Unincorporated "cities"

[Tom89t]

Los Angeles has unincorporated areas like El Camino and Del Aire. 

[Desert Man]

I'm from the Palm Springs area (my home town Indio) where we have like 5 unincorporated sections in the Indio zip code. The two communities of Bermuda Dunes and Thousand Palms are unincorporated and wish to remain so, as most residents are of higher incomes and professionals commute to office jobs live there...and they strongly opposed any formation of city government because it involves taxation for public services.

And then there's lower income North Palm Springs and Sky Valley both unincorporated places, as well affluent communities like Vista Santa Rosa where the world-famous annual Coachella Music Fest. is held and blue collar Cabazon (plans to be incorporated again, they were from 1956-1973 when the city council disbanded) where movies and music videos are set by its dinosaur statues seen along I-10. But tiny-sized Indian Wells is incorporated home to 4,000 residents has among the highest number of millionaires...per capita for a town its size.

And farther down from Coachella are farming towns Thermal and Mecca among the county's/state's/nation's poorest communities (and very high population density per square mile) and its high concentration of undocumented immigrants, meth labs (Noted in the movie "the Salton Sea"), mobile home parks, illegal toxic dump sites, Indian casinos (From the movie "29 Palms") in their reservations and convicted prison parolees sent there due to the rural lower population data.

[golden eagle]

Spring Valley, CA (east of San Diego) is unincorporated.

Here in MS, Gluckstadt (north of Jackson) is unincorporated, but there has been some small talk of incorporation (primarily, to protect itself from the city of Madison and its restrictive building codes). South of Jackson, Byram incorporated about a couple of years ago.

Cordova, TN, was an unincorporated area until being annexed by Memphis. Sandy Springs, GA, was incorporated a few years. Prior to that, it was unincorporated. With about 85K people, it was one of the larger unincorporated places in the country.

[empirestate]

Well, we could certainly make a nice long thread here just mentioning which communities in various areas are incorporated or not (and actually, the "What Makes a Suburb a Town?" thread is covering that at the moment). But what I was looking for with this question are those places that are distinct, recognized central settlements in their own right. Such places would seem like the principal city, the one that would have the bigger dot on the map with only smaller dots surrounding it, or would be the "downtown" of a relatively large area. The original example was Hershey, PA. A much bigger example was Honolulu, HI (depending on how you reckon its incorporated status).

Perhaps another example would be Grand Canyon, AZ, although its claim is weakened a bit by being pretty much a single-purpose settlement. I think you could also count a lot of places in Maryland like Silver Spring, Bethesda and Towson, depending on whether you consider them subordinate to Washington or Baltimore. Cases like that are debatable, but I think you'll find that the roster of unincorporated suburbs of a major city doesn't fit the bill.

[roadman65]

Suffern, NY is principal community, but it is a part of Ramapo, NY.  The State of NY considers un-incorporated area as a hamlet.

[empirestate]

Suffern is a village, so very much incorporated. And like all NYS villages, it is within a town, in this case Ramapo. A town isn't incorporated for the purposes of this topic, but Ramapo doesn't have any unincorporated settlements that fit the topic. (Pearl River is nearby and is unincorporated, and a sizable community, but it hasn't "cleared its neighborhood", as they say of planets.)

[roadman65]

Suffern is a village, so very much incorporated. And like all NYS villages, it is within a town, in this case Ramapo. A town isn't incorporated for the purposes of this topic, but Ramapo doesn't have any unincorporated settlements that fit the topic. (Pearl River is nearby and is unincorporated, and a sizable community, but it hasn't "cleared its neighborhood", as they say of planets.)

Somebody must of misprinted it on wikipedia as it originally said hamlet and not village like it does now.  Anyway, my mistake as I did see it has a mayor and is under supevision of Ramapo's government.

[achilles765]

Metairie outside New Orleans is a large unincorporated city; in fact I think I once read that it is the largest unincorporated area in the nation.  It has a population of close to 150,000 and has a lot of commercial development and some very upscale neighborhoods.  Louisiana has a very large number of unincorporated areas, including some parish seats and large areas of the state's largest cities.  Much of southeast Baton Rouge along US 61 and IH 10, where the Mall of Louisiana and alot of newer commercial and mixed-use development are located are in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish.

[empirestate]

Metairie outside New Orleans is a large unincorporated city; in fact I think I once read that it is the largest unincorporated area in the nation.  It has a population of close to 150,000 and has a lot of commercial development and some very upscale neighborhoods.  Louisiana has a very large number of unincorporated areas, including some parish seats and large areas of the state's largest cities.  Much of southeast Baton Rouge along US 61 and IH 10, where the Mall of Louisiana and alot of newer commercial and mixed-use development are located are in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish.

I realize now I should have been more specific in the subject thread. 

Metairie is an outlying area of New Orleans, and southeast Baton Rouge...well, that would be an outlying area of Baton Rouge. No matter how well-established the name Metairie may be locally, I just can't see it as anywhere near separate enough from NO to qualify. Another example would be Brookline, MA...not incorporated (for this topic's semantic purposes) but inextricably woven into the fabric of greater Boston. Doesn't count.

