# Cities w/o suburbs: Every metro area in America should have consolidated metro government

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-w-o-suburbs-every-metro-area-in-america-should-have-consolidated-metro-government/665395>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 5, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-w-o-suburbs-every-metro-area-in-america-should-have-consolidated-metro-government/665395 "2013-08-05T14:59:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-w-o-suburbs-every-metro-area-in-america-should-have-consolidated-metro-government/665395/5 "2013-08-05T15:16:57Z")

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I once heard of an Illinois politician’s gaffe to the effect that high crime figures for Illinois were misleading because “Chicago skews the results” – as if Chicago were not really properly part of Illinois. Well, perhaps that would be for the best. Let the consolidated-metro State of Chicagoland deal with all the urban and suburban and exurban problems of that metro area; and let the government of the remainder of Illinois deal with its small-city and small-town and rural problems, no longer using Chicago’s tax base, and no longer spending money or worry on Chicago’s problems either.

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