Oates' (1972) decentralization theorem holds that local governments will do a superior job at providing the efficient quantity of public goods. Brennan and Buchanan (1980) suggest that "the potential for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with the number of competing governmental units in the...

The paper is devoted to problems of ensuring balanced and sustainable development of a very specific and important metropolitan region of the Russian Federation - the region of St Petersburg and surrounding it Leningrad Oblast. St.Petersburg (City) and Leningrad Oblast (Region) are both...

The development of metropolitan areas is a natural process of urban expansion, achieved through exurbanisation and suburbanisation, whereby urban functions extend into the rural periurban environment. The expansion of the concept of the urban metropolitan area to second tier urban areas...