How do municipalities in your area work?

[empirestate]

What about places like Alva and Aladdin, which have population signs and post offices but no census designation? Or what about the Airport Road CDP south of Worland (although that might be gone now, I couldn't find anything definitive on the matter) (yes, that is/was it's name)?

Places without a census designation would be beyond the scope of the project. I'm specifically interested in showing political/administrative entities; I equivocated about even showing census-only entities like CDPs and CCDs, but I ultimately decided to include them because a) a state like Wyoming would have a pretty barren map without them, and b) they're already included in the TIGER datasets I'm using, so it would be about as much work to hide them as to show them.

As for Airport Road CDP, I don't know. The census data is vintage 2015, so if it's not in there they must have deleted the entity.

Other than those minor quibbles, it looks awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! I like to tweak label placement. A lot... :-)


iPhone

[KEVIN_224]

Connecticut has no county seats. The few times counties get mentioned here are with weather watches and warnings. Notices for jury duty will have you go to a selected courthouse in your home county. I live in New Britain, which is in Hartford County. My first time dealing with jury duty sent me to Hartford in 1994. My brother's last notice would've sent him to Bristol (yes, the one with ESPN).

We have 169 municipalities within a mere 8 counties. All border one another. There is no open space between them. We don't have any unincorporated townships or unorganized territory like portions of Maine and New Hampshire do.

[bing101]

Anybody heard of Special districts??

Here it is such as School Districts and Water Districts.

http://carnaclaw.com/news-and-events/land-usemunicipal-law-real-estate/the-difference-between-a-charter-city-and-a-general-law-city/
http://www.examiner.com/article/california-charter-cities-vs-general-law-cities
https://ballotpedia.org/Cities_in_California

Also in some states such as California There are Charter Cities and Counties- This means that the Counties

http://www.seecalifornia.com/counties/charter.html

   
• have a limited degree of "home rule" authority that may provide for the election, compensation, terms, removal, and salary of the governing board
• for the election or appointment (except the sheriff, district attorney, and assessor who must be elected), compensation, terms, and removal of all county officers
• for the powers and duties of all officers
• consolidation and segregation of county offices.
• does not give county officials extra authority over local regulations, revenue-raising abilities, budgetary decisions, or intergovernmental relations.

http://www.seecalifornia.com/counties/general-law.html
http://definitions.uslegal.com/g/general-law-city/

In other places there are general law Counties and cities in California that means that

General Law counties adhere to state law as to the number and duties of county elected officials.

[Brandon]

Anybody heard of Special districts??

The bane of Illinois government, and why the state has more governmental units than any other state in the Union.

We have the following, school districts (K-12, K-8, and 9-12), library districts, fire protection districts, sewerage districts, water districts, flood control districts, mosquito abatement districts (no, I did not just make that up), community college districts, forest preserve districts, and many more, in addition to cities, villages, towns, townships, and counties, and not counting things like the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA, parent of Metra, Pace, and the CTA, each a special district by itself).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_Illinois to see some of the nuttiness.

[empirestate]

Anybody heard of Special districts??

Yes; I live in one. It gets me a lake.

[bing101]

Anybody heard of Special districts??

Yes; I live in one. It gets me a lake.

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2016/03/08/southern-california-water-agency-takes-step-to-buy-delta-land/

Is this Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Water rights?

[empirestate]

Anybody heard of Special districts??

Yes; I live in one. It gets me a lake.

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2016/03/08/southern-california-water-agency-takes-step-to-buy-delta-land/

Is this Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Water rights?

No, I live in New York.


iPhone

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Here in Spain we have no unincorporated areas, every square inch belongs to any of the 8100+ municipalities (The closest thing to an unincorporated area are the 'Facerías', chunks of land shared by the neighboring municipalities, most notably in Navarre). All municipalities have councils, each one with a number of councillors which is determined by the municipality's population, ranging between 3 (municipalities with less than 100 inhabitants) and 57 (Madrid). Also they have to provide certain services when reaching a certain population, for example any municipality above 1,000 inhabitants must have a park; and my hometown, Huesca, had to put an urban bus service into operation as it reached 50,000 inhabitants a few years ago.

