Associations of Governments implement the vision of multi-county or regional planning districts to coordinate planning and governmental activities within a specified geographic area of the state. These multi-county planning districts, or Associations of Governments (AOG)s, encompass and combine two or more counties with the primary concern to provide a framework to aid and encourage better coordination of and communication between plans and programs and to facilitate more efficient and effective ways for the administration and delivery of services that will carry out the responsibilities of government. . . (and) provide and operate various types of services or to develop facilities that would be more efficient on a district basis.

Thus, regional planning districts have a few distinct purposes:

• regional (and state-wide) planning and integration
• reduce duplication of local government efforts
• economies of scale

Several factors pushed Utah to consider regional planning districts, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Utah's rural county makeup--and its declining rural county population--enhanced the difficulty of providing effective state and federal programs.
• These local government entities also found it difficult to resolve and develop support services for the rising social and economic problems of modern society.
• Many state or federal programs encompassed boundaries broader than, and separate from, city and county lines, resulting in overlapping jurisdictions, duplication, and competition for resources (i.e. law enforcement and employment security).
• Various regional groups had been formed, but not in any organized fashion, increasing the difficulty of approving, funding, and administering government programs.