292 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. 8S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
as units of local government and as far as possible as units of State 
administration than to try to substitute something new. In fact the 
counties are so firmly entrenched politically that it would be idle to 
attempt to abolish them. It will be difficult enough even to reduce 
their number. 
Where needed consolidations cannot be effected immediately be- 
cause of local sentiment or political opposition, it may often be possi- 
ble for adjoining counties to undertake the joint support of certain 
services. Thus two or more counties may use the same jail or the 
same home for the indigent, or they may combine to build a nospital 
or to support a health unit. The same welfare officer may serve 2 
or 3 counties, or the same engineer several counties. By combining 
in this way for particular purposes, the economy of joint support will 
become evident, and eventually the absurdity of retaining 2 seats of 
vovernment and 2 full sets of officers and records will be manifest. 
Consolidation will thus be effected with a minimum of upheaval and 
a minimum of opposition. ‘This slow process will not be necessary 
in every instance—some counties are ready for immediate amalga- 
mation—but where there is vigorous opposition to a complete merger 
the immediate effort should be for the adoption of a program of joint 
support. 
Again it should be pointed out that these recommendations in 
respect to counties are not pertinent to New England, where the 
county occupies a relatively unimportant position in the scheme of 
local government. 
OVERLAPPING SPECIAL DISTRICTS 
Superimposed on the counties and towns, there are likely to be 
numerous special districts of one kind or another—road districts, 
school districts, drainage districts, sewer districts, and similar sub- 
divisions. ‘These districts are often overlapping, and the same 
property is subject to taxation by 4 or 5 taxing jurisdictions. While 
these special taxing districts have often been created for the benefit 
of a limited number of property owners who wanted a special service 
and were willing to pay for it, they have quite as often been created 
to circumvent tax-rate or debt-limit laws. This multiplicity of taxing 
units courts extravagance and waste by duplicating effort and scat- 
tering responsibility. 
In metropolitan areas the multiplicity and overlapping of govern- 
mental units are particularly aggravated. The classic example is 
Cook County, Ill., in which outside of the limits of Chicago, there are 
9 cities, 76 villages, 30 townships, 192 school districts, 30 park dis- 
tricts, over 40 road and bridge districts, 2 sanitary districts, and enough 
additional subdivisions of government to aggregate 415 separate in- 
dependent units, each having power to levy taxes and borrow money 
(183, p. 101). The situation is similar in the New York metropolitan 
area. \ 
A commission appointed to investigate county and municipal tax- 
ation and expenditures in New Jersey says (146, pp. 7, 387) in one of 
its reports: 
* * * It is fully recognized that certain problems have reached the regional 
stage, and that there is great need, particularly in the metropolitan areas, for 
establishing administrative jurisdictions that are broad enough to cope with 
these problems in a satisfactory manner. * * * Ideally, there should be but 
one comprehensive local budgeting and tax-levying authority for a given territory, 
