Borough (United States)

Last updated

A borough in some U.S. states is a unit of local government or other administrative division below the level of the state. The term is currently used in six states:

Contents

Municipal offices sign for Littlestown, a borough of Pennsylvania LittlestownBoroughOfficesSign.jpg
Municipal offices sign for Littlestown, a borough of Pennsylvania

Specific states

Alaska

In Alaska, the word "borough" is used instead of "county". Like counties, boroughs are administrative divisions of the state.

Each borough in Alaska has a borough seat, which is the administrative center for the borough. The Municipality of Anchorage is a consolidated city-borough, as are Sitka, Juneau, Haines, Yakutat, and Skagway.

Nearly half of the state's area is part of the vast Unorganized Borough, which has no borough-level government at all. The United States Census Bureau has divided the Unorganized Borough into ten census areas for statistical purposes.

Connecticut

In addition to cities, Connecticut also has another type of dependent municipality known as a borough. Boroughs are usually the populated center of a town that decided to incorporate in order to have more responsive local government. When a borough is formed, it is still part of and dependent on its town. There are nine boroughs in Connecticut. One borough, Naugatuck, is coextensive and consolidated with its town. The other eight boroughs, such as Woodmont, have jurisdiction over only a part of their town. Boroughs in Connecticut are counted as separate municipal governments, but governmental functions performed in other parts of the state by town governments are performed by the parent town of the borough. [1]

Michigan

In Michigan, the term borough only applied to Mackinac Island from February 2, 1817, to March 25, 1847. [2] [3] The Borough government was established by William Henry Puthuff after the island was proclaimed to be a U.S. territory in the War of 1812. The borough government was replaced by a village government in 1847.

Minnesota

In Minnesota, "borough" was applied to one municipality, Belle Plaine, from 1868 to 1974. [4]

New Jersey

In New Jersey, boroughs are independent municipalities and are one of five types of municipal government, each operating separately at the equivalent level of the other four types of municipal government available in New Jersey: Township, Town, City, and Village. Many boroughs were formed out of larger townships, but even in such cases there is no continuing link between the borough and the township. Most boroughs were formed during the Boroughitis phenomenon of the mid-1890s.

New York

New York City is divided into five boroughs: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Each of these is coterminous with a county: Kings County, New York County, Queens County, Bronx County, and Richmond County, respectively. There are no county governments within New York City for legislative or executive purposes. The powers of the boroughs are inferior to the powers of the citywide government, but each borough elects a borough president, who in turn appoints some members of local community boards (see Government of New York City). The boroughs of New York City are generally treated as separate counties for judicial purposes and for some legal filings.

New York City does not have a city-wide district attorney's office. Instead, each borough elects a district attorney whose title is named after the respective county: Bronx County District Attorney, Kings County District Attorney, New York County District Attorney, Queens County District Attorney, and Richmond County District Attorney.

Boroughs do not exist in any other part of the state of New York.

Pennsylvania

Town center of West Chester, a borough in Pennsylvania. Westchester.jpg
Town center of West Chester, a borough in Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania's state laws that govern classes of municipalities, the term "borough" is used the way other states sometimes use the words "town" or "village." A borough is a self-governing entity that is generally smaller than a city. If an area is not governed by either a borough or city, then the area is governed as a township. Villages or hamlets are unincorporated and have no municipal government, other than the township in which they are found. By tradition, as recognized by publications of the state government, the only incorporated town in Pennsylvania is Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. [5] [6] [7] In August 2005, there were 961 boroughs in the state. [8]

Virginia

In Virginia, under Code of Virginia § 15.2-3534, [9] when multiple local governments consolidate to form a consolidated city, the consolidated city may be divided into geographical subdivisions called boroughs, which may be the same as the existing (i) cities, (ii) counties, or (iii) portions of such counties. Those boroughs are not separate local governments. For example, Chesapeake is divided into six boroughs, one corresponding to the former city of South Norfolk and one corresponding to each of the five magisterial districts of the former Norfolk County. [10] In Virginia Beach, the seven boroughs were abolished effective July 1, 1998. [11]

Wisconsin

Wisconsin in the 19th century occasionally used the term "borough" for the type of civil township normally known as a town.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.

A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">County (United States)</span> Subdivision used by most states in the United States

In the United States, a county or county equivalent is an administrative or political subdivision of a U.S. state or other territories of the United States which consists of a geographic area with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term "county" is used in 48 states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes and boroughs, respectively. The specific governmental powers of counties vary widely between the states, with many providing some level of services to civil townships, municipalities, and unincorporated areas. Certain municipalities are in multiple counties; New York City is uniquely partitioned into five counties, referred to at the city government level as boroughs. Some municipalities have been consolidated with their county government to form consolidated city-counties, or have been legally separated from counties altogether to form independent cities. Conversely, counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island, eight of Massachusetts's 14 counties, and Alaska's Unorganized Borough have no government power, existing only as geographic distinctions.

In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is a type of unitary authority that has the governmental powers of both a municipal corporation and a county.

A minor civil division (MCD) is a term used by the United States Census Bureau for primary governmental and/or administrative divisions of a county or county-equivalent, typically a municipal government such as a city, town, or civil township. MCDs are used for statistical purposes by the Census Bureau, and do not necessarily represent the primary form of local government. They range from non-governing geographical survey areas to municipalities with weak or strong powers of self-government. Some states with large unincorporated areas give substantial powers to counties; others have smaller or larger incorporated entities with governmental powers that are smaller than the MCD level chosen by the Census.

