METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE: HOW REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS INFLUENCE INTERLOCAL LAND USE COORDINATION

By focusing on Regional Planning Councils and metropolitan municipalities in Florida, this study addresses a gap in the literature concerning the role of regional organizations in metropolitan governance research. This study investigates two competing visions of the influence of regional organizations on interlocal coordination in land use decision making. The results show that regional organizations' substitutive effects on self-organizing interlocal cooperation are salient, while their complementary influence is not observed in regard to land use. Moreover, this research posits that municipalities with a higher level of need for coordination due to population stress and a council-manager form of government are more likely to coordinate land use decisions with other local governments.