Beavers and Cats Revisited: Creatures and Tenants or Municipal Charter(s) and Home Rule? Has the Local-Intergovernmental Game Shifted to the Mushy Middle? Canadian-American Comparisons / Vancouver and British Columbia Lessons

Much of the North American discussion about local government policy making capacity focuses on the formal authority of these bodies. Municipalities with circumscribed sets of powers are portrayed as weak and those with the freedom to legislate in all areas except those which are specifically forbidden are seen as strong . Using a number of Vancouver cases as examples, this paper argues that the weak/strong dichotomy is false and the policy making capacity of all local governments is more likely to fall somewhere in the mushy middle.