New York by Jill S. Gross;H. V. Savitch;

Author:Jill S. Gross;H. V. Savitch;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

Pulling the threads of government together: governmental forms

Today we find that the older, more urbanized areas on the New Jersey and the New York side of the region have for the most part opted for a mayor-council form of government. Members of the council tend to be elected with staggered terms to ensure continuity over time. The exception to this is Jersey City, which elects its officers concurrently. Smaller municipalities in the more rural suburban areas tend to opt for council-manager forms of local government. In this type of government, the council appoints a manager to oversee operations but decision-making is controlled by the elected legislative council.

Across the megacity, in mayor-council systems, the executive is tasked with responsibility for the preparation of budgets, the appointment of department heads and the like. Mayors have veto powers, but councils can override these vetoes if two-thirds of its members vote to overturn the mayor’s veto. Council’s tend to serve as the locality’s legislative body. Together then, local governments are tasked with regulating land use through zoning laws and special purpose authorities.

What we can see from all this is how incredibly complicated governance is across the megacity. There are variations that are derived from state differences, historic differences, from county variations and, most importantly, from the choices made in response to the pressures of growth and development. One important difference to be found in relationship to the municipalities of New Jersey is that, with the exception of education in select parts of the region, the state seems to take a weaker role in terms of oversight than is true of municipalities in New York.

Here we simply suggest that in New Jersey there is greater connection to the Cooley interpretation of local government in support of strong home rule provisions, while on the New York side of the region Dillon’s rule tends to prevail, putting the state in a much more influential position than is true of the New Jersey municipalities. Although the governors of New Jersey are reported to hold “the most executive power in the nation” (Sutton 2020), they have tended only to intervene directly in localities during periods of crisis – fiscal, environmental, security and health. We will return to this theme in our discussion of governance in the greater region in response to Covid-19.

Finally, before turning our attention to regional governance, we would be remiss not to mention that, alongside these formal institutions, one can find an even wider array of public, private, non-profit and non-governmental organizations that are also actively involved in megacity governance. These include quasi-governmental agencies such as the Economic Development Corporations of New York, Jersey City and Hoboken. Beyond this, one can also find an extensive network of more localized partnerships that bring the private sector more directly into governance processes in the megacity. For example, there are 130 Business Improvement Districts serving as more hyper-local, placed-based governance partnerships managing space and development in small commercial, retail and industrial areas of the region. And finally, there are

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