[Brandon]

Here in Spain we have no unincorporated areas, every square inch belongs to any of the 8100+ municipalities (The closest thing to an unincorporated area are the 'Facerías', chunks of land shared by the neighboring municipalities, most notably in Navarre).

Interesting.  We have a mere 1,297 municipalities (cities, incorporated towns, and villages) in Illinois, but 8,480 different units of local government, many of which overlap with municipalities and unincorporated areas.

http://illinoiscomptroller.gov/services/local-government-division/types-of-local-governments-in-illinois/

[empirestate]

Here in Spain we have no unincorporated areas, every square inch belongs to any of the 8100+ municipalities (The closest thing to an unincorporated area are the 'Facerías', chunks of land shared by the neighboring municipalities, most notably in Navarre).

Interesting.  We have a mere 1,297 municipalities (cities, incorporated towns, and villages) in Illinois, but 8,480 different units of local government, many of which overlap with municipalities and unincorporated areas.

http://illinoiscomptroller.gov/services/local-government-division/types-of-local-governments-in-illinois/

And rest assured, I will NOT be showing all 8,480 of those on my map when I get to Illinois. :-) Only general-purpose governmental entities (and those few types of census areas I've mentioned) are to be included.


iPhone

[Brandon]

Here in Spain we have no unincorporated areas, every square inch belongs to any of the 8100+ municipalities (The closest thing to an unincorporated area are the 'Facerías', chunks of land shared by the neighboring municipalities, most notably in Navarre).

Interesting.  We have a mere 1,297 municipalities (cities, incorporated towns, and villages) in Illinois, but 8,480 different units of local government, many of which overlap with municipalities and unincorporated areas.

http://illinoiscomptroller.gov/services/local-government-division/types-of-local-governments-in-illinois/

And rest assured, I will NOT be showing all 8,480 of those on my map when I get to Illinois. :-) Only general-purpose governmental entities (and those few types of census areas I've mentioned) are to be included.

So no mosquito abatement districts, I take it? 

[MikeTheActuary]

Connecticut's a little more complicated than was described above:

The basic administrative unit in Connecticut is the town, as noted above and similar to other New England states.  Towns provide local services (although some towns may contract with the state or neighboring towns for certain services) and are generally governed through town meetings (although some larger towns' government may appear to behave more like a council form of government seen elsewhere in the US)

Connecticut state law also provides for Cities.  Cities are mostly consolidated with their towns, are created by a Special Act of the state legslature, have similar powers and authority as towns, and may have modified system of government depending on the state charter for the city. An average citizen will, however, likely not notice a functional difference between a city and a town.

Connecticut state law also defines Boroughs.  Boroughs are discrete entities which are generally subsets of their towns, and which provide a subset of services, drawing governance from the subset of town inhabitants.  Boroughs can consolidate with their towns producing an entity that is functionally equivalent to a town.

Towns may also designate portions of their area to be villages.  These are mostly lines/dots on the map, designated for planning or descriptive purposes, but they may also be coexistant with special taxing districts created to provide a higher level of service for that area.  (E.g. the village of Wilson in the town of Windsor has a paid fire department, while the rest of Windsor has a volunteer FD.)

Most cities/towns in Connecticut are also members of a Council of Governments ("COG") or Regional Planning Authority.  COGs theoretically facilitate regional planning as well as the development of resource sharing agreements among member cities/towns.  COGs lack taxing or legislative authority, and were created as an attempt by the state to address a lack of cat-herding capability due to the lack of country government.

As noted above, Connecticut counties are currently exist only as lines on a map. County seats are designated, but the designation is little more than a historic curiosity.  The boundaries of the state judicial districts follow county lines due to the courts' historic associations with their counties.

[MikeTheActuary]

P.S. for interested folks who weren't aware of its existence, census.gov has the Census of Governments reporting on the umpteenbajillion counties, municipalities, and districts within the U.S.

[xcellntbuy]

P.S. for interested folks who weren't aware of its existence, census.gov has the Census of Governments reporting on the umpteenbajillion counties, municipalities, and districts within the U.S.

Thank you for that information.

[jakeroot]

Washington State Municipal Corporations, as defined by RCW 35.01.040

First-Class city: A first-class city is a city with a population of ten thousand or more at the time of its organization or reorganization that has a charter adopted under Article XI, section 10, of the state Constitution.

