Metropolitanization and the Restructuring of Urban Governance in Canadian Metropolitan Areas

The restructuring of urban economies and welfare states of the developed world over the last twenty years or so, often as part of a broad neoliberal agenda, presents challenges to the delivery of quality municipal services. With reductions in government spending and program breadth at national levels in many countries, governments at the sub-national and local levels have had to take on increased responsibilities. At the same time, local governments and metropolitan areas have often been compelled to become more entrepreneurial and competitive, both indirectly via the compulsion of new regulatory regimes and a restructuring global economy, and directly through the imposition of new structures and financing arrangements on the part of upper-level governments onto municipal governments. This may produce greater unevenness in the capacities of local governments to maintain local services, and to meet the needs of resident low-income populations. Without offsetting transfers, positive feedback relationships develop between concentrations of low-income populations and municipal budgetary difficulties, which then segregate the poor in areas with limited services but higher taxes, while wealthier residents benefit from residence in low-tax, high-service jurisdictions