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Dumbest city limits

Started by kirbykart, October 04, 2022, 10:07:12 AM

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Scott5114

#25
Another dumb thing you see a lot of in Oklahoma is annexing a narrow pathway forming a ring (but being sure not to include any houses in it, as that risks annexing people with opinions on being annexed) to create defensive barriers to keep other nearby towns from getting too close.

Duncan is one such example (and also has a bunch of random lake exclaves, too).
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SectorZ

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Rothman

This thread also makes me think of Sandy, UT, which looks like swiss cheese, and White City. UT.  White City's residents have this strange shoot-themselves-in-the-foot pride of staying independent.  Their size and zoning means that their taxes will never be able to afford the infrastructure upgrades desperately needed to their water and sewage systems.  Cross that border from Sandy into White City and the difference is obvious.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

NWI_Irish96

I can tell you that some of these are definitely a pain in the ass for our geographers.
Indiana: counties 100%, highways 100%
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Michigan: counties 100%, highways 56%
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Henry

How about city limits that continue to expand from the annexation of previously rural land? Two examples come to mind:

Charlotte, NC
Houston, TX
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plain

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Takumi

Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on October 05, 2022, 07:48:48 AM
Quote from: kirbykart on October 04, 2022, 06:03:36 PM

WOW... All my examples seem really tame by comparison now.

Quote from: Indiana_Charter on October 04, 2022, 03:35:46 PM
And in terms of unnecessarily large, the winner might be Bunnell, FL - https://goo.gl/maps/SAUDzxTEN6Xxpnbn7

That's just stupid. Why do the city limits need to include an entire wildlife refuge???

On Google Maps measuring tool I got the perimeter of this city to be roughly 105 miles.

Suffolk, VA (as well as Chesapeake and Va Beach) are huge, having annexed the entire counties that they sat in (who's the VA guy ... froggie?). That was my understanding when I lived in Smithfield. Suffolk was Nansemond county, VA Beach was Princess Anne, and I forget what Chesapeake was.



Chesapeake was Norfolk County and the city of South Norfolk merging. I describe Chesapeake as "several small communities connected by mutual sprawl" . On the other side of Hampton Roads, Newport News (Warwick) and Hampton (Elizabeth City) were also once counties that were absorbed by cities. Hampton was the first to do it of all of them.
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jlam

Denver comes to mind for Colorado. They decided that the airport just had to be in the city limits.

jmacswimmer

Quote from: jlam on October 05, 2022, 01:23:35 PM
Denver comes to mind for Colorado. They decided that the airport just had to be in the city limits.

Chicago did the same thing with O'Hare...if I'm not mistaken, the motivating factor in both cases was so the city governments could have control over the airports (and just as importantly, ensuring that tax $$$ go to the city!)
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kirbykart

Quote from: Henry on October 05, 2022, 10:14:25 AM
How about city limits that continue to expand from the annexation of previously rural land? Two examples come to mind:

Charlotte, NC
Houston, TX

Looks like Houston has done that ring thing Scott5114 was talking about in some areas.

Rothman

Quote from: jlam on October 05, 2022, 01:23:35 PM
Denver comes to mind for Colorado. They decided that the airport just had to be in the city limits.
Broomfield, too.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

kirbykart


paulthemapguy

Quote from: jlam on October 05, 2022, 01:23:35 PM
Denver comes to mind for Colorado. They decided that the airport just had to be in the city limits.

It kind of makes sense for Denver's behavior to be derivative of Chicago's, given how many Chicagoans relocated there.  The reach outward of Denver to include its airport reminds me of the stretch of Chicago's northwest side to include O'Hare's territory...but I don't think the Chicago annexation is quite as ridiculous.

I know Joliet's been mentioned already, but it's the most ridiculous territory shape I know of for a municipality.  Like many other municipalities with ridiculous shape, the ridiculous shape is the result of shameless annexation techniques.  Municipalities will extend out an arm, then strategize like you do in the game of Go: surround a piece of land with a narrow corridor, forming a hollow core.  Then everything inside that hollow core is assumed to join the municipality once it's developed.  It's all imperialistic geometry!  It's not made to make sense; it's made to exert power.
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kphoger

What reasons do cities have for not annexing the land their airport is built on?
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Dirt Roads

Quote from: kphoger on October 06, 2022, 04:43:45 PM
What reasons do cities have for not annexing the land their airport is built on?

I'm going to go out way far on a limb here, but I think that the reason Charleston never annexed what's now known as Yeager Airport is that it forces the entirety of Kanawha County to pay for services to the airport.  That actually paid out big-time back in 2013, when the Obama administration shutdown the National Guard program nationwide.  Kanawha County famously voted to pay to keep the Air National Guard working at Yeager Airport.  I'm not sure that they ever got reimbursed by the Federal government, and if they are like many folks in West Virginia, they would have been deeply offended by such repayment.  Not something that the City of Charleston could deal with, either financially or politically.

But in the meantime, Yeager Airport creates this "notch" in the shape of the city limits.  Somewhere in the future, the airport will probably become an exclave of the county within the surrounding city limits. 

Dirt Roads

While I'm thinking about it, Charleston used to have a very unusual shape.  By the end of the 19th Century, the city had annexed westward along the Kanawha River on the West Side and into North Charleston (all on the north side of the Kanawha River), as well as into the South Hills on the south side of the Kanawha River.  Then in 1929, the town of Kanawha City was merged into Charleston, and further growth continued [southward] along the Kanawha River.  So essentially, the city limits was a "blob" consisting of Downtown and the Southside, with a spiral west on the north side of the river and a spiral southeastward on the south side of the river.  Those arms were much longer than the blob was wide. 

(Sadly, none of the maps that I could find online do a good job of separating the cities of Charleston and South Charleston, but if I find one I will try to post it).

Bruce

#41
Quote from: kphoger on October 06, 2022, 04:43:45 PM
What reasons do cities have for not annexing the land their airport is built on?

Everett has yet to annex Paine Field as it is cheaper to leave it in the county's hands (since they own/operate the airport anyway).

EDIT: And speaking of Everett, the city has an exclave with no people out in the Cascades. It's the city-owned drinking water supply, which is also used by much of the county.


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dvferyance

#43
That tiny strip of Cincinnati that goes way west along the Ohio River makes no sense. Why not just annex all of Delhi Township then?

Avalanchez71


Road Hog

If you look closely at a map, the City of Dallas owns the entirety of Lake Ray Hubbard. They annexed the entire future lake property in the late 1950s (up to a point – still trying to pinpoint the exact definition) which means Dallas extends into five counties – Dallas, Collin, Denton, Rockwall and Kaufman.

Molandfreak

Hibbing, MN- 16,000 people with almost 200 square miles of land in the city limits...
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Road Hog

Neighboring cities would be smart to reach agreements with each other to set future boundaries. I know this happens in Texas, where state law provides for "extraterritorial jurisdiction" for unincorporated areas outside city limits. Good fences make good neighbors.

silverback1065


Henry

Quote from: paulthemapguy on October 06, 2022, 04:18:13 PM
Quote from: jlam on October 05, 2022, 01:23:35 PM
Denver comes to mind for Colorado. They decided that the airport just had to be in the city limits.

It kind of makes sense for Denver's behavior to be derivative of Chicago's, given how many Chicagoans relocated there.  The reach outward of Denver to include its airport reminds me of the stretch of Chicago's northwest side to include O'Hare's territory...but I don't think the Chicago annexation is quite as ridiculous.
Of course, among those former Chicagoans living in Denver would be my brother Jeff.
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