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Urban secession is a city's secession from its surrounding region to form a new political unit.
This new unit is usually a subdivision of the same country as its surroundings. Many cities around the world form a separate local government unit. The most common reason is that the population of the city is too large for the city to be subsumed into a larger local government unit.
However, in a few cases, full sovereignty may be attained, in which case the unit is usually called a city-state. It is an extreme form of urban autonomy, which can be expressed in less formal terms or by ordinary legislation such as a city charter.
Urban autonomy has a long history back to the prehistoric urbanization and the original Mediterranean city-states of classical times, e.g. Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome. In medieval times such measures as the Magdeburg rights established special status for cities and their residents in commercial relations. In general it receded as European cities were incorporated into nation-states especially in the 17th century to 20th century, eventually losing many special rights.
Modern theorists of local civic economies, including Robert J. Oakerson and Jane Jacobs, argue that cities reflect a clash of values, especially of tolerances versus preferences, with views of the city varying from a pure community to that of a pure marketplace. Suburbanites have a strong tendency to view the city as a marketplace since they do not participate in its street life voluntarily, nor do they consider the city to be a safe and comfortable place to live in. By contrast, those who choose downtown living tend to see it as more of a community, but must pay careful attention to their tolerances (for smog, noise pollution, crime, taxation, etc.). Ethics and thus politics of these interest groups vastly differ.
Secession (the setup of entirely new legislative and executive entities) is advocated by certain urban theorists, notably Jane Jacobs, as the only way to deal politically with these vast differences in culture between modern cities and even their nearest suburbs and essential watersheds. She stated that "cities that wish to thrive in the next century must separate politically from their surrounding regions."[ citation needed ] She rejected the lesser "Charter" and less formal solutions, arguing the full structure of real regional government were necessary, and applied to the urban area alone. In particular she rejected the idea that suburban regions should have any say over the rules in the city: "they have left it, and aren't part of it."[ citation needed ] Jacobs herself lived in an urban neighborhood (The Annex, Toronto) which would have been paved over in the 1970s by a highway project to serve the suburbs, the Spadina Expressway, had the proponents of urban secession not stopped it. Jacobs likewise took part in blocking the development of the Lower Manhattan Expressway in the 1960s, opposing Robert Moses. These freeways are examