One of the most curious notions to come out of the discussions around the proposed restructuring of Auckland’s local government, is that Auckland is somehow unusual in having several local councils, as well as a regional council. A surprising number of people believe that whole metropolitan areas, such as Sydney, Paris, Brisbane and Vancouver, are governed by a single council.

The consequent assumption is that unless Auckland is governed by a single metropolitan government it can never achieve its full potential.

Aucklanders obviously set themselves a high standard. The Economist's EIU ranks Auckland as number twelve in its list of the ‘World's Most Liveable Cities’. The Mercer Consulting survey is even more impressed, ranking Auckland fourth equal with Vancouver. Vienna, Zurich and Geneva are their top three.

Again, the Mercer ranking is designed “to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments”. So housing affordability is not an issue. These are the best cities for ‘top’ people – and for government officials in particular.

In spite of these assumptions the reality is that there is not a single first-world city, of over one million people, that is governed by a single council. 

The normal governing structure is a regional council, and a number of local municipalities, providing two levels of governance. Some European cities have four levels of governance. Others, like Perth and Sydney, have only one. (These elected bodies are typically complemented by single issue agencies dealing with specific regional infrastructure such as roading and water supplies.)

While some central city councils dominate the region, the population of the City of Perth is only 15,100, within a Metropolitan region of 1,602,559.  This pattern of a small central city surrounded by extensive suburban municipalities is common to Melbourne, Darwin, Adelaide, and Hobart. 

Interpreting the governance structures of major cities is difficult because of the diversity of administrative structures and functions, and their names. Many ‘cities’ in the US have populations of fewer than 1,000 people. Turning to Wikipedia is not much help, although Wikipedia does its best to explain the difficulties and the many terms, such as regions, metropolitan areas, cities, districts, counties, boroughs and municipalities. The following summary has been developed by asking people who know the cities, or from references that spell out the structure in some detail.

The summary standardizes the language by using 'Regional Council' to describe any regional government focusing on infrastructure and region wide issues, and 'Municipality' to describe any Council with a Mayor and Councillors, and exercising the normal powers of a district or borough council anywhere.

The cities follow the ranking of the Economic Intelligence Unit. The top twelve are listed and a few well known lower ranked cities then follow to show the pattern remains consistent over a wider range of countries.

1. Vancouver – A Regional Council (Was the Greater Vancouver Regional District.Now Metro Vancouver.) and 21 Municipalities.

2.     Vienna – A Regional Council and 23 Municipalities. 

3.     Melbourne – One City of Melbourne with Lord Mayor, plus 32 Municipalities, and five outer Shires.

4.   Toronto – A Regional Council ("Metro") and 20 Municipalities.

5.   Perth – 30 Municipalities. (One level of governance.

5   Calgary – Calgary City and five peripheral Municipalities

7.  Helsinki. – Greater Helsinki has 12 Municipalities.

8.    Geneva – City of Geneva, one of 45 Municipalities within the Canton of Geneva.

9.    Sydney – One level of governance through 38 Municipalities.

9 =   Zurich –  220 Municipalities, 127 within the Canton of Zurich. (The City of Zurich is Governed by a Parliament of 125 members.) Population – 1.6 million.

11.   Adelaide – Adelaide Regional Council (Metro) and eighteen Municipalities, including  Central Adelaide.

12.   Auckland – Auckland Regional Council and seven Municipalities.

13.   Osaka – 33 Municipalities in the Osaka Prefecture alone. Osaka is part of the metropolitan area of Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto/Nora with a total population of about 17 million.

17.  Paris – 20 Arrondisements, 1300 Municipalities.

22.  Berlin City State (Parliament of 141) and twelve Municipalities.

52.   Rome – 19 Municipalities.

There would appear to be no correlation at all between livability and the number, or size, of municipalities or other governing entities in these cities. Certainly there is nothing to suggest that collapsing all of Auckland's governing authorities into one would suddenly drive it to a higher place on the table.

The Mercer Consulting survey, which ranked Auckland as 4th most attractive city in the world, did however rank Auckland's infrastructure at 44th equal with Madrid.

While Auckland has a Regional Council it seems not to have the power, (or the will?) to provide world class infrastructure for the region it governs. This is almost certainly because it has multiple functions and its environmental focus had led the ARC to have a strong bias against the motor car (without any justification) and in favour of public transport, and of course to prevent urban growth into the countryside at all costs.

It may well be that placing the environmental management of the Auckland region within an Environmental Management Agency, and creating an Auckland Council to be provide region-wide infrastructure will have a dramatic effect on both Auckland’s regional infrastructure and its housing affordability.

The natural consequence would then be to establish say twenty or thirty municipalities with a Mayor and a small council to provide local governance for local communities. They would provide healthy competition and compete to provide both employment and affordable housing.