[realjd]

Toms River, NJ (the county seat of Ocean County, NJ) was an unicorporated part of Dover Township.  Now the name of Dover was changed to Toms River, so you can now say it is fully corporated. Although the original enity is still what is was in the township that now bears its name.

Islelin, Colonia. Avenel, Sewaren, Port Reading, and Fords are unincorporated parts of Woodbridge, NJ.  However, one part of Woodbridge Township is considered Metuchen, NJ cause the Metuchen Post Office delivers mail to this section located west of US 1 south of Interchange 130 on the GSP. Woodbridge is one of the top 5 largest cities in New Jersey.


Merrit Island, FL is not established either, and is part of Brevard County. It is widely noted as much as Cocoa and Cocoa Beach, its neighbors that are corporated.

Don't forget Viera, our de facto county seat. Folks can use Viera, FL on their mail but the entire community is in unincorporated Brevard County.

[cpzilliacus]

The suburbs of Washington, D.C. in Maryland and Virginia are full of unincorporated "towns."

The most famous of which may be Tysons Corner in Fairfax County, Va.  But the "new town" of Reston is also unincorporated, as is Springfield and the entire (small) county of Arlington, Va. (often considered its own city by the Postal Service).  Large areas of Fairfax County have the "city" name of Alexandria or Falls Church (both of which are incorporated cities), but the parts of the county with those names are unincorporated

In Maryland, none of Montgomery County's Silver Spring is incorporated (even though it spans many Zip codes). Bethesda, Potomac and Germantown are not incorporated either.  Neighboring Prince George's County has relatively more incorporated areas than the rest of the D.C. area (some of them are really small, others a little bigger), yet Beltsville, Fort Washington, Camp Springs and Forestville are all unincorporated.  Like Fairfax County, there are unincorporated parts of Prince George's County that have Postal Service-assigned "city" names that are derived from nearby incorporated areas such as Upper Marlboro, New Carrollton and Hyattsville.

[mgk920]

Here in Wisconsin, the Woodruff-Minocqua area, with two very well developed adjacent small-town 'cities', complete with fully established downtowns and so forth, located in a very vibrant 'northwoods' tourist area, is completely unincorporated and IMHO, should be incorporated along with a wide area of surrounding land as a 'City of Lakeland'.

Mike

[DandyDan]

Not much here in Nebraska in terms of unincorporated "cities".  I know Chalco, in Sarpy County, is a CDP, but there really isn't a city there at all.  In Cass County, they have Beaver Lake, which is a place many people claim to be from, but I'm not really sure it passes as a city, or even a small town.  Sure, there's a lot of houses there, and there is the lake, but frankly, I don't know what to make of it.

One thing I don't think has been mentioned is one of the few other CDP's Nebraska has, which is Offutt AFB.  How exactly do military bases fit into the whole scheme of things?

Finally, I'd feel like I was failing my duties if I didn't mention Whiteclay, in NW Nebraska, just over the border from Pine Ridge, South Dakota.  I don't even want to try to say anything about that.

[jwolfer]

Here in Florida the County takes care of most munincipal services.  There is really not much incentive to incorporate.  Most people would rather not have to pay city taxes

[empirestate]

Here in Florida the County takes care of most munincipal services.  There is really not much incentive to incorporate.  Most people would rather not have to pay city taxes

In that case, Florida ought to be rife with examples...but is it? I can't come up with a prominent central settlement in Florida that isn't a city. Actually, it seems there are a whole bunch of really small cities in Florida that wouldn't pass incorporation muster in most other states.

[jwolfer]

Here in Florida the County takes care of most munincipal services.  There is really not much incentive to incorporate.  Most people would rather not have to pay city taxes

In that case, Florida ought to be rife with examples...but is it? I can't come up with a prominent central settlement in Florida that isn't a city. Actually, it seems there are a whole bunch of really small cities in Florida that wouldn't pass incorporation muster in most other states.

There are quite a few examples.  Not large cities, but in the Jacksonville area the large suburbs of Middleburg and Ponte Vedra Beach are unincorporated( Although PVB does have a Municipal Service District for Garbage collection etc)    What is pretty common is  unincorporated areas with a mailing address of a city.  ( for example  The town of Orange Park has like 8000 people but large parts of unincorporated Clay County have Orange Park mailing addresses.. probably 100K range of population.  The county provides law enforcement, fire protection etc).  Parts of Orange County are unicorporated but have Orlando mailing address.   

Palm Coast was unincorporated until 1999.The impetus for incorporation was improved fire protection being desired after the 1998 forest fires in Flagler County.

[NE2]

In that case, Florida ought to be rife with examples...but is it? I can't come up with a prominent central settlement in Florida that isn't a city.

Teabagger City The Villages.

[Doctor Whom]

It's more complicated than that.  Virginia has 95 counties and 39 independent cities (not part of any county).  However, some of the counties include incorporated cities and other places, each subject to both its own local government and the government of its county.

