Regionalism With and Without Metropolitanism: Governance Structures of Rural and Non-Rural Regional Intergovernmental Organizations

Abstract

While prior scholarship has investigated many tools for regional governance across the rural-to-urban spectrum, the literature on regional organizations (councils of governments, planning district commissions, etc.) has been dominated by metropolitan regions. As a result, we know very little about the plethora of these regional organizations serving rural local governments. The omission of rural regions as a control variable from this conversation limits our ability to determine what traits are truly intergovernmental across this spectrum and what traits are specific to metropolitan and rural regions. Using a new, nationwide database of Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) and original governance documents, I present two unexpected empirical similarities between rural and non-rural RIGOs. First, I demonstrate that the quantity and relative dominance of the local governments within the territorial footprint of rural and non-rural RIGOs are nearly identical when population is held constant. Given the smaller populations within most rural RIGOs, this finding raises serious questions about how limited capacity is diffused and the need for multijurisdictional collaboration in rural areas. Second, I demonstrate that rural and non-rural RIGOs do not substantially differ in the way representational rights are apportioned to local governments on RIGO governing boards. Both rural and non-rural RIGOs similarly balance institutional membership with population proportionality in these collective choice arrangements. This evidence supports a broader intergovernmental hypothesis that an individual local government’s representational rights on a RIGO board are more likely to result from relative size differences among members than facets specific to a city–suburb dynamic.