Government: Minnesota Model

On a clear day, viewers atop New York’s Empire State Building can see an area that is governed by 1,400 political units—states, cities, counties and townships, plus scores of special-purpose districts that control everything from airports to garbage. The U.S. has 80,000 such “governments,” many of them created to focus efficiently on narrow problems. In pursuing their own interests, these bodies often worsen environmental problems, such as smog and dirty rivers, that cut across political boundaries, Responsibility is fragmented in a maze of separate, unequal and overlapping jurisdictions.

Many political scientists argue that the answer lies in regional governments designed to solve environmental abuses on a broad, systematic basis. Given the rivalries and jealousies involved, that idea might seem quixotic. But the U.S. already has an impressive model. The seven Minnesota counties that include Minneapolis, St. Paul and their bustling suburbs have recently discarded the old Balkanization of power for something new: the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, which controls key planning for the region’s 2,000,000 people while coexisting with 321 political units,

Separated by the Mississippi River, Minneapolis and St. Paul had long neglected their common problems as the nation’s 15th largest urban area. On occasion, they joined to fight mosquitoes, build an airport and support big-league athletic teams. But the cities could not agree—among themselves or with their suburban neighbors —on any common solutions for some of the region’s more pressing ailments.

Great factories sent pollutants billowing into the good Minnesota air, subdivisions sprawled over the pleasant landscape, delays mounted at the airport, and traffic began to choke the highways. Most shocking of all, the water table was becoming tainted by thousands of leaky backyard cesspools. Even this problem, which posed an imminent threat to health, seemed beyond resolution. For four straight biennial sessions, the state legislature tried to form a huge metropolitan sewer district. But suburbanites felt city dwellers were going to take advantage of them—and vice versa—so the bill failed to pass.

Finally, concerned residents organized a 3,600-member Citizens League, which helped to devise a regional planning body that both cities and suburbs would trust. Two years ago, under the league’s prodding, the state legislature passed an act setting up the Metropolitan Council to provide for “the orderly physical, social and economic growth of the area.”

Under the legislation, the council controls only regional matters like pollution, sewage, highway routes and preservation of open space, leaving to each locality full sovereignty over police, schools, zoning and taxation. The 14 council members are appointed by the Governor from newly created districts of roughly equal population, and their chairman is selected at large. Thus the group avoids being influenced by myopic municipalities. The council is also financially independent. It funds itself mainly through a 70¢ levy on every $1,000 of taxable valuation—a property surtax that brings in about $1,000,000 a year. Its staff of 50 experts includes city planners, sanitary engineers and political scientists. It has power to match its vision. Even small local projects concerning bus routes and landfill must jibe with the council’s regional plan—or be suspended.

If there is a flaw in the council, it is that members are not elected by the public. Yet the group’s initial accomplishments suggest that other medium-sized metropolitan areas in the U.S. might do well to emulate the Twin Cities’ plan. The council has already vetoed a site for a major new airport, on the ground that it would have brought too much noise and blight to nearby residential areas. On the positive side, the council is developing a mass-transit plan and has mapped out a gigantic sewer district that will unite 34 existing systems running through 121 towns and 300 governmental units.