Some of the counties include incorporated towns and other places.  The distinction between a town and a city is a big one under Virginia law.

[roadman65]

I like how Disney has two unincorporated cities that are legally corporated.  The Reedy Creek Improvement District is considered a form of government in Orange County  on paper but as it is part of the Disney Corporation and all of its officials are paid their annual wages and salaries by Disney.  Its land is still unincorporated Orange County, FL with two named areas Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.  Both are under jurisdiction of Demmings the County Sheriff of Orange and the parts of Disney in Osceola County are under the sheriff of their county, hence when a rape was once committed at the All Star Resort, it was the Osceola Sheriff's Department that handled the case.

[empirestate]

Here in Florida the County takes care of most munincipal services.  There is really not much incentive to incorporate.  Most people would rather not have to pay city taxes

In that case, Florida ought to be rife with examples...but is it? I can't come up with a prominent central settlement in Florida that isn't a city. Actually, it seems there are a whole bunch of really small cities in Florida that wouldn't pass incorporation muster in most other states.

There are quite a few examples.  Not large cities, but in the Jacksonville area the large suburbs of Middleburg and Ponte Vedra Beach are unincorporated( Although PVB does have a Municipal Service District for Garbage collection etc) 

I meant to say, examples that would satisfy the OP about centralized, principal settlements being unincorporated. If incorporation were really that un-sought after in Florida, you'd expect even many of the stand-alone communities to have resisted the urge, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If a well-known place like St. Augustine turned out to be unincorporated, that would be a perfect example, but as far as I know that isn't the case in Florida.

But I don't think places like Middleburg and PVB fit the bill. Pretty much by definition, if you find yourself using the term "suburban" in connection with a place, it isn't what we're looking for.

What is pretty common is  unincorporated areas with a mailing address of a city.  ( for example  The town of Orange Park has like 8000 people but large parts of unincorporated Clay County have Orange Park mailing addresses.. probably 100K range of population.  The county provides law enforcement, fire protection etc).  Parts of Orange County are unicorporated but have Orlando mailing address.   

Oh sure, that's something you see all over the nation. I didn't figure that would make a very interesting topic–along the lines of "Route Shields with numerals on them". So I limited the topic to a more unusual type of unincorporated place, those that look and act like what would usually be a municipal entity, but I admit I left the subject line too vague to convey that. Sorry again for that.

[cpzilliacus]

It's more complicated than that.  Virginia has 95 counties and 39 independent cities (not part of any county).  However, some of the counties include incorporated cities and other places, each subject to both its own local government and the government of its county.

Some of the counties include incorporated towns and other places.  The distinction between a town and a city is a big one under Virginia law.

Though that is unique to Virginia.  Across the river in Maryland, the terms "city," "town" and "village" are somewhat interchangable (though like Virginia, Maryland does allow for (but does not mandate) that cities may be independent of an adjoining or surrounding county).  There is only one independent city in Maryland, Baltimore. 

[roadman65]

How does Delaware work their communities?  I mean, do they have all points of the state corporated like New Jersey does across the river? Or are they like Florida and Kansas where the county fills in where municipal jurisdictions end.

Also, I am curious to know how Milford, DE got into two counties?  I have seen two state cities like Bristol and Texarkana and even DelMar further south, but never two county communities other than NYC divided up into 5 boroughs each its own county.  Are there any other such instances where one city is located in two different counties?

[Alps]

How does Delaware work their communities?  I mean, do they have all points of the state corporated like New Jersey does across the river? Or are they like Florida and Kansas where the county fills in where municipal jurisdictions end.

Also, I am curious to know how Milford, DE got into two counties?  I have seen two state cities like Bristol and Texarkana and even DelMar further south, but never two county communities other than NYC divided up into 5 boroughs each its own county.  Are there any other such instances where one city is located in two different counties?

I don't think Delaware has incorporated all of its land; otherwise, the land on the east side of the Delaware would end up in that isolated community fragment thread. Also, that explains how Milford was able to annex across county lines. Finally, there are so many examples of communities crossing county lines, in fact I believe we've had threads on it, that we aren't going to get into that in this thread.

[roadman65]

How does Delaware work their communities?  I mean, do they have all points of the state corporated like New Jersey does across the river? Or are they like Florida and Kansas where the county fills in where municipal jurisdictions end.

Also, I am curious to know how Milford, DE got into two counties?  I have seen two state cities like Bristol and Texarkana and even DelMar further south, but never two county communities other than NYC divided up into 5 boroughs each its own county.  Are there any other such instances where one city is located in two different counties?

I don't think Delaware has incorporated all of its land; otherwise, the land on the east side of the Delaware would end up in that isolated community fragment thread. Also, that explains how Milford was able to annex across county lines. Finally, there are so many examples of communities crossing county lines, in fact I believe we've had threads on it, that we aren't going to get into that in this thread.

Thank you.  You gave me the answer I was looking for.  No, I do not want to talk about it in detail.