Sub-Municipal Governance in Practice: The Rotterdam Experience

Abstract

ECENTRALIZATION of governing power within large municipalities to some kind of smaller subdivisions, in the name of more direct accountability and presumably increased interest and participation, has probably been the subject of more advocacy and less action than any other theme of recent years in municipal politics around the globe. It's supporters have waxed eloquent on the potential advantages to be gained, foreseeing local governments more truly aware of and responsible to the real wishes of their citizens and thus ameliorating if not curing the common plague of alienation from politics. The principle has been backed, usually in non-specific terms, in resolutions issuing from many a national or international conference of municipal leaders or national government officials responsible for local affairs. Nevertheless, there are others who are notably less sanguine about the prospects. As Yates has remarked, Decentralization is a fighting word in many American cities. Advocates claim decentralization will bring government closer to people and revitalize urban neighborhoods-especially poor, black ones. Opponents see decentralization as a betrayal of integration and the merit system in urban governments. Some argue that decentralization will produce racism and arbitrary rule. (Yates, 1973: 3. See also Davis in Frederickson, 1973). Kristol (1968) contends that talk of decentralization has become a fad, that it is usually undesirable to fragment heterogeneous political communities, and that decentralization should be undertaken only if stronger local units are created. One complication in any discussion of municipal decentralization is that the term has no single uniform meaning. Several possible types are evident, but there is at least reasonable agreement on the general classifications. Schmandt (in Frederickson, 1973) has suggested five useful categories: (1) the exchange model, involving simply devices for improved communication of information and feedback between a city government and neighborhoods; (2) the bureaucratic model, wherein various administrative services are delegated to civil servants at a localized level; (3) the modified bureaucratic model, in which local area civil servants are responsible both to the central administration and to some sort of neighborhood council with perhaps advisory or even approval powers; (4) the developmental model, where a more or less independent localized development corporation (for example, housing development) is created to virtually by-pass the existing public authorities; and (5) the governmental model, involving elected sub-municipal councils with some significant degree of self-government authority. Examples of the first four types have become relatively common in recent years, but experience with true sub-

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