Hi -
The burning question of the day has been: What's the difference between a village, town, city and the incorporated and unicorporated versions of each?
Thanks dudes. - ToddThis is IMHO, but I’ll give it a shot:
Cities are just a matter of size - if it’s big enough (over 80,000 people, I believe) it’s a city.
Towns and villages are a different story. Technically, it’s a matter of size, eith towns being larger than villages. HOWEVER, there’s one exception - that of age.
You see, there are no villages in America (towns that end with “ville” don’t count. However, there are villages all over Europe, Asia and Africa. And it’s not a matter of languages, euther. England is studded with villages. Why is that? Because nobody founds villages. Villages are just there - they’re ancient, founded in the middle ages or before. They have no official founding date.
So when people go out to colonize new lands, they don’t form villages. That would be too “old world”, and would be like building ancient ruins. That’s why there are no white villages in Australia, and no Jewish villages in Israel. And that’s why there’s no villages in the United States. Villages are for the Natives.
Yeah, my guess would also be that generally it’s largely a matter of the relative sizes of cities and towns; I’m not sure of that, however, and I certainly know of an exception. Virginia, where I’m from, is kind of unique among states in the city/town distinction. Towns are locally governed by the county they’re in, while cities are independent of counties; they are part of no county and have their own local government. This has nothing to do with the size of the city/town; for example, Clifton Forge is a city of around 5,000, while Blacksburg is a town of approximately 35,000. So, in Virginia at least, the distinction has nothing to do with size; rather, it’s the distinction that the city has its own governing body, while the town is governed by the county it’s in.
Traditionally a town in Britain is given city status when it has a cathedral, size is irrelavent. I believe in modern Britain that some towns are made cities without a cathedral if deemed to be big enough.
You might want to check the archives on this one as it is a popular topic.
The short answer: it varies from state to state.
It’s a legal thing. Incorporated means that the town, village, city, whatnot has a charter and is recognized by the state (I mean the state wherein it lays) as a legal entity. Unincorporated means there’s no charter, and people just sort of live in a clump. They may have their own rules, but they don’t have the power to pass legally binding ordinances.
I can’t remember what’s what, but in Missouri, each level has a different type of governance. At one level, it’s run by a town council; at another level, it’s a council with an appointed manager/administrator; at another level, there’s an elected mayor, etc. At one level certain law-making authority is reserved to the county or state, at another level, the city has “home rule,” etc.
It’s all very arcane, but in Missouri, a city is different from a big town. In fact, when St. Louis’ population dropped below 400,000 a few years ago, the Missouri legislature had to redefine their definition of the highest level of municipality, so St. Louis would still qualify.
It definitely varies from state to state. In New England, New York, and some other states (like Minnesota), a township or town is a well-defined subdivision of a county, averaging about 36 square miles. There is no part of any county that is not part of a township, except in some states (like N.Y.) cities may be separate from and in addition to townships. Most of the area of any given township is likely to be rural or residential, with any business district located in a village.
In New York, villages have definite boundaries, but usually no separate government. There are some townshps without any villages, or indeed without any population. Some townships may have several villages. There may be other small settlements that do no qualify for the name “village”. These may be called settlements, hamlets, or something else, according to local usage. The township in New York where I grew up had two villages and a hamlet.
Local government is generally by township. Sometimes the school district is the same as the township. Quite often, several townships pool their resources and form a larger school district.
In New York, a settlement over a certain size (population 10,000 maybe) can become a city and separate itself from the township that it had been part of. This requires both state approval and a vote by residents.
Close Bibliophage. In New York, an incorporated village has to have some sort of village board. It does not have to have any other services, such as police.
AFAIK, the smallest village in New York State is Dering Harbor, with a population of under 40. They formed because they didn’t want the town of Shelter Island to make zoning decisions for them.
Each county in New York (except NYC, which is a whole other matter) is made up of towns and cities. Villages are a second layer of government in a section of a town (or the entire town – see the Town/Village of Green Island). If you live outside the village limits, you vote for your town and county officials. If you live within the village limits, you vote for both the town, county, and village officials.
Cities are separate. There is a minumum size; if the population in an area of a town is above that, the area can become a city. It has the same status in the county government as a town, so you vote for both city and county officials.
Smaller communities can call themeselves villages or whatever they want, but unless they incorporate, they’re merely part of the township as far as legality is concerned.
It seems to me that kunilou and bibliophage really nailed this Q nicely.
I have only one teensy-weensy correction to biblio’s post. (It’s so small, in fact, that I can’t even swear that it’s true; but someone who seemed to really know what he was talking about corrected me when I made the same error in a documentary I wrote.)
New York State does not have townships; it has towns. New Jersey, on the other hand, has townships.
RealityC, according to one (unoffical) source I have, Derring Harbor is the smallest village in NYS; it had 16 residents as of 1994 – but, hey, there might have been a baby boom in the last six years.