Merging political entities
-
- Alameda Tower
- Posts: 1042
- Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2017 5:49 pm
Merging political entities
With the recent St. Louis campaign to merge with the county, I was wondering if there were movements to merge the low population counties of Missouri and Kansas. Quite a few in Kansas are less than 2000 and losing population fast, it seems I feasible for them to pay for the amount of bureaucracy needed of a county. Is there any discussion surrounding this or is it unlikely due to local politics?
-
- Hotel President
- Posts: 3116
- Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:10 am
- Location: Broadway/Gilham according to google maps
Re: Merging political entities
One merger that would make sense locally is Edgerton merging with Gardner. Edgerton is 1600 and has a lot of warehouses but it's not really growing population wise. Gardner is growing and could use the warehouses
-
- Mark Twain Tower
- Posts: 9862
- Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:54 am
Re: Merging political entities
It’s not the County government size that’s where the bloat is at. Look at the sum total of services needed to support a community.Riverite wrote: ↑Fri Jul 02, 2021 4:45 pm With the recent St. Louis campaign to merge with the county, I was wondering if there were movements to merge the low population counties of Missouri and Kansas. Quite a few in Kansas are less than 2000 and losing population fast, it seems I feasible for them to pay for the amount of bureaucracy needed of a county. Is there any discussion surrounding this or is it unlikely due to local politics?
There’s 321 school districts. That’s one district per ~9000 people.
~23 are in the top four counties
236.5k or so students are in the remaining 298. For 885 students per district on average. If my numbers are 100,000 low the numbers still don’t look good at 1125 per district. That’s 13 grades of kids, The high number would be an average grade size of 90. Imagine what the low end looks like.
That’s hundreds of duplicated school district jobs. They all have a school board.
https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2016/feb/ ... s-opposit/
———————————-
Move onto fire protection districts, water service districts, sewer districts, road districts.
Imagine how many jobs are tied up outside of county government there too.
In a county of 1200 where 60% are working age, it doesn’t take long before consolidation ruins towns through the knock on effect.
It’s not the amount of bad bureaucracy to focus on, it’s to ask if the places exist because of it.
-
- Alameda Tower
- Posts: 1008
- Joined: Sat Jun 20, 2009 12:58 am
- Location: Manhattan, Kansas
- Contact:
Re: Merging political entities
Kansas just did a round of school consolidation like a decade ago.
-
- Mark Twain Tower
- Posts: 9862
- Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:54 am
Re: Merging political entities
They wanted to go further and have one per county below a certain point. There's still an excess of probably 100 school districts.longviewmo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 04, 2021 7:41 am Kansas just did a round of school consolidation like a decade ago.
-
- New York Life
- Posts: 433
- Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2013 7:03 pm
Re: Merging political entities
I'd like to see Platte, Clay, Jackson and Cass merged into one entity and one school district/library district. So it would be like NYC broken up into boroughs or maybe like London with the Greater London government.
I would break it up into 6 sub cities (Platte, Clay, Cass, Urban Core (KC), Ind./Raytown, Lees Summit)
I would break it up into 6 sub cities (Platte, Clay, Cass, Urban Core (KC), Ind./Raytown, Lees Summit)
-
- Alameda Tower
- Posts: 1042
- Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2017 5:49 pm
Re: Merging political entities
London would be a bad example as the GLA has very little real authority and most power goes to the boroughs and city which can impede progress and further fragmentation
-
- Mark Twain Tower
- Posts: 9862
- Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:54 am
Re: Merging political entities
one library district? Have you not heard of the Mid Continent System? It's nearly the scale you mention.dnweava wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 8:28 am I'd like to see Platte, Clay, Jackson and Cass merged into one entity and one school district/library district. So it would be like NYC broken up into boroughs or maybe like London with the Greater London government.
I would break it up into 6 sub cities (Platte, Clay, Cass, Urban Core (KC), Ind./Raytown, Lees Summit)
-
- Mark Twain Tower
- Posts: 9862
- Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:54 am
Re: Merging political entities
Here’s a good piece on EMS services.
https://youtu.be/Ezv8sdTLxKo
Start just before 8:37 when in gets into rural service and watch for a minute (or watch it all if you like)
After watching it consider the impact when rural community has 125% as many people age 65+ as urban areas.
I saw something that in some areas if you don’t prepay for helicopter service you don’t have service at all or it’s like another hospital bill worth of cost
It’s just another stressor on rural areas and will force more and more people to move away.
So these articles come as no surprise. Access to healthcare is mentioned as a risk.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/20 ... -covid-19/
https://youtu.be/Ezv8sdTLxKo
Start just before 8:37 when in gets into rural service and watch for a minute (or watch it all if you like)
After watching it consider the impact when rural community has 125% as many people age 65+ as urban areas.
I saw something that in some areas if you don’t prepay for helicopter service you don’t have service at all or it’s like another hospital bill worth of cost
It’s just another stressor on rural areas and will force more and more people to move away.
So these articles come as no surprise. Access to healthcare is mentioned as a risk.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/20 ... -covid-19/