Establishment of such an office should give local officials a much more
direct voice in the development of State policy and actions affecting
their cities and counties. This could greatly enhance the traditional
Maryland practice of local governmental participation in the planning
of major programs, while still recognizing the need to improve plan-
ning at he state level.

Any realistic effort to prepare our administrative apparaturs for
the tasks ahead must recognize that the emerging problems of urban-
ization — of a larger and larger population ever more densely con-
centrated — constitutes one of the primary challenges for our society
and government during the balance of this century. It is the dominant
environmental change now going on in Maryland. A principal as-
signment of the proposed reorganization Commission would be to
determine how our State government can better tool up to cope with
the many difficult metropolitan problems that lie ahead. A very recent
report published by the University of Maryland has this to say about
city and county government in this State: "Over a period of more
than three centuries, Maryland has created, augmented, enabled, and
sustained a system of local government which is today both rich in
history and tradition and yet essentially so uniform and responsive
that it may well prove to be among those 50 State systems most
capable of responding promptly and well to the severe challenge of
contemporary urban development. " I submit that our State govern-
ment must be updated so that it, too, can show the way, as a full
partner with our cities and counties, in meeting "the severe challenge
of contemporary urban development. "

IV
FEDERAL PROGRAMS

Another major area that the proposed reorganization Commission
should consider is how the State's rapidly expanding relations with
the national government can be most effectively coordinated and
given a sense of authority that will help keep our federal system
in balance. There are now literally hundreds and hundreds of federal
programs with funds and facilities available for various agencies and
activities of our State government. The U. S. Department of Health,
Education and Welfare alone has a catalogue the size of the Anna-
polis telephone book with just the barest of details about assistance
programs available to state and local officials through that one federal
agency. Scattered throughout Washington are many hundreds of other

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