitment by two parties for indefinite unification. Like a marriage
in a land without divorce the relationship is assumed to be in perpetuity, though it not only binds
existing participants but generations to come. Reversing a consolidation is extremely rare, and
the larger the consolidation the more fixed it becomes. Of the major consolidations in this nation
during the last century only Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley has launched a serious and
imminent challenge to that marriage, and that effort was defeated in a local referendum.
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If
anything local governments would rather grow than shrink, and they are more likely to increase
their territorial scope by consolidating smaller jurisdictions or annexing unincorporated territory.
Liberal New York proved the point in 1898 when it added three counties, containing 255 square
miles and quadrupled its size (Sayre and Kaufman, 1960). Conservative Houston continues to
affirm this proposition in the last three decades by annexing 106 square miles, increasing its area
by 24 percent.
Consolidation is a radical way of bringing about institutional change and in many ways it
is a zero sum game. Success or failure means that either everything or nothing will change.
When consolidation does succeed it abolishes existing jurisdictions and creates a new entity.
Former governments may be abolished, older offices replaced, existing laws superceded and
whole political structures scuttled. By contrast, other methods of eliciting regional cooperation
Convention