This is true of any incorporated municipality in the USA. An unincorporated area is governed by the county and must comply with the buidling regulations, zoning, etc. passed by the county board. Once it is incorporated, it becomes independent of the county and is governed by its own laws. The municipality must then provide the services: police, trash, etc., which the county previously provided.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the municipality is not in a county. All states have political subdivisions called “counties,” except La., which hearkens to the French system, and has “parishes.”
Thus, in Ohio, you can incorporate as a village or city. To incorporate as a city, you need to have at least 25,000 people in the territory to be incorporated, but if you incorporate as a village, and a later census shows you have more than 5,000 residents, you become a city automatically. Hey, I didn’t draft this nonsense. Please don’t even get me started on the fact that §703.01 comes under a chapter heading titled: Classification for Mental Plans.
I’ll answer for Illinois, as that’s where Gaudere lives.
Illinois divides its municipalities into cities and villages. There are a few older municipalities which still use the designation of “Town of Whatever” under a charter from prior to 1870, but these are rare. Some of these are actually villages or cities, but retain the old name for reasons of tradition. Townships are something else entirely, as someone else has said, and are not municipalities.
There are more similarities than differences between the two forms. Villages are not necessarily smaller than cities, although newly-forming cities must generally have 2500 residents, and villages need only have 200 residents. There are special rules for Cook County, and people who live in trailers don’t count. (I am skipping some details.)
Villages are run by a seven member Village Board, which includes a Village President.
Cities are run by a city council made up of aldermen and a mayor.
Just from the point of accuracy, I erred in a prior post when I said ranges are measured N to S. They are actually measured from S to N. There are also “principal meridians” (lying N&S) and “base lines” (lying E&W). Thus, a legal description will give a section number, twp no., range no., E or W of a principal meridian. By numbering the pm, by fixing the base line, and numbering the sections, twps, and ranges, any tract of land can be described. The Earth being curved, there are also correction lines, and all excess land caused by the curvature are accounted for in section 6, which is in the NW corner of the twp.
My post didn’t make one point clear enough. There is no automatic change in the form of government if a village grows. There are villages in Illinois that have over 25,000 residents. Villages don’t become cities unless the villagers (I love that word - always evokes images of torches and pitchforks) want to make the change.
I realize this was posted over three years ago, but this is the Straight Dope, and I’d hate for the wrong information to be somewhere on this board.
AWB is right: cities in Virginia are completely divorced from the county that surrounds them. This is different than most other cities in the US. In the rest of the country, a city is within a county, but has its own government and services. But it’s still in that county, and shares some things, such as property assessment, and voter registration. In (most of) Missouri, voters in incorporated areas still get to vote for County officials, even the County officials that only have jurisdiction over unincorporated land.
Now in Virginia, for some reason, this is different. Cities have absolutely no relationship to any county. They are, in every way, the same as counties, just with a different name and form of government. When a city incorporates, it might as well physically leave the county altogether.
Whoa there! False, false, false! At least in Wisconsin. County laws still are in effect for any municipality within a Wisconsin county, even the parts of municipalities that lie in two counties. And residents of all municipalities within a county elect the county board, the county sheriff, and pay county taxes.
As to the original post, the official Wisconsin Blue Book says:
If anyone is interested in this, it is referred to as the “Public Land Survey System.” If you ever wondered “we have subdivisions, but from what are they dividing further?” the answer is the PLSS is usually the original division. This doesn’t apply to many parts east of the Mississippi, or most of Texas for that matter.
Here in Oklahoma there are no rules related to population of which I’m aware. There are some pretty tiny towns here that the Census Bureau refers to as “cities.” My understanding was always that you got to be called a city here if your community is incorporated, regardless of size or form of government. I used to think that to be called a city you had to have a comprehensive plan, but then I ran into several cities that didn’t have one, or any form of zoning ordinances for that matter.
In addition, the only types of communities in Oklahoma are cities or towns (or, I suppose, Census Designated Places but even those communities usually refer to themselves as towns). I have never seen any community ever referred to as a village, and certainly not a borough. I typically just let the Census Bureau determine which communities are which… I’m not aware of any agency that would be able to provide a more definitive answer.
Since the states in the Northwest Territory all lie east of the Miss (except Minnesota) and since all those states follow the above noted surveying measurements, it does apply to all those states.
Any survey must have a beginning point, but the original 13 colonies were surveyed in irregular pieces. Unsatisfactory and varied systems were the source of much litigation. So by an Act of April 26, 1785, the Continental Congress provided for the survey of all of the public lands by a rectangular system, which I noted previously. The Ordinance of 1785 contemplated this establishment of base lines and principal meridians. As noted previously, Ohio was the first and therefore the experimental survey. Some errors were made.
Whether a municipality can be called a “town,” “city,” or “village” depends upon state law. I live on James Island, which was unincorporated until recently. Many of the residents here wanted to incorporate to prevent the City of Charleston from annexing further lands. On the ballot for or against incorporation, we had the choice of what to call the new entity, a town, city or village. It depended purely upon what the residents wanted. BTW, the measure passed but the City of Charleston is contesting the legality of it, for reasons not important here, and it has prevailed in the lower courts. It will be decided by the state Supreme Court next month.