Second-Class city: A second-class city is a city with a population of fifteen hundred or more at the time of its organization or reorganization that does not have a charter adopted under Article XI, section 10, of the state Constitution, and does not operate under Title 35A RCW.

Town: A town has a population of less than fifteen hundred at the time of its organization and does not operate under Title 35A RCW.

Though I'm sure it's covered somewhere in the code, from my experience...

- Cities maintain their own roads, lest it's a freeway.

- Counties maintain roads that are in unincorporated areas, lest a city requests that the county maintain their roads (per an agreement that would then be agreed upon).

- The state maintains all state routes, interstates, and US routes (though all three are legally state routes), lest the road enters into a city, where the city would then take over, lest they don't want to maintain it themselves, in which case the state would maintain it for them (per an agreement that would then be agreed upon).

[SignGeek101]

Canada is a little odd ball when it comes to this stuff. I'm not really sure myself, but here goes:

Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Quebec uses counties similar to the US states. Ontario is the only province to have county highways the same way the US does.

https://goo.gl/maps/eFXn79rsAVS2

https://goo.gl/maps/6gDhiiATSR92

Here in Manitoba, we have 'Rural Municipalities' or 'Divisions'. Rural municipalities are like counties, but don't include any villages, towns or more built up areas. These rural municipalities are provincially looked after.

The divisions are for the census that Statistics Canada uses for population and other stats tracked federally. Winnipeg is located in division 11 I believe.

[empirestate]

Connecticut state law also provides for Cities.  Cities are mostly consolidated with their towns, are created by a Special Act of the state legslature, have similar powers and authority as towns, and may have modified system of government depending on the state charter for the city. An average citizen will, however, likely not notice a functional difference between a city and a town.

As I understand it, this makes for an interesting distinction between CT and the rest of New England: In most of New England, all land (setting aside any unorganized territory) is divided into either a town or a city, whereas in CT, 100% of the land is divided into towns. This means that every city but one in CT exists within a coterminous town of the same name, which is essentially a shadow entity with no discernibly separate function from the city. (The "but one" is Groton city, which is not fully coextensive with the town of Groton.)

Other than Groton, are there any other ways in which one might ever even notice the separate existence of a city's parent town in day-to-day life?

P.S. for interested folks who weren't aware of its existence, census.gov has the Census of Governments reporting on the umpteenbajillion counties, municipalities, and districts within the U.S.

One of various sources I'm using for my maps, several of which are from the Census bureau–which actually brings up  a bit of in issue I've faced with deciding on the map content, and perhaps speaks to the reason I wanted to make them.

At first, you'd think making a map of U.S. civil divisions would simply involve downloading the Census data and putting it in, and in most cases that's true. But in some ways, the Census either generalizes information, or creates its own to fill out its hierarchical purposes. For example, in New Hampshire there are various unincorporated territories, which are all enumerated by the Census and categorized by their nominal type–townships, grants, gores, locations, etc.–and classified as "nonfunctioning" units of government.

However, in Maine you have the exact same situation of unorganized territory (though on a much larger scale), but in this case the Census doesn't differentiate all the different townships (grants, gores, etc....); instead, it lumps them together into larger areas called "unorganized territories", which serve the same statistical purpose as CCDs, but those are only used in states that aren't otherwise divided into minor civil divisions.

So I can't just spit out the Census data for Maine, I have to blend it with a different dataset that shows all the other entities I want to include–after all, finding an online map of just the towns in New England is not too difficult, but one that includes all the other funky little divisions, well...

As a matter of fact, this brings me to the initial inspiration for making these maps: I had at one time an Outline Map of New England, prepared by The National Survey of Chester, VT, which I'd hand-colored to distinguish every town, city, borough, village, grant, gore, location, plantation, and so forth, by type. This project is basically the GIS version of the same thing. And while we're at it, anybody else remember seeing this map? And whatever happened to The National Survey, anyway??

[bing101]

http://www.csda.net/

And yes in California theres even a Lobbying Group and SuperPac for Special Districts.  Most Notably this is mainly used to sway yes the state congress in Sacramento.

http://www.csda.net/special-districts/

[froggie]

And whatever happened to The National Survey, anyway??

