Last month, Nima Hairy explained to readers of the Brussels Times why Brussels, with its 19 municipalities, is a much more complex city than it appears to the uninitiated observer.
Of the three possible ways to simplify Brussels’ complexity – the merging of the 19 municipalities into a single body, the partial merging or the redistricting of the borders of the existing municipalities - Hairy would prefer the latter option. For the author, in fact, the total or partial merging of the municipalities would entail costs far greater than the benefits such measures would produce.
However, from London to Madrid, from Barcelona to Milan, from Berlin to Paris, many European cities, during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, were merged with neighbouring municipalities to become the metropolises we know today. There is no one-size-fits-all model to simplify things. Nevertheless, any reorganisation cannot but imply the consistent merging of municipalities together with an incisive reform of the administration.
In London, the first action to reorganise the 38 vestries and boroughs around the City of London dates back to 1855 with the establishment of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The first ever upper tier of local government in London lasted until 1889, when it was replaced by the County of London.
Few years later (1900), the 38 vestries and boroughs were reorganised into 28 metropolitan boroughs. A new legislative intervention in 1965 joined into Greater London both the London County, the whole county of Middlesex and parts of the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey. The 28 metropolitan boroughs were merged into the 12 boroughs of Inner London, to which 20 new boroughs of the Outer London were added. Since 2000, Greater London has had its own Mayor and Assembly.
London, either because of its size or because of its common law system, is not the simplest and most straightforward example to simplify things in Brussels. Paris, on the other hand, is the product of a single annexation of the peripheral municipalities to the historic centre.
The decision was made by Napoleon III in the same years in which he entrusted the prefect Georges-Eugène Haussmann with a plan for the profound renovation of the city. 11 communes around Paris and parts of 12 others were split into eight arrondissements and annexed to the French capital in 1860. Curiously, however, Paris remained without a mayor until 1977, with the functions exercised until then by a prefect appointed by the central government.
Similar to Paris are the cases of Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Madrid and Barcelona. In 1920, the Greater Berlin Act, annexed to the capital of the newly founded Weimar Republic 7 towns that surrounded Berlin, 59 rural communities and 27 other districts, increasing its area 13 times and doubling its population from approximately 1.9 million to nearly 4 million. The 'new' city was divided into twenty districts which, after the German Reunification, were reduced to the current twelve Bezirke.
The expansion of Vienna and Milan, instead, took place in two phases. The Austrian capital was first expanded in 1850 when the area between the old city and the walls was merged with the city and subdivided in 8 districts. A second expansion took place in 1890 when 8 new districts were created on the areas outside the city walls. Similarly, the rural territory around the city walls was annexed to Milan in 1873.
Fifty years later, after the demolition of the city walls, twelve more municipalities were merged to the City of Milan. Also the Madrid we know today is the result of the annexation of thirteen municipalities that increased its total area almost 9 times between 1948 and 1954. Likewise, Barcelona, between 1897 and 1924, absorbed eight municipalities on whose territory numerous residential districts developed during the 20th century.
All these cases, albeit their peculiar differences, point in the direction that Hairy feels it won’t fit for Brussels: merging of municipalities. The fact is that not even complete merging, without a far-reaching administrative reform, may not be enough to simplify things and make them work better.
In addition to merging all 19 municipalities into a single body, the legislator will have to review the role of the Capital Region, which could lose the reason for its existence, not to mention the role of the Flemish and French language communities, which could also become redundant if their competences were reduced to Flanders and Wallonia respectively.
In short, are we sure that only in Brussels would the costs of merging the municipalities outweigh the benefits?
