Within the Detroit metropolitan area is Hamtramck, a small city with its own city hall, mayor, city council, police, administration, and budget. Hamtramck has an area of ​​about 2.1 square miles (5.4 square kilometers) and a population of about 28,000. It is completely surrounded by Detroit, but remains an independent city. A Detroit police car or a citizen can drive down a Detroit street, drive two kilometers (1.2 mi) into Hamtramck, and then re-enter Detroit.

Next door is Highland Park, with fewer than 9 residents and an area of ​​about 7.7 square miles. It is also surrounded by Detroit, but it remains a separate city and municipality, not a neighborhood of Detroit. Maintaining two small municipalities within a large urban area may seem expensive. However, in the American system, local self-government is considered an important part of democracy. Residents want to directly decide on the police, taxes, roads, sanitation, territorial planning, and the services they receive.

Hamtramck has also preserved its social and cultural identity. It has been home to generations of immigrants and today represents a community with unique characteristics. Local autonomy gives residents more opportunities to influence decision-making and hold city leaders accountable.

This is not to say that Hamtramck and Highland Park have not had financial and administrative problems. But their difficulties have not been used as a reason to merge the municipalities and merge them with Detroit.

A municipality is not inefficient because it is small. Its weakness can come from mismanagement, lack of a local economy, depopulation, inability to collect taxes, or lack of competences and funding.

Even more striking is the case of the Grosse Pointe area, northeast of Detroit. On a combined land area of ​​about 27 square kilometers are five independent cities: Grosse Pointe City, Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Woods and Grosse Pointe Shores.

Together they have about 45 thousand inhabitants. The smallest has less than 3 thousand inhabitants and the largest about 16 thousand. Each has its own administration, council, police, fire department and services.

Residents accept the costs of administration because they want direct control over security, property, public spaces, urban planning, and the standard of the community where they live.

These cities cooperate on common services. They share the school system, libraries and other services, without losing administrative and political independence. Cooperation does not necessarily require the merger of local units.

Albania, 61 municipalities on the map and one center of power
In Albania, the debate on territorial reform focuses mainly on the number of municipalities. Small municipalities are portrayed as costly, weak and unable to survive financially. Opposition from residents is ignored, while local leaders are portrayed as people protecting their positions and privileges. But the main problem is not the number of municipalities. Albania formally has 61, while in practice it functions as a single municipality, with Edi Rama as its mayor.

The prime minister intervenes directly in matters that, in a decentralized system, should belong to local authorities. He holds meetings with municipal employees, demands that they adhere to the schedule, controls the administration, and demands resignations. Mayors have offices, administration, and titles, but little real power. Some of them publicly call the prime minister “the boss,” acknowledging their political and institutional subordination.

Municipalities depend on the government for funds, roads, water, schools, reconstruction, and major investments. Instead of the mayor representing the community to the government, he often represents the government to the community.

The 2015 territorial reform reduced the number of local government units from 373 to 61 municipalities. Municipalities were enlarged in territory, but not strengthened in competences. The administrative units that replaced the communes were left without budgets and without decision-making power. The administrator awaits the decision of the mayor, while the mayor awaits funds or government approval.

Thus, a chain of subordination was created that begins in the village and ends in the prime minister's office.

Local government is not measured by the number of offices, employees, and seals, but by the competencies, finances, and the ability to make independent decisions. These are precisely what Albanian municipalities lack.
Key decisions on territory, coastal areas and strategic investments are made at the central level. Water utilities are concentrated in regional structures. Education policies, appointments, health, police and the main part of civil protection are controlled by the government. Municipalities are asked to take responsibility for problems, without having the means and powers to solve them.

Financial dependence is also deep. Many municipalities rely on transfers from the State Budget and funds distributed by ministries and central agencies. Investments are then presented as government aid or as a personal gift from the prime minister, although they are financed with taxpayers' money.

The village, the forgotten link of reform
The biggest victim of this system is the village. The village is not simply a group of houses within the territory of a large municipality. It is a historical, economic and social community, with common territory, resources and interests. However, the 2015 reform left it without real representation, without a budget and almost without any possibility to decide on its territory.

Villages do not even have defined boundaries. They do not control properties that have historically been the common wealth of the community: forests, mountains, meadows, pastures, water sources, streams, and rivers.

These assets are not only part of the village's identity. They have been the basis of its economy. They provided wood, pastures, water, forest products and family income. Without these resources, the village loses the opportunity to develop agriculture, livestock, tourism and other local activities.

Today, decisions about these assets are made primarily by the state. Permits are given for hydroelectric power plants that divert rivers and reduce water for residents. Photovoltaic plants are approved on lands traditionally used as pastures. The right to exploit forests, minerals or other resources is granted without truly involving the communities that live there.

The village bears the consequences, while others make the decision and benefit.

The loss of control over territory and resources has weakened the local economy, driven the exodus of residents, and reduced municipal revenues. Poverty and depopulation are then used as arguments to argue that these communities are incapable of self-government.

This is a mechanism that feeds itself: the village is stripped of property, competences, and income; it is impoverished and emptied; then its weakness is used to further reduce its representation.

A true territorial reform must start precisely from the village. Every village must have clear boundaries, elected representation by its inhabitants, and the right to express itself on the use of forests, pastures, waters, and other assets of its territory. It must receive a share of the income generated from the exploitation of these resources and have a minimum budget for the needs of the community.

Those who cite the 28 executive committees of the communist era as an example should be told that those 28 committees were accompanied by several hundred agricultural cooperatives that had their own leadership and bodies, work brigades and work tools, with several hundred village councils or village councils united on the basis of the cooperative that had, in addition to the means and instruments for governance, including clear boundaries, clear boundaries and even courts within the village.

Today, the village is only a name on the address. Decisions are made not in the city where the municipality is located, but in Tirana, while funds, administration and investments are increasingly concentrated further away from the residents.

Reform does not start from the map
The discussion on territorial reform cannot be limited to the question of whether Albania should have 61, 50 or 30 or 100 municipalities. Without defining competencies, financial resources, local properties and the relationship with the central government, changing the map remains a reorganization of offices.

Municipalities can be merged, territories can be merged, and names can be changed, but the system remains the same as long as every road, water supply, school, investment, or important permit depends on Tirana.

The example of Hamtramck shows that a small town can survive even when completely surrounded by a large metropolis, if its residents have the right to govern their community. The example of the five towns of Grosse Pointe shows that small units can share schools, libraries, and services, without merging and without losing their political voice.

In Albania, the opposite is being proposed: local units are enlarged, villages are removed from the center of decision-making, and power is increasingly concentrated in Tirana.

A resident of Hamtramck lives within Detroit geographically, but not politically. He has his own municipality and leaders. A resident of an Albanian village may live dozens of kilometers from the center of the municipality, but he does not even have power over the forest, pasture, river or road near his house.

This is the difference between territorial division and self-government. Hamtramck and Grosse Pointe have small territories, but local government. Albania has large municipalities on the map, but increasingly small villages and communities in decision-making.

On the map, Albania has 61 municipalities. In the real chain of decision-making, there is only one center of power. The new reform, as it is presented, risks changing the boundaries of municipalities without changing this reality.