Redrawing Local Government Boundaries: An International Study of Politics, Procedures, and Decisions

Extract

Redrawing Local Government Boundaries: An International Study of Politics, Procedures, and Decisions, John Meligrana, ed., Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004, pp. 246.

Canadian readers will appreciate this book because it shows us that we are not alone. Our perennial obsession with adjusting, sometimes completely redrawing, local-government boundaries has its counterparts near and far. There is a trajectory and a pattern: Senior levels of government generally want to see local governments with larger territories. However, the decision-making and implementation processes, and the results of those processes, have scarcely been examined or compared from an international perspective. Even policy makers often have been in the dark about others' best (or worst) practices. This book is therefore very useful.