“The simplest type of urban county is that in which the geographical limits of the two local units are identical and the population has grown up out of a single well-defined historical nucleus. Among other communities there would fall within this classification the cities of Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco and Baltimore and eighteen cities in Virginia.
“A second type is that in which a single city furnishes an overwhelming proportion of the population, but occupies a relatively small part of an otherwise rural territory. Among the cities which fall in this classification are Buffalo, Milwaukee and Cleveland.
“The third type is that in which a city of predominating size and importance is surrounded by a number of smaller but vigorous municipalities which have grown up not as suburbs of the main city, but out of independent historical beginnings. Cases in point are the two largest counties of New Jersey, Hudson and Essex.
“A fourth type is one which contains several strong municipalities, no one of which has achieved a position of undisputed leadership. Alameda County, Cal., which contains the cities of Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley will serve to illustrate.
“The most advanced type of the city-county problem involves the adjustment of the political to the physical and social unity of a great urban area, regardless of established boundaries of either cities or counties. The metropolitan districts of New York and Massachusetts are the most conspicuous illustrations of this problem.”
The key to reconstruction is the same in every case: simplification. Eliminate duplication of civil divisions; substitute one government for two or many (in the case of Chicago, twenty-two!). There is a good deal of logic in a separate local government to serve as a state agency. But everywhere the people have waived the right or privilege of a logical government when they have illogically insisted upon selecting their officers locally. When the district attorney, for instance, is chosen by the electors of the county he may be legally the state’s representative but he is practically a local officer in very much the same sense as the mayor. Then why, for legal fiction’s sake, distinguish between the city and the county?
One American city-county has not only seen the inefficiency and hypocrisy of the dual system but has actually wiped out the last semblance of distinction between the two divisions. The story is told in legal form in Article XX of the Colorado constitution:
“The municipal corporation known as the city of Denver, and all municipal corporations and that part of the quasi-municipal corporation known as the County of Arapahoe, in the state of Colorado, included into the exterior boundaries of the said city of Denver, as the same shall be bounded when this amendment takes effect, are hereby consolidated and are hereby declared to be a single body politic and corporate, by the name of the city and county of Denver.”
By this same amendment the city and county were declared to be a single judicial district of the state, and county officers were disposed of by prescribing that
“the then mayor, auditor, engineer, council (which shall perform the duties of a board of county commissioners), police magistrate, chief of police and boards, of the city of Denver shall become respectively, said officers of the city and county of Denver, and said engineer shall be ex-officio surveyor and said chief of police shall be ex-officio sheriff of the city and county of Denver; and the then clerk and ex-officio recorder, treasurer, assessor and coroner of the county of Arapahoe and the justices of the peace and constables holding office within the city of Denver, shall become, respectively, said officers of the city and county of Denver, and the district attorney shall be ex-officio attorney of the city and county of Denver.”
In 1913 an amendment to the Denver charter, adopted by popular vote, provided for the commission form of government with the usual divisions of administration into five departments respectively of Property, Finance, Safety, Improvements and Social Welfare. To some one of these commissionerships was assigned jurisdiction over each of the several county officers, as appropriately as the conditions would permit.
The process of amalgamation was made complete when in May, 1916, Denver abandoned the commission plan and made the mayor chief executive of the county as well as of the city, with appropriate appointing power.
In New York, consolidation has extended to most of the fiscal functions, tending to leave intact only so much of the original county structure as is incidental to the administration of justice, including the courts themselves, the sheriff in his capacity of court executive and the court clerks. The functions of the county treasurer have been transferred to the city chamberlain and the comptroller, and the department of taxes and assessments has been attached to the city organization. The separate governing bodies of the five counties have been swept away and their powers transferred to the city Board of Estimate and Apportionment and Board of Aldermen. New York City also has not only taken over the function of public charities, but its Department of Corrections has been steadily encroaching upon the prerogatives of the sheriffs. The future issue of city consolidation there is accordingly reduced to a matter of abolishing the five counties and transferring their functions to officers under city control and making the independent elective officers such as the sheriff, district attorney, clerk and register appointive by either city or state authorities.
[19]In spite of much that remains to be done, consolidation has proceeded to an advanced stage also in Boston, though hardly in a direct line towards greater simplicity. Before it became a city in 1820 a conflict had arisen as to the jurisdiction of the town, and of the court of sessions for Suffolk County, respecting highways and taxation. The legislature thereupon abolished the court and transferred its administrative functions to the mayor and council of Boston. Boston, however, is not geographically identical with Suffolk County, since the latter for the purposes of the administration of justice, includes the city of Chelsea and the towns of Revere and Winthrop. Boston has the title to all the real and personal property of Suffolk County but also pays the entire expense of its administration. The treasurer and auditor of accounts of the city act in similar capacities for the county of Suffolk. But there are seven elective county officials and several, virtually independent of each other, who are chosen by the governor or the justice of the Superior Court.