Metropolitan Financial Problems

Abstract

Exuberant urbanism, advancing technology, and rising incomes and living standards, all are expanding demands for urban government services, some of which can be most efficiently supplied or financed by metropolitan jurisdictions. Since metropolitan areas are the focal points of income and wealth, the financial problem stems largely from the lack of machinery. Many of the most pressing metropolitan needs can be appropriately financed by user charges, but these need to be carefully designed to produce the most desirable over-all economic effects. Both property and nonproperty taxes should be administered by metropolitan- wide jurisdictions, leaving submetropolitan governments the power to set prop erty tax rates for local needs.