tive ways to provide urban assistance
and leadership.
First, the states can unshackle their
local governments to permit a maximum
of local autonomy in meeting urban
problems.
This means lifting tax and debt limits,
authorizing optional forms of city and
county government or granting local
governments the power to determine
their own internal organization, and
permitting them to perform a wide vari-
ety of functions.
Second, the states can authorize the
citizens and local governments of metro-
politan areas to undertake certain col-
laborative actions to meet area-wide
problems not confined to municipal
boundaries.
Annexation can be liberalized; coun-
ties can be reorganized and empowered
to provide urban services; particularly
where a single county embraces an entire
metropolitan area. Where counties are
not empowered to plan, zone, and
regulafe subdivisions in unincorporated
areas, cities can be allowed to exercise
such powers beyond their boundaries in
order to control growth at their edges.
Localities also can be empowered to
form metropolitan planning commis-
sions, and given authority to establish
councils of governments for the purpose
of developing area-wide consensus and
laying the basis for area-wide action.
Urban areas can be authorized to create
metropolitan study commissions for re-
viewing local governmental structure
and submitting modernization proposals
to popular vote. All these measures can
facilitate action toward more effective
government in urban areas.
Third, recognizing that over-emphasis
on local autonomy may lead to a stale-
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mate among numerous and competing
local units on area-wide issues the states
must reserve to themselves the power to
act on such issues.
They must not hesitate to use this
power when needed. A state, for ex-
ample, may need to establish a metro-
politan planning commission or a multi-
purpose authority to provide certain
area-wide services if localities have had
the authority and time to act coopera-
tively, but have failed to do so. It may
be that the function is such that locali-
ties cannot be expected to act coopera-
tively since redistribution of resources is
involved and some localities refuse to
act against their apparent self-interest.
In the case of planning, construction,
and administration of a metropolitan
transportation system, sewage collection
and treatment system, or air pollution
control system, state action frequently is
the only positive alternative. Similarly,
in interstate metropolitan areas, stale
action in conjunction with the neigh-
boring state government may be the only
feasible alternative.
Fourth, states can and must provide
expanded technical assistance to their
local governments, especially their
smaller ones.
The growing number of federal grant-
in-aid programs has made such a pro-
gram of technical assistance all the
more critical. These aids for state and
local governments now incline upwards
of 175 programs and 400 odd separate
authorizations. They are administered
by more than 125 separate federal
bureaus and divisions, vary as to their
channeling through states, and fre-
quently overlap in their scope. Further,
requirements for application and ad-
ministration of these grants vary widely.
In short, the complexity, variety,
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