What Does Municipal Autonomy Look Like? Is It Desirable?
As the world becomes increasingly urban there has been a growing recognition that the most pressing policy challenges of our day are urban in nature. At the same time, there is also a recognition that municipalities are unequipped to deal with these issues on their own, leading many urban advocates to call for increased intergovernmental cooperation and municipal autonomy. As Kristin Good argues, “we need to empower them [municipalities] and stop viewing them as creatures of the provinces.” While empowerment and autonomy sound great, as we move forward in this course I am looking to get a better understanding of the barriers the stand in the way of this and the trade-offs that exist. Is there such a thing as too much municipal autonomy and what amount is desirable?
In Governing Canadian Cities, Zack Taylor and Neil Bradford highlight one potential trade-off of increased municipal autonomy, noting that municipal government's responsiveness to local issues is a “double-edged sword”. While municipalities may be best positioned to understand local needs, this also means they are perhaps more politically attuned to local political interests than upper-levels of governments. With this in mind, what would be the impact of increased municipal autonomy on policy issues that require regional approaches? Is having a provincial government that can force cooperation and coordination desirable when it comes to regional policy issues?
In my experience working in the Ontario Public Service, I have seen firsthand that municipalities do not always get along. Every municipality has different needs and getting them to work together for the ‘greater good’ of the province is often very difficult, something I can only imagine would be made more difficult if municipalities were autonomous levels of government.
The limited revenue-raising capacity of local governments is also an interesting area I would like to explore further in this course. Again, while raising the revenue-raising capacity of municipalities sounds good, what are the potential dangers or trade-offs that should be considered when thinking about this type of governance change? Is providing municipalities the power to implement their own taxes economically efficient or politically desirable? With revenue comes responsibility and it is interesting to think about how increasing the revenue-raising capacity of local government would impact their relationship with provincial and federal governments.
All this is not to say that I disagree with the need for increased municipal autonomy but rather to recognize that there are potential trade-offs involved in this. As calls for local empowerment become more common, it is time to openly address what municipal autonomy really looks like and what degree of autonomy is desirable. Moving forward in this class, I hope to get a better understanding of the barriers the stand in the way of this and the trade-offs that exist.
