>>1318967It's one of only two metropolitan areas in the United States with a strong regional government, the other being Portland. A few things:
-Has an Urban Growth Boundary which is relatively rare in the United States.
-All sewer, transit, Metropolitan Planning Organization, and regional government functions are run by the same organization.
-Every decade cities are required to submit a comprehensive plan to the regional government that is subject to their approval. Required items include cities providing their regional share of new housing units or affordable housing goals, and limits to the amount of new driving lanes that can be added.
-The regional government is unelected and appointed by the governor. They are allowed to collect property tax revenue which causes controversy with taxation without direct representation.
-Regional tax base revenue sharing (Fiscal Disparities Act). If one city adds a large new non-residential development then 40% of that growth is placed into a pool and redistributed across the metro area according to city need. It's designed to discourage cities from giving stupid amounts of subsidies to businesses when attracting them with the idea that the whole region does better when the whole region does better.
-Minneapolis is planning to be the first city to eliminate single family housing zoning.
All of these may be more common in other countries but they are relatively rare in the United States. The regional government dates back from the 1970s and it gradually acquired the responsibilities of other regional governmental functions. Success has varied but it's an interesting approach.
