Advantages of city-county consolidation
Although critics of consolidation contend that there would be an expansion of bureaucracy, Alexander reasons that separate city and county governments cannot resolve urban problems effectively. He therefore argues that consolidation would increase the city's representative base and would allow for constructive constituent feedback on city services.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Frederick Douglas Alexander, April 1, 1975. Interview B-0065. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MOYE:
-
Why did consolidation...What prompted the issue to come up when
it did?
- FREDERICK DOUGLAS ALEXANDER:
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Well, I think it was a general recognizance of the fact that
consolidation is necessary to resolve many of the problems that affect a
growing community like Charlotte. There are many problems that face
Charlotte that can't be resolved on a city-county level, as
such. The restrictions of two governments comes into play. The
complexity of the philosophy of peoples in two areas comes into play.
You take transportation, for instance. We cannot adequately resolve our
transportation problems from a community point of view unless we are
dealing with a total area. You follow. The stricture or the constraints
of laws that permit counties to only do some things and cities to only
do some things, and the crossing of boundary lines which have the
constraints of law. It makes it impossible to arrive at solutions to
some of the problems that are necessary to move the community
forward.
- MOYE:
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Was the water and sewer situation one of the major...
- FREDERICK DOUGLAS ALEXANDER:
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Yes. All of these...We have, in a sense, consolidated situations
as it is now, but a total consolidation sets up the fact of dealing with
one government. You begin to develop a one-government thinking.
Certainly...[text missing]
Specially with many of the people problems that will affect not
only the country but our local communities can be resolved from a
one-government approach rather from a two-government approach. You
follow?
- MOYE:
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Some of the opponents say, "That's just going to be
another level of government. They're all passing the buck
down there now. That's just going to make them one step
higher up someway and less in touch someway with the people."
You contradict that view.
- FREDERICK DOUGLAS ALEXANDER:
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Yes, I do. I say that you come closer in contact with the people from a
consolidated government than you do in two-level
government as we have today because your representation is broader. You
get inputs in government from elements of your communities that you
don't get otherwise. So, I'm not a believer in the
fact that that type of philosophy would cover.
