Urban governance and sub-local municipal decentralization in major North and South American cities
The City of Montreal has an urban governance structure where its 19 boroughs have their own elected councils with a degree of budgetary autonomy that enables them to provide differentiated local municipal services. This type of sub-municipal decentralization is considered by local experts and politicians to be somewhat exceptional, but is it really so unusual? Certainly, a number of comparative studies have been conducted on European cities, but little academic attention has been paid to sub-local decentralization in North or Latin America. Drawing on official municipal documents, the research study described here provides an overview of urban governance structure in 29 cities in the Americas. Eight municipalities where sub-local decentralization exists are examined more closely: Montreal, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico, Bogota, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Our article offers a preliminary overview of the process of sub-local decentralization in North and South America. Our main finding is that the level of decentralization in Montreal is significantly higher than in any other city in the Americas, but that the process is becoming more widespread in a number of Latin American cities.