Can you explain the reasons?
Expense. Mark Drummond's PhD thesis showed that the cost in replicated services, lack of coordination etc, from Australia state governments costs an additional $20 billion per annum (2007 dollars) http://members.webone.com.au/~markld/PhD/thesis.html
Result: the school systems differ a lot, have serious shortcomings but it is incredibly hard to get anything done.
Exactly.... Same problems in Australia. Check out the history of Australian rail gauges if you want to see something that should be a no-brainer. The thing with Australia is that our state governments are too powerful and our local governments don't really exist; they are, effectively, an arm of the state government. Hope this helps, -- Lev Lafayette, mobile: 61 432 255 208 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt