The States and the Metropolitan Problem. (The Council of State Governments, 1313 East Sixtieth Street, Chicago 37, Illinois. John C. Boilens, Director of the Study. 1956. 163 pages. Cloth bound, $3, paper bound $2.50.)

The growth of metropolitan areas has become a population phenomenon in America. It has sharpened problems of metropolitan government that have been rising for decades. Few problems of governmental structure, surely, are more acute today. More than half of our people now live in metropolitan areas ... an increasing proportion of them in the suburbs and fringe areas. But government in the typical metropolitan area, on which its residents and its economy must depend for public facilities and services, is a complex and confusing maze. For such area, as a rule, there are a great many separate governments, without coordination or coherent pattern.

Because of that situation, the Governor's Conference in 1955 directed the Council of State Governments, as the agency of all the states, to study the problem of government in metropolitan areas and to report the results, with recommendations pointing to improvement. To make the study the Council obtained the services of John C. Bollens of the Department of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles. As preparation of the report proceeded, numerous individuals in interested organizations and agencies, both public and private, gave their counsel and advice. The result is The States and the Metropolitan Problem, just published by the Council. It deals with the subject in its past and current setting, and points to means by which citizens and officials can hope to progress in transforming the metropolitan maze into orderly and effective government.

As defined by the Census Bureau, there are 172 metropolitan areas in the continental United States —each with a central city of at least 50,000—

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located in forty-two states and the District of Columbia. If the recent past is a criterion, they are certain to become still more numerous, still more populous. The 1950 Census showed that 56 per cent of our population lived in metropolitan areas. On the basis of a sample survey in 1955 the bureau estimated that of a total 161 million in April that year, 95 million, or 59 per cent, lived in metropolitan areas—13.7 per cent more than five years before. Still more striking, in confirming the continuing trend to the suburbs and fringe areas, the survey indicated that 44 million of the metropolitan dwellers resided outside the central cities— 27.8 per cent more than in 1950.

Even before these developments assumed their current acceleration, illogical quiltworks of gov-were under frequent criticism in metropolitan areas. The present rate of growth and the shift to the suburbs not only have made the old problems real to more persons; they have increased the inadequacies themselves.

After describing this general setting and the major problems in Part I, the Council's study devotes its longest section, Part II, to means by which state and other governments have sought to reduce the metropolitan difficulties. It describes six major devices utilized or discussed, and suggests the extent to which each may be useful today.

Although it presents no panacea, it emphasizes three approaches—the metropolitan federation, the urban county and the metropolitan special district—as offering outstanding promise. Past practice and current significance of annexation likewise receive close attention, and means of making it more effective are suggested.

The concluding section points up patterns of government and principles of organization that can serve metropolitan interests, and it recommends specific means by which the states can work with local governments and organizations to produce adequate solutions.

The volume has at the outset a graphic map that shows at a glance where the metropolitan areas are. There are ten pertinent tables. An index makes cross-reference easy.

The Council of State Governments, which prepared the report, is a joint governmental agency, established and entirely supported by the states, for service to them. The States and the Metropolitan Problem is the latest of a series of studies it has completed in recent years, on such subjects of major nationwide interest as the state systems of elementary, secondary and higher education; mental hospitals and mental health; and problems of the aging in our population.