Roper: We’ve got a surplus of cities. The metro’s toughest problems require a regional approach.

We boast more than 140 cities in the “Twin Cities” metro area, plus a bunch of townships. That’s a lot. Arguably, too many.

Before anyone alerts the mayor of Spring Lake Park, hear me out. No one is proposing to take away their gavel.

I merely bring this up because it is a fundamental point that too often feels ignored as we debate the Big Issues in our region. We are among the most “fragmented” areas in the country, meaning there are a lot of local governments.

Sometimes, that’s a good thing. Residents of tiny Osseo probably like having a government that’s easily held accountable for fixing potholes and keeping them safe, for example.

But when we consider topics like housing, land use and transportation, it’s important to put on our regional hats. (Those hats seem to have gone missing, but we’ll find some.)

State leaders realized in the 1960s that collaboration would be key to the region’s success. That’s why they created one of the most powerful regional governments in the country, the Metropolitan Council, which over time accumulated wide-ranging authority over our area’s growth. Its political clout has severely diminished, however.

We need to reform the Met Council so that it is more accountable and, importantly, more empowered. (Full disclosure: My husband’s small business is under contract with the Met Council.)

An effective regional government is important because our area is divided into a patchwork of priorities and regulations.

I’ve seen this expressed a couple different ways. The 2010 book “Region: Planning for the Future of the Twin Cities” says we have the fifth-most fragmented local government structure among the country’s top 50 metro areas. In addition to cities and townships, that includes school districts, counties and special governments (like the one devoted to mosquito control).

Authors Myron Orfield and Thomas F. Luce Jr. wrote that all these governments contribute to “increasingly scattered development patterns, increasing segregation, growing fiscal inequality, and threats to the area’s natural assets.” They also found, however, that our regional planning efforts appeared to be curbing these problems compared to other metro areas.

I called Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, to better understand the impacts of all these governments. She explained that regions are networks of activity centers. In fragmented U.S. metro areas, cities often compete against each other to promote their activity center at the expense of others.

“The way that regions get stronger is when growth is concentrated in existing activity centers and they are very well networked with each other,” Loh said.

This is why someone in Oakdale should care about the future of downtown St. Paul; the downtowns are our densest activity centers. “The stronger that node is, the stronger the whole network is,” Loh said, noting that downtowns also rely on other activity centers.

This reminds me of recent news about Blaine planning a new $750 million downtown to become a “destination city,” Shakopee’s grand vision to be the “entertainment destination of the region,” and Bloomington subsidizing a massive new water palace for its megamall — all while our primary downtowns are in jeopardy.

In isolation, these efforts might make some sense. But I’m skeptical whether there’s a regional logic to all this.

The city lens gives us a similarly narrow view of housing.

The mayor of Minneapolis likes to say how the city’s nationally recognized zoning changes are keeping prices down. But Minneapolis is one of the smallest central cities in the nation as a share of its surrounding urban area (among top regions).

The housing market is regional. Truly tackling affordability involves confronting a gnarly web of city zoning rules that, in some areas, consider a three-car garage to be a minimum living standard.

There’s a package of bills at the Legislature trying to address this. But it failed again this year because cities fought back hard.

When he used to teach a course on the evolution of urban areas, Ed Goetz at the University of Minnesota included a segment on government fragmentation because “it’s a real concern.” Goetz, who is director of the U’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, said there are two opposing schools of thought on the topic.

One argument is that having more cities allows for a wider variation in living environments. So people have a greater choice about the services they receive and the taxes they pay. This assumes, however, that people know about the differences and don’t have constraints on where they can live. Another angle, that Goetz finds more compelling, is that that fragmentation brings governments closer to the people they serve.

The counter viewpoint is that all these cities — with their own city halls and police departments — are duplicative and inefficient. Research also links fragmentation with racial and income segregation, he said. All these governments then make regionalism more challenging because “you’ve got so many more actors that have to buy in.”

“In the end, for me, the problems of fragmentation far outweigh the potential benefits,” Goetz wrote in an email after our interview.

Our municipal “actors” stretch from Shoreview to Shorewood, and Mound to Mounds View. People rightfully have pride in these places and their identities. I just hope we can also build a strong constituency for the larger metropolis, too.

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