As most of you know I live in Vancouver where you don't hear the word
amalgamation mentioned nearly as often.
There is a reason for this, better coordination and cooperation between the munucpalities, and seperate entities of regional government. St. John's has only thirteen separate municipalities, but Vancouver has twenty-four, six of which have larger populations than the city of St. John's, and the smallest of which has only a few hundred. Translink, which administers the regional transportation system, provides transit for most if not all of these areas.
In St. John's I think there is some room for consolidation or amalgamation, but I don't really like the completely forced Halifax regional municipality as a model because it includes areas which have nothing or little in common with the actual city. At most for St. John's I would include only the more densely planned (or properly suburban) areas such as Mt. Pearl. Often, previously annexed or amalgamated areas in St. John's were included either because the city needed undeveloped land to expand or because a municipality was completely surrounded by the city (i.e. Wedgewood Park). Also, some of these areas were previously unincorporated.
As an alternative to amalgamation you could look at Metro Vancouver, a political body formerly known as the GVRD. Metro Vancouver has 24 separate municipalities or local governments, but also four entities of regional government. Every town or city gets to keep it's identity and a high level of local control, however services are coordinated by the following, Metro Vancouver:
"Metro Vancouver is under the direction of 24 local governments; it delivers regional services, sets policy and acts as a political forum."
"Metro Vancouver is technically composed of four separate corporate entities: the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), the Greater Vancouver Sewerage & Drainage District (GVS&DD), the Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD) and the Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation (MVHC).[4] Each of these is governed by a board of directors."
"The principal function of Metro Vancouver is to administer resources and services which are common across the metropolitan area."
Have a look at the wiki articles or official website for more detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Vancouver
http://www.metrovancouver.org/Pages/default.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransLi...tish_Columbia)