A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England, New York, as well as Wisconsin to refer to the equivalent of the civil township in these states; Minnesota uses "town" officially but often uses it and "township" interchangeably. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary in each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both, the boundaries often coincide and may completely geographically subdivide a county. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies civil townships as minor civil divisions. Currently, there are 20 states with civil townships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Administrative divisions of New York (state)</span>

The administrative divisions of New York are the various units of government that provide local services in the American state of New York. The state is divided into boroughs, counties, cities, towns, and villages. They are municipal corporations, chartered (created) by the New York State Legislature, as under the New York State Constitution the only body that can create governmental units is the state. All of them have their own governments, sometimes with no paid employees, that provide local services. Centers of population that are not incorporated and have no government or local services are designated hamlets. Whether a municipality is defined as a borough, city, town, or village is determined not by population or land area, but rather on the form of government selected by the residents and approved by the New York State Legislature. Each type of local government is granted specific home rule powers by the New York State Constitution. There are still occasional changes as a village becomes a city, or a village dissolves, each of which requires legislative action. New York also has various corporate entities that provide local services and have their own administrative structures (governments), such as school and fire districts. These are not found in all counties.

A township in some states of the United States is a small geographic area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Local government in the United States</span> Governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state

Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

The borough presidents are the chief executives of the five boroughs of New York City. For most of the city's history, the office exercised significant executive powers within each borough, and the five borough presidents also sat on the New York City Board of Estimate. Since 1990, the borough presidents have been stripped of a majority of their powers in the government of New York City.

Municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. The term can also be used to describe municipally owned corporations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New England town</span> Unit of government in New England, US

The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlie the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities and counties in other states. New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting, an assembly of eligible town residents. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island. Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems and some other state services in the southern New England states while providing varying services in the more sparsely populated three northern New England states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boroughs of New York City</span> Administrative divisions of New York City

The boroughs of New York City are the five major governmental districts that compose New York City. The boroughs are the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. Each borough is coextensive with a respective county of the State of New York: The Bronx is Bronx County, Brooklyn is Kings County, Manhattan is New York County, Queens is Queens County, and Staten Island is Richmond County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Village (United States)</span> Administrative division at the local government level in the United States

In the United States, the meaning of village varies by geographic area and legal jurisdiction. In formal usage, a "village" is a type of administrative division at the local government level. Since the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from legislating on local government, the states are free to have political subdivisions called "villages" or not to and to define the word in many ways. Typically, a village is a type of municipality, although it can also be a special district or an unincorporated area. It may or may not be recognized for governmental purposes.

The towns and cities of Downstate New York were created by the U.S. state of New York as municipalities in order to give residents more direct say over local government. Present-day Westchester, Bronx, New York, Richmond, Kings, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk counties were part of York Shire from 1664-August 1673 and again from February 1674 until 1683 at which point the Province of New York was divided into counties. From August 1673 to February 1674 New York was under Dutch control and English political units were suspended, then restored under English rule. York Shire was divided into three divisions called ridings, the East, West, and North ridings. In 1683 the colony of New York eliminated shires and ridings in favor of counties, the East Riding becoming Suffolk County, West Riding the counties of Richmond and Kings, while the North Riding became the counties of Westchester, New York, and Queens.

Local government in Pennsylvania is government below the state level in Pennsylvania. There are six types of local governments listed in the Pennsylvania Constitution: county, township, borough, town, city, and school district. All of Pennsylvania is included in one of the state's 67 counties, which are in total subdivided into 2,560 municipalities. There are currently no independent cities or unincorporated territories within Pennsylvania. There is only one incorporated town in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg.

In the United States, an independent city is a city that is not in the territory of any county or counties and is considered a primary administrative division of its state. Independent cities are classified by the United States Census Bureau as "county equivalents" and may also have similar governmental powers to a consolidated city-county or a unitary authority. However, in the case of a consolidated city-county, a city and a county were merged into a unified jurisdiction in which the county at least nominally exists to this day, whereas an independent city was legally separated from any county or merged with a county that simultaneously ceased to exist even in name.

A coterminous municipality, sometimes also known as a coterminous city or a coterminous town-village, is a form of local government in some U.S. states in which a municipality and one or more civil townships have partial or complete consolidation of their government functions. A term used for the formation of such a local government is "township and municipal consolidation." This form of local government is distinct from a municipality coterminous with a higher level of government, which is called a consolidated city-county or a variation of that term.

References

  1. 2002 Census of Governments, Individual State Descriptions (PDF)
  2. Lien, Cathryn (July 14, 2017). "City of Mackinac Island Reaches 200th Anniversary". Mackinac Island Town Crier. Archived from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
  3. Lien, Cathryn (July 14, 2017). "A History of the Borough of Michilimackinac, City of Mackinac". Mackinac Island Town Crier. Archived from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
  4. ""Belle Plaine Trivia," City of Belle Plaine". Archived from the original on 2021-07-24. Retrieved 2019-04-08.
  5. The Pennsylvania Manual 117
  6. Pennsylvania Local Government Fact Sheet, 2005 Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Local Government Entities in Pennsylvania" and "Municipal Statistics" in Legislator's Municipal Deskbook for Pennsylvania Archived December 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  8. Pennsylvania Legislator's Municipal Deskbook, Third Edition (2006) (PDF)
  9. Code of Virginia § 15.2-3534
  10. Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the City of Chesapeake, Virginia for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2005 Archived February 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (PDF)
  11. City of Virginia Beach Development Services Center, DSC INFORMATION NOTICE #63 - Correction May 15, 1998 Archived November 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine (PDF)