The Only Elected Regional Government in the U.S.

Like many metropolitan areas in the U.S., Portland, Oregon, has a regional governance system, a bureaucratic overlay that has enabled region-wide planning and coordination. In many ways, it’s like a lot of regional entities – looking after transportation issues, addressing infrastructure that crosses municipal borders, and generally operating from a mindset of what's in the best interests of the region as a whole. But Portland’s regional system, Metro, is different than every other regional system and group in the country: its members are elected. With a strong focus on regional planning efforts and a highly regarded sense of urban governance, the Portland region has been a model metropolitan region. So why hasn’t any other place followed?

“It’s oft cited, never copied,” says Kate Foster, a visiting fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. She’s an expert on regional governance, and seems both bemused and unsurprised that Portland’s elected system hasn’t taken off in other places. When Metro was established in Portland in the 1970s, it came at the right place, in the right time and to the right audience.