Growing up in Indianapolis, I have to say that unigov there excluded the schools, police and fire departments in the merger. Growth stopped in the outer townships of the city for about 20 years as many people wanted to move outside of the boundaries of unigov so their children would not have to have one-way busing from the old city. Now, almost 40 year later, some of the townships are just now merging their police and/or fire departments with the city, due to budget issues. The school districts are all still independent from the old city. I guess if we did the same thing, all of us would get to vote for the mayor, Detroit would run such things as water, bus service, and public health [[unless given back to the counties) and we would pay some higher taxes to the city.....