Posted Sunday, July 15, 2012 --- 6:55 p.m.

MILWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) -- The greater London area needs only 34 government entities to administer all its public safety, services, transportation, zoning and schools. Greater Toronto gets by with only 28.

But when it comes to overlap, unnecessary taxpayer spending and political fragmentation, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, the Chicago-Milwaukee metroplex is in a league of its own. The two adjoining metro regions are splintered into a profusion of 2,155 separate governmental entities.

Findings this year from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development say the inefficiencies and jurisdictional rivalries undermine what otherwise could become a vibrant economic bloc.

Milwaukee's future in the region is the focus of a daylong conference Tuesday at Marquette University, sponsored by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Lubar Fund for Public Policy Research at Marquette Law School.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.