Acquired by Universal Map around 15 years ago.

[J N Winkler]

In SD, we're a little less straightforward than WY, as we have three classes of municipalities divided by population.

9-2-1.   Classes enumerated--Population groups. There shall be the following three classes of municipal corporations:
             (1)      Municipalities of the first class are municipal corporations with a population of five thousand and over;
             (2)      Municipalities of the second class are municipal corporations with a population between five hundred and five thousand;
             (3)      Municipalities of the third class are municipal corporations with a population of less than five hundred.

I don't think that there's a division between cities and towns (those are just names), but I couldn't find anything on that anywhere.

This is almost word-for-word identical with legislation from Kansas (I think down to the population limits for each class), except I think the Kansas statutes use the term city.  I wonder if this verbiage was borrowed from boilerplate circulated by an interstate organization like ULC (former NCCUSL).

Anybody heard of Special districts??

The bane of Illinois government, and why the state has more governmental units than any other state in the Union.

We have the following, school districts (K-12, K-8, and 9-12) . . .

In Kansas there is no longer such a thing as separate districts for elementary and high schools with overlapping geographical jurisdiction.  We used to have them, but they were abolished in the 1960's when the current "consolidated" and "unified" school districts were created through a series of forced mergers.

In Kansas we also used to have ecclesiastical school districts which were chartered under state law but where the schools were actually operated by parish churches.  My mother went to elementary school in the unincorporated community (not even a CDP) of St. Mark, Kansas; the school was across the street from St. Mark's Catholic church and was staffed by nuns.  In the 1950's a Supreme Court ruling made ecclesiastical districts illegal (separation of church and state, etc.), so the grade school was transferred to what is now the Renwick unified school district ("Renwick" = Reno + Sedgwick; the district has extent in both counties).

[SD Mapman]

In SD, we're a little less straightforward than WY, as we have three classes of municipalities divided by population.

9-2-1.   Classes enumerated--Population groups. There shall be the following three classes of municipal corporations:
             (1)      Municipalities of the first class are municipal corporations with a population of five thousand and over;
             (2)      Municipalities of the second class are municipal corporations with a population between five hundred and five thousand;
             (3)      Municipalities of the third class are municipal corporations with a population of less than five hundred.

I don't think that there's a division between cities and towns (those are just names), but I couldn't find anything on that anywhere.

This is almost word-for-word identical with legislation from Kansas (I think down to the population limits for each class), except I think the Kansas statutes use the term city.  I wonder if this verbiage was borrowed from boilerplate circulated by an interstate organization like ULC (former NCCUSL).

That would make sense knowing what I know of state government here...

[bing101]

Note in the John Oliver Clip he showed that in some parts of the country special districts are oddly managed and created by 2 people?


But in California


http://abag.ca.gov/overview/whowhat.html


http://abag.ca.gov/overview/members.html


http://abag.ca.gov/overview/governance.html


its a group of cities, agencies and counties that do agree to create a special district to distribute services to its people.

[empirestate]

Look for Wisconsin next. :-)

Just a little teaser...

[GCrites]

OHIO:

City: Over 5,000

Village: Under 5,000

Township: Any population, varying levels of government complexity

Unincorporated: You're just part of the county

That's all there is to it.

[empirestate]

OHIO:

City: Over 5,000

Village: Under 5,000

Township: Any population, varying levels of government complexity

Unincorporated: You're just part of the county

That's all there is to it.

Hardly all! Ohio has a very complicated relationship between its townships and incorporated places. Cities and villages in Ohio can either be located within townships or separate from them, and you'll find examples of each within the same county. Some individual cities are even independent of townships in one county but dependent of them in another! (Columbus is one example of this.)

Also, those cities that exist within townships may have absorbed an entire township that ceases to function but still legally exists–and then they may also extend outside of that township into parts of other townships.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Ohio's local government situation is as complex as any other in the nation. If there's a state I'd never describe by saying "that's all there is to it," it would be Ohio!

(And also, there's no unorganized territory in Ohio, is there? Everything's located either in a township or an incorporated place, or both. So "unincorporated" in Ohio would mean you're still in a township, as well as the county.)