It’s not uncommon for one metropolitan area to be home to dozens of local governments. In lots of those places, mayors and other local officials often lament the difficulties of having to coordinate with so many cities, towns and counties.
There’s no agreed-upon definition for this local government "fragmentation," but most researchers measure it by the number of governments per capita. We used that measurement, along with the number of governments per square mile, to see which metro areas and counties are the most fragmented.
Our calculations are based on the latest Census of Governments survey, which is conducted every five years and counted 38,779 cities, counties, towns and other general-purpose local governments (excluding special districts).
According to the study, the Houston metropolitan area has 133 local governments.
