Over 140 years, the states have established the purpose and nature of local governments inside their perimeters. John Dillon was the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court around the 1860’s, and he greatly distrusted local governments and government officials. From this Dillon generated his famous rule, which was quickly embraced by the Virginia State supreme court and is still to this day in effect. His rule surfaced around the “unresolved and necessary tensions between the legal nature of the local governments, and their political-cultural nature.”(Miller, D., Cox, R.) From this two extremely different foundational principles on how local government is organized. From an administrative perspective, local governments cannot be sovereign, they need to be institutional, subdivisions of the states, someone has to make the last decision. From a political cultural perspective, local governments serve as a citizen’s constitutional right to freedom of association. This chapter argues that both foundational principles are crucial to the activity of the subnational control in the United States. Without one of these principles, the other could not exist.
Metropolitan regions fail due to the fact of ignoring these basic issues. These foundational principles have to be acknowledged as valid and major then addressed to manage the tensions and disputes between these two principles. To resolve these tensions, investigation between these two foundational principles on how they have led to dissimilar understandings of the local governance in the U.S. Observations from the European Union and comparisons with metropolitan regions can go but so far. The establishment of European Economic Community which was barriers for free trade among member nations and to adopt common import duties on goods from other countries. Also known as a common market was a significant outcome that couldn’t be duplicated easily in the metropolitan areas. The obligation to minimize the army threat and reconstituted Germany displayed strong incentives for the European Unions that had no results in the United States. After the common market, the European Unions proved to be a political tool with the successful economic implement.
Regions and cities today are motivated by economics and competition than by public service. A person self-interested forces the need to compete which create blockage on trying to expanding regional systems. “European Unions and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commissions as representative models that have facilitated mutual cooperation by recognizing the legal, political, economic, and competitive nature of the governance process.” (Harding, S) Spreading more representative forms concerning regional governance has to be a serious task for legitimate and reliable forms of regional organizations to be effective. Altogether financial evolution on local and regional governments has to develop beyond self-interest and competition in order to fulfill and create new and innovative regional systems.
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