After World War II, California saw a huge increase in population, leading to the sporadic creation of cities and special districts. This development led to the conversion of more agricultural land into urban areas, causing inefficient and expensive public service delivery systems. In 1959, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr. appointed the Commission of Metropolitan Area Problems to address this issue. The commission studied the misuse of land resources and the complexity of overlapping local governmental jurisdictions and made recommendations for local governmental reorganization. These recommendations were introduced in legislation in 1963, leading to the creation of Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCO) in each county. The law governing LAFCO's activities is found in Government Code Section 56000 et. seq. and is now known as the "Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Reorganization Act of 2000" following an amendment through the passage of AB 2838.