Research On American Special District Government

The special district is a type of separate local government that delivers certain or defined public services to a particular area in the United States, and the special district has been the important part in the system of American local governments. Recently, the special district has the largest number and increase fastest in all the type of governments, the rate of its rise has been 202.9% over the last half century. So, not only the number but also the type, the special districts are far more than any other local governments. The special district has been a very unique perspective of view in the research on American local governments.From a normative and positive research, this dissertation explores the historical origin and development of special district in the United States, as well as its organization, structure and function. Analyzes the difficulties and problems which arisen from its developments. Besides, draws a theoretical conclusion and analysis of the impact and role of special district in practice.This research discovers that as a special form of American local governments, the origin and development of special district is strongly related to citizen's increasing needs of public service, and special district has specific and special advantage in providing and satisfying citizen's needs of public service, such as the flexibility of organization structure, fiscal arrangements and the mechanism of its operation.However, the establishment of special districts is not once for all in providing public service, as there exist resources waste, duplicated production, low efficiency of public service provision and insufficiency of citizen participation. In all, though there are the positive and the negative reviews on special district, it has been an important part of American people's lives. Therefore, it calls for perfecting and integrating organization system, strengthening the cooperation of governments in providing public service, improving supervision mechanism and citizen participation. The American special district government all have provided some certain reference for us from the positive and the negative aspects.