I’m pretty sure that there are actual demarcations that determine whether any large grouping of people and buildings is called a “city”; something like “if there are more than 500000 people, it is a city.” The same for village, town, etc. I know in my area I can see signs for “the village of X” or “the city of Y”. I’m thinking there must be official categories for “city”, “village”, “town”, “hamlet” etc. Does anyone know what they are?
Also, I have been told that, archeologically speaking, a city is any town with a wall. Is this correct? Does anyone know the rules for a what makes a town a town in archeologist’s eyes?
[Aside: this has been asked before, and everyone says “it varies from state to state”. However, if anyone knows the categories for their particular state or area, I would be most grateful. And no one’s asked the question re archeology, far as I can tell.]
In California, a city is a governmental entity established either by a charter from the state government (like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities of comprable size) or an area of a county granted those powers by the county government. There is no minimum requirement, although in California there is a governmental agency called LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission I believe) which studies an area’s request for incorporation and decides whether or not it is economically feasible.
Also the residents of the area that wants to become a city have to vote to approve it.
The smallest city in California (in terms of population) is Vernon, which has about 80 residents. It’s an area that exists primarily to give tax breaks to industries and has a lot of very large warehouses.
In California, I think of it this way. The default setting is “County”. A city has to be created.
In Britain, a city has to have a royal charter. What are the benefits of being a city? Apart from having a royal charter to say that you are a city, none at all.
I think that at least part of the difference between a city, village,hamlet, etc (at least in NY) has to do with the form of local government. I think towns can include villages and cities ( but I’m not sure, because I live in NYC, and everything’s different from the rest of the state)
Jman, are you sure you don’t live in the township of Ithica? Sometimes a township will have the same name as a city in it.
Just avoid all the confusion and use one word: municipality. No matter what the type of municipality it is, it has to be incorporated; i.e., file papers with the secretary of the state and get the state approval to incorporate. I always wondered, too, about the differences between city, town, village, or hamlet. Perhaps any group of home owners in an area can agree to incorporate, if allowed by their state law, and can call their municipality anything they want. They can incorporate as the “town of James Island” or the “city of James Island” as they wish. But I don’t know.
In Wisconsin the difference between a city and a village is the form of government. A city has a mayor and alderpersons/coucilpersons. A village has a village board in which one member is president of the board. Towns encompass everything outside a city or a village. When a city or village incorporates it must annexx land from the town. I’m not sure what the requirements are for city or village formation, but I’m sure that a petition with the state must be filed and approved.
As far as I know, there are no offical definitions for any other municiple descriptions (e.g. hamlet) in Wisconsin.
In SC and also in IL, where I used to live, cities, towns, and villages all must be incorporated. If the area is not incorporated, it is just unincorporated area in the county. The PO address would be the nearest big city. For example, I live in James Island, which is unincorporated. Not the town or village of James Island, but James Island. Our services are provided by a special legislative creation called “a public service district,” which is really just an arm of the county. Our PO address is Charleston, SC. We tried to incorporate a few years ago as “the town of James Island,” but the city of Charleston objected, as it wanted to annex a lot of the land, and it succeeded in court on technical grounds.
In Pennsylvania, it requires 10,000 residents to be eligible for city-status–I believe a small city is a Class 3. (Supposedly a city that drops under 10,000 for a certain period is stripped of its status, but that doesn’t seem to occur in real life.) A chartered city-like municipality that is less than 10,000 residence is a borough. It is not required that a borough with over 10,000 become a city–State College (the municipality attached to Penn State’s main campus) is a borough, despite having a population of around 40,000.
The default municipality in Pennsylvania is the *township,*which is approximately the same as a townin New York State. There can be villageswithin townships. There is one (1) chartered townin PA, though I’ve forgotten what it is.
In all cases, the classifications (along with options such as home-rule charters) primarily relate to the form of local government each one has, and the authority (and funding) granted by the state. I know of one city (DuBois, in Clearfield County) which became a city primarily because somebody thought the County would move the County Seat there. (They didn’t–there was an attack of common sense, and the powers-that-were realized that the seat of Clearfield County should remain in Clearfield.) Just a few years back, the Borough of St. Mary’s and Benzinger Township in Elk County merged and became a city, apparently just because it sounded more impressive.
Coming up next week: Why 5th Class Counties have controllers but 6th Class counties have auditors; plus why the City of Philadelphia gets to be Philadelphia County as well.
There is some confusion aboutthe term “township.” A little history is necessary. Those states that are now in the “Northwest Territory” (i.e., the states east of the Mississippi, N of the Ohio, & west of Pa.) were laid out in 1787 in a grid fashion, with each box in the grid being one mile square. Each of those boxes are called “sections.” They were measured from east to west and from north to south. Six sections in each direction, and the measurements were again repeated. The six sections square, or 36 sections are called “townships.” Any spot in the NW Territory can be identified by its specific location in a section, township, and range. That is its “legal description.” Even subdivisions have a Sec, Twp, & Range. You can’t tell that in a big city, like Chicago, since there are no references physically to it. But in rural Illinois, road signs will have the section numbers on it. The “township” lines are the 6 miles measured east to west. The “range” lines are the 6 miles mesaured north to south.
However, now the term “township” may also refer to a political subdivision of a state in some areas of the country. The prior post states that in Pa.it has a definite meaning, defined by statute.
In North Carolina, there are no formal differences between the powers or organization of a “town” and a “city”. I live in the “Town of Cary”, which has a population of over 95,000 people. On the other hand, I’ve driven through a couple of NC “cities” which weren’t big enough to have even one traffic light.
In Virginia, if an area incorporates as a city, it is independent of any county; it is basically “divorced” from the county from which it came. It can then set up its own city council and pass its own laws.
However, the county then provides no services for that area: police, trash, etc.
When I moved to Virginia, I called back to Colorado to (I think) un-register my voter registration. The woman in Colorado asked what city I had moved to.
“Alexandria, VA,” I replied.
“What county is that in?” she asked.
“No county.”
“It has to be in a county, sir.”
“Cities are independent from counties in Virginia.”
“I have to put in a county, sir. What county surrounds Alexandria?”
I sighed. “Alexandria is between Arlington County, Fairfax County, and the District of Columbia. It’s not surrounded by any one county.”
“The District of Columbia? What’s that?” Oops, I opened a can of worms.
I explained, “DC. As in Washington, DC.” Silence. I gave up. “Just put Alexandria in the county blank too.”
IIRC in the state of Maryland there has to be 5000 people in order for it to be a city. That comes from a geography class of at least 5-6 years ago though. Plus I think I also saw it as a trivia answer in the newspaper once.
To expand on this: strictly speaking in Britain there are no pre-requisites to being a city, nothing which guarantees you city status and no way to stop being a city once you are one. This last point means that there are cities dating from Roman times knocking about with 100,000 people or fewer.
“They” are planning to inaugurate another city for the new millenium. Many towns (including Reading and, bizarrely, Croydon) have put their names into the hat. Amusingly Swindon has been told that it can’t have city status because it is too brash (or something like that). We’ll have to wait and see who wins the coveted approval.