Relevance of metropolitan government in Latin American cities

Abstract

Large cities in the world confront an interesting dilemma: more democracy and therefore fragmentation of their governments into small agencies, or better performance in an integrated world system of cities and therefore better co-ordination of government functions. Fragmentation or co-ordination? ‘Relevance of Metropolitan Government’ explores this dilemma through a detailed study of two cities in Latin America: Caracas in Venezuela, and Monterrey in Mexico. The book also introduces a method to evaluate co-ordination arrangements and gives recommendations to deal with the double question of democracy and performance faced by cities in an integrated world.

In the first chapters the book sets up a theoretical framework to discuss issues of metropolitan government in the case studies Caracas and Monterrey. Chapter 2 deals with the insertion of the study within the contemporary debates about metropolitan government and metropolitan governance. In this chapter the choice for the analysis methods and the case studies is made clear. Chapter 3 deals with the specific profiles of Caracas and Monterrey, which are presented as representative cases of capital cities and export cities in Latin America.

Chapter 4 through 7 review the co-ordination levels of a pair of metropolitan functions (physical planning and urban public transport) in these cities. This part of the study is based on empirical data, ranging form interviews and document analysis made in place in these Latin American cities. Chapter 4 and 5 are dedicated to Caracas and chapters 6 and 7 to Monterrey.

On chapter 8 conclusions of the study are drawn in regard to the basic statements and research made of the first part of the book. The main findings are, the existence and resilience of good co-ordination efforts in both of the case studies, the need for more political support for metropolitan government implementation and the existence of sensible bottlenecks—mainly political—in the establishment or progress of government reform.