If a territory within the state is not already part of an incorporated town or city can put together a petition of at least 50 owners of land therein and that the territory is used or will, in the reasonably foreseeable future, be used generally for commercial, industrial, residential, or similar purposes; the territory is reasonably compact and contiguous; there is enough undeveloped land in the territory to permit reasonable growth of the town; and incorporation is in the best interests of the citizens of the territory, then that territory can be incorporated into a town. Note that not more than one person per parcel of land can sign, and no person can count more than once. There are then public hearings and the chance for remonstrance. Other requirements must be met, summarized here: http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title36/ar5/ch1.html
If a town can get a population of at least 2,000, it can hold a vote to become a “third-class city”. A third-class city with a population of at least 35,000 can draft an ordinance to become a “second-class city”. A second-class city with a population of at least 250,000 can draft an ordinance to become a “first-class city”. Each class has more autonomy and taxation power than the lower class. No city can fall below second-class status once that is attained. First-class status can be lost.
There is one great big exception to all of the above: Indianapolis. Indianapolis is the entirety of Marion County. Their governments were unified and all municipalities therein were annexed to the entity called “Unigov” by state law in 1970. Lawrence, Speedway, Beech Grove, and Southport maintain some autonomy but also fall under Unigov.
No, he lives in the town of Ithaca. For a decade, I lived in the Village of Ithaca, which was part of the City of Ithaca, which was part of the Town of Ithaca. Each had its own damned governmental overlay.
In Connecticut (and in Massachusetts and Rhode Island), there is no unincorporated land in the state. Every bit of land lies within a town or a city. Those outside New England would probably equate our towns with “townships,” in that they are subdivisons of counties. There is no longer any substantial county government. Government essentially operates only at the federal, state, and municipal level.
Sometimes there are subdivisions within a town, such as villages. For example, the village of Storrs (home of the University of Connecticut) lies within the Town of Mansfield. All municipal functions for Storrs are handled by the Mansfield town government.
If a village gets populous enough, it can turn into a city. A city may or may not take up all of the land of the surrounding town. For example, the City of Groton and the village of Noank both lie within the Town of Groton. Some cities are large enough that there is no surrounding town, such as Norwich, New London, or Hartford.
While we are correcting things said many years ago, it might be noted that the impression that the division of the Northwest Territory into townships 6 mi. square, with 36 sections predated the application of the term to older states is incorrect. From Merriam-Webster Online we see that the term “township” is from England. It was originally applied in the colonies and the earlier states (states in which land was sold or granted prior to the North West Ordinance, such as Ohio) in a somewhat haphazard fashion, as local sensibilities and dictates decided. In Ohio, townships are unincorporated administrative subdivisions of counties; technically cities are part of townships unless the township and the city agree to divorce each other. They don’t have any regularity to their size or shape. Just north of me, across the border up there where them Michiganders live, the roads in the country often do the old “section jog,” a ninety degree turn at the junction of section borders, usually follwed by another ninety degree turn the opposite way after 1 mile to continue on in the original direction. In Michigan, the layout of townships and sections described by barbitu8 was imposed.
I think I remember when the City of Ithaca was incorporated. I went home for the summer one year, and when I got back there were signs saying Ithaca was a city. Three months later a city cop pulled me over for a moving violation! :mad:
The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota comprised the Northwest Territory, claimed by Virginia and in part by Connecticut, Massachusetts and New york. Massachusetts deeded its western claims to the US in 1785. Some grants were made by Connecticut in northern Ohio, the “Firelands.” There were French grants at Vincennes, Indiana, and Kaskasia, Illinois. Virginia also made the George Rogers Clark grants in Indiana and grants to the Ohio Compnay in Ohio. NY, Conn., and Mass. ceded to the US between 1780 and 1800. The principal cession was made by Virginia in 1785. [Source Clark,* op.cit.*.]
“Now in Virginia, for some reason, this is different. Cities have absolutely no relationship to any county. They are, in every way, the same as counties, just with a different name and form of government. When a city incorporates, it might as well physically leave the county altogether.”
You’re correc that cities are completely independent political subdivisions here in VA. There are only three forms of municipal government here, and all are independent of each other: counties, towns, and cities. Cities and towns are granted charters by the General Assembly - their powers are explicitly laid out within those charters. Towns and the surrounding counties (the Town of Ashland, which lies within Hanover County, for instance) reach agreements over the provisions of municipal services. Ashland has no police force - it relies on the Hanover County Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement, for example.
As to how a County becomes a City, what happens is that the County is granted a charter by the GA and incorporates as a City, it doesn’t “leave” the County - the County “becomes” the City. For instance, Princess Anne County became the City of Virginia Beach, and Nansemond County became the City of Suffolk. The boundaries remained the exact same - the only difference was the form of government (from Board of Supervisors with County Administrator to City Council with City Manager).
