On the positive side, a growing num-
ber of states have established offices of
local affairs or community development.
These agencies generally advise the gov-
ernor and legislature on matters of state-
local relations, help coordinate state
administrative agencies in their dealings
with localities, and provide technical
assistance to local governments, usually
the smaller jurisdictions. At last count,
eleven states had such agencies: Alaska,
California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri,
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washing-
ton. In some states, such as Maine, con-
sideration is now being given to making
a state office of local affairs responsible
for passing on proposed annexations and
municipal incorporations. The Depart-
ment of Community Affairs in Pennsyl-
vania and the Department of Commu-
nity Affairs in New Jersey, created in
1965 and 1966 respectively, represent an
expansion of the original concept by
vesting certain operating functions in
the department, mainly in the area of
housing, urban development, planning,
and financial supervision.
Additional states may move to estab-
lish offices of local affairs as a conse-
quence of a provision of the Demonstra-
tion Cities and Metropolitan Develop-
ment Act of 1966. Title IX of the Act
authorizes grants to states to help them
supply communities with a population
under 100,000 with technical assistance
and information on urban needs and
assistance programs and activities.
Favorable signs also are found in
various recently organized efforts to im-
prove the image and performance of
state legislatures and state government
generally. A Citizens Conference on
State Legislature, supported by the Ford
Foundation and the Carnegie Corpora-
tion and headed by 'former Governor
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John Anderson of Kansas, is dedicated
to stimulating "grass roots" activity to
modernize the legislative articles of state
constitutions. The Ford Foundation
also is supporting a National Municipal
League study of the constitutional and
other barriers to legislative effectiveness.
Finally, a Study of the States, under the
direction of former Governor Terry San-
ford of North Carolina, is conducting a
two-year study of the administration of
state services.
Stimulated indirectly by these efforts
and directly by legislative reapportion-
ment, states recently have shown re-
newed interest in constitutional over-
hauling after decades of inactivity.
Constitutional revisions have been com-
pleted or are under way in California,
Connecticut, Idaho, Kentucky, Mary-
land, New Mexico, New York, Rhode
Island, and Wisconsin. The mixed re-
sults of the November 8, 1966 referenda
on major constitutional revisions pro-
posals, however, suggest the need for
caution in predicting the final outcome
of these efforts to modernize state
governments.
In a similar vein, legislative reappor-
tionment has been hailed as another
positive force making for more enlight-
ened state concern for cities since it will
redress the long history of rural domina-
tion of state legislatures. Yet here again,
the outcome is unclear, particularly as it
affects metropolitan areas as a whole.
Suburban areas, after all, are gaining
representation while central cities are
gaining relatively little, if at all, and
suburbs frequently see things differently
than central cities, especially when it
comes to handling metropolitan prob-
lems. In the final analysis, reapportion-
ment may heighten, rather than reduce,
the urban tensions created by the grow-
ing economic and social cleavages in
our urban areas.
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