"In Virginia, I see the cities -- as independent forms of government -- going away," Asbury told the newspaper. "I see them becoming subordinate to counties, and it has to do with economics. It's not really a matter of choice. We'll probably see that happen within the next 10 years. It's pretty emphatic, I know - I have very specific thoughts about what the future holds in government."
Devolution Causes Problems
Asbury has been a city manager for 38 and a half years in total; before Radford, he was the city manager of Elizabethton, Tenn., and Mount Holly, N.C.
Though careful to note that his thoughts aren't original, he said he firmly believes that city governments will become redundant and that county governments will ultimately be the only local government left standing.
"I saw the beginning of the plight of cities in the middle 1960s, in terms of being able to meet requirements for the delivery of services," he said. "Much needed programs were launched by the federal government in the area of social reform. Those I support, and those I agree with; they've been very good.
"Those programs brought an abundance of money to states and also to local governments in the form of categorical grants and entitlement programs and became very much embedded in the daily routine, daily activity of local government and state government," he said.
The federal government's movement toward devolution in the 1980s dried that flow of money, he said, and the direct allocation of money through grant programs bypassed local governments, going, instead, to the states.
That worked fine until the 1990s, but the states mimicked the federal government's move of a decade earlier.
"The funding dwindled or diminished, but the programs continued," he said. "Now, the plight that local government finds itself in is with expanded programs -- doing those things that, ordinarily, the federal government or the state government would do -- in addition to its charge for delivery of local services."
Over time, he said, this situation has strained the efficiency of city government and led to city agencies competing against each other for funds during a city's annual budget process.
Cities are forced to rob Peter to pay Paul as they scramble to find funds for a service they've been told to deliver, and this leads to the decay of urban infrastructure and, ultimately, people and businesses moving away from urban cores.
One way to solve the problem is through consolidation of services, something that cities and counties are already doing in various parts of the country.
"If you can deliver a program for a regional area that has a population of 150,000 and there are five sub-groups of governments with 30,000 or less population, it's more efficient for one, overall operative deliver those services than have the redundancy of the five groups," he said.
In The Blink of an Eye?
Though examples of city/county consolidation can be found in a number of states -- in California, with the city and county of San Francisco; in Colorado, with the city and county of Denver; in Indiana, with Indianapolis and Marion County; and in Florida, with Miami and Dade County -- such a local fusion most likely won't happen within 10 years.
"I don't think the demographic changes or government consolidation will happen that sharply nor that quickly," said Stephen Goldsmith, faculty director of the Innovations in American Government program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "But it is one way to underscore a trend that appears to be occurring, whether some would consider it good or some would consider it bad," Goldsmith said.
He acknowledges the inefficiencies of local governments being in the same businesses as they deliver similar services, but notes that there aren't necessarily economies of scale in the public sector -- unlike the private sector.
"What produces the private-sector edge is that the competitiveness generated by customers allows the scale to reduce costs," he said. "Often, in public monopolies, scale means greater cost because of increased levels of bureaucracy. Point two, there are different optimum scales for different public services."
The best scale for cleaning up an alley could be a local church -- as a contract partner -- and the best scale for wastewater treatment is a regional facility, he said.
"I think there will be continuing movement in the direction of the county, and, in some places, regional associations," he said. "But it will be messy and hit and miss. I'm not sure it's something we want to happen.
"Rationalizing services is important; intergovernmental contracting is important; one provider with an option to competitively provide services in a region is an option -- consolidating government at the county level may work in some places, or it may not," he said.
During Goldsmith's tenure as mayor of Indianapolis, the city and Marion County consolidated.
"I was essentially mayor and county executive," he said. "I didn't have total control of schools or policing and few other things, but I did have consolidated service delivery in streets, parks, sewers and some other things. There certainly were efficiencies, but you had to work at the efficiencies -- they didn't automatically come from the scale of consolidation."
Consolidation Hurts
The merging of cities and counties can be painful, he said, and the myriad issues related to a consolidation could present enough of a thicket to dissuade local government officials.
"There are reasonable management issues, but there also are political issues," he said. "Often, the politics of the city are quite different than the politics of the county and the region, and, in many of these, there are also racial issues."
He notes that some people argue that if voting power is diluted over a larger geographical space, that's disadvantageous to minority groups. On the other side, he said, suburban populations are suspicious of expansion plans because they don't want another government in charge of their services.
Goldsmith predicts that intergovernmental contracts and agreements, rather than legal consolidation, will be the evolutionary course that city and county governments will most likely follow over the coming years.
Still, he said, Louisville, Ky., and Jefferson County, Ky., consolidated last year, so the practicality of mergers is tempting to some jurisdictions -- though it's the first large merger in quite some time and hasn't gone into effect as of yet.
Understanding the Problem
In the end, the right problem needs to be solved, Asbury said.
"Often, in the political process, what is seen as a solution is only temporary, and the attendant problems that come with the solution sometimes are greater than the original problem," he said. "You don't give a bear a little bit of honey and expect him to go away, and the states and local governments keep returning to the federal government, or the local governments keep returning to the state government and say, 'We need more money for this, and we need more money for that.'"
Responsibility needs to be fixed as to which level of government delivers what, and more thought is necessary to determine that level of responsibility.
It's not that cities will wither and die, they will no longer take the form we're accustomed to now. Cities will become subordinate to counties because counties are the next level down from state governments and programs can be more efficiently administered from the county level of government, Asbury said.
"That's the most logical consolidation," he said. "It's really a circle. In most instances, not all, cities originated from within counties; a concentration of population density within an area became a village, then a town and then a city. There was some focus of interest that made that happen. It was a seaport or a transportation hub, or whatever. I think we'll see the circle close, and we're moving back to where we really evolved -- the genesis.
"That's a scary thought for a lot of people," he continued. "I'm not a person who gets on a soapbox and preaches to anyone. I'm just a practitioner, and I've been a keen observer. I've watched these cycles in our history of local government in this country over nearly four decades. I think by observing, I can see where we've been; where we are; and where I think we may be going."
