Preliminary results of the 1960 census indicate that a third of the population of the United States now lives in the suburbs, or more precisely, in metropolitan areas but outside central cities. The population increase in these newly built-up areas has increased the demand for government facilities and services, and for funds with which to finance them. From the attempts to cope with the problems of metropolitan areas have come a number of proposals for changes in local government organization. This report describes five of the proposals most frequently encountered: (1) City-county consolidation, (2) the urban county, (3) the multipurpose metropolitan special district, (4) federation, and (5) regional cooperation. It attempts to examine them from the viewpoint of their effects on rural residents.