For several decades scholars have accepted a social stratification-government inequality thesis that municipal fragmentation in metropolitan areas is an institutional arrangement for enhancing inequality in the distribution of scarce resources. Policy recommendations to eliminate suburbs through consolidation are based on this thesis. Key propositions underlying this presumption are presented, and the lack of evidence in support of many of these propositions is examined. Scholars are urged to view public policies aimed at eliminating large numbers of municipalities in metropolitan areas with considerable skepticism.
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