臺灣於2010年起進行縣（市）改制為直轄市之地方政府再造，至2014年12月已形成六都（直轄市）規模。於廣設直轄市後，產生了直轄市數量過多、核心與邊陲地區發展差距日增、組織擴編與政府再造精神相違、公共服務品質未有相應之提升、財政紀律更加惡化等問題。臺灣直轄市制度應如何革新？本文以歷史制度論回顧英國地方自治發展經驗，並檢視威爾斯、蘇格蘭、北愛爾蘭委任分權政府之設計機制，在傳統模式的地方分權理論基礎上，建構出修正模式的地方分權理論（雙元分權理論）；再以個案研究方法，分析英國倫敦之發展歷程，論證直轄市之本質為「分權委任政府」，並提出臺灣直轄市制度革新之建議。

Taiwan amended the Local Government Act in 2009 by giving its central government more power to reform local authorities. In December 2014, the six special municipalities are established in Taiwan. After establishing so many special municipalities, many issues need to be handled, such as the gap between the core and periphery area, the failure of the reinventing government, the less quality of public service, the worse finance of the government. How do we rebuild Taiwan’s special municipality? This paper reviews the experience of the British local government reform and the evolution of the devolved government among the Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This paper employs the historical institutionalism and the case study as methodology. Through analyzing the development of the London, this paper suggests that the special municipality should be classified as devolved government. Moreover, this paper gives some suggestions to rebuild the special municipality in Taiwan.