Baton Rouge’s Plan of Government is nearly 80 years old. Does it still hold up?

When East Baton Rouge Parish voters approved a consolidated city-parish government in the late 1940s, Baton Rouge was the parish’s unquestioned center of gravity. The surrounding areas were largely rural and unincorporated, and the logic behind unifying city and parish functions under a single government was relatively straightforward: Eliminate service duplication, increase efficiency and reduce