Abstract
According to John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, "individual liberty is individual power". Applied to local governments, this motto seems to be a good general explanation for their recent proliferation: it is a quest for independence and liberty that seems to have led numerous areas to become cities, by incorporating or seceding, and pushed special districts to multiply. From Industry, California, which incorporated to create a business-friendly environment, to Lakewood, California, which incorporated to preserve the area's independence and offer its residents cheaper services, the proliferation of governments has multiple causes, but finds its root in a desire for liberty. Today, there are more than 87,000 local governments in the United States (municipal, town and county governments, and school and special districts). For the last decades, cities and special districts have been proliferating, according to the department of commerce. These governments vary in size, power and independence. They form a complex web of local interactions that cause various problems of responsibility, accountability and efficiency when it comes to providing services or to dealing with regional issues.
