When Abramson was in Wilmington, he told the lunch crowd at the Hotel du Pont that a combined government put more cops on the streets, provided a more efficient emergency medical service, and allowed the city and county to speak with one voice regarding economic development, rather than a mayor and county executive making individual pitches to prospective businesses, Abramson said. The core of merger philosophy realizes that every place is a "suburb of somewhere," Abramson said, comparing municipalities