ABSTRACT
Of all the contributors to the Municipal Progress, William Robson was most concerned with questions of structure. His warning in Chapter 19 that the continued health and strength of local government would depend on a comprehensive and, by implication, radical redrawing of its boundaries and redistribution of its functions was just one of the many occasions on which he returned to the theme over a period of thirty-five years (Robson, 1931a, 1935b, 1948, 1966). Robson was right to see the problem as urgent in 1935. Looking back from 1985, what needs to be explained is why it took so long for government to accept that something had to be done.
