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50 Nw. U. L. Rev. 571 (1955-1956)
Toward a New Theory of Municipal Home Rule

handle is hein.journals/illlr50 and id is 585 raw text is: Northwestern University LAW REVIEW VOLUME 50 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1955 NUMBER 5 Toward a New Theory of Municipal Home Rule By Harvey Walker* T O paraphrase Jean Jacques Rousseau, Cities were born free, but everywhere they are in chains.' How have we arrived at this sorry state, and what can we do to change it? Can we expect to solve our problem of governing an urban society according to the basic political principles of democracy by further tinkering with our traditional devices, or must we try a fresh approach? History affords many examples of the beneficent effects of munic- ipal freedom-from the city states of the Classical Period in Greece, the Republic of Venice, and the medieval free cities such as Hamburg and Bruges to the selbstverwaltung of the Prussian cities under the reforms of Freiherr von Stein.2 Even today, the cities and villages of Western Germany continue to enjoy local self- determination, under constitutional guarantees, and the French communes have considerable independence under administrative supervision from the central government. In modern Britain, from which our institutions of local government were, in the main, de- rived, both county boroughs and non-county boroughs today have more local independence than do the cities of most American states.3 * Professor of Political Science, Ohio State Univ. Sup't of the Budget, Ohio, 1929-31. Author of THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (1948), FEDERAL LIMITATIONS ON MUNICIPAL ORDINANCE MAKING POWER (1929), and other books. A.B., Univ. of Kansas, 1923; Ph.D., Univ. of Minnesota, 1928; LL.B., Ohio State Univ., 1948. 1. Le Contrat Social, 1 THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF J. J. RoussEAu 1 (Vaughn ed. 1915). 2. HAMMOND, POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF TtIE ANCIENT GREEKS (1895); Munro, Home Rule, in 7 ENCYC. Soc. ScI. 434 (1932); Tooke, Municipal Corporation in 11 id. at 86 (1933) ; Munro, Municipal Government, in 11 id. at 105 (1933) ; Mont- gelas, Freilterr Heinrich Friedrich Karl von und vum Stein, in 14 id. at 380 (1934); MUMFORD, THE CULTURE OF CITIES (1938); RonsoN, GREAT CITIES OF TIE WORLD (1954); THE METROPOLIS IN MODERN LIFE (Fisher ed. 1955). 3. HART, INTRODUCTION TO THE LAW OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND Ai)MINISTRA- TION (1952); NEWSAM, THE HOME OFFICE (1954). 571 Copyright 1955 by Northwestern University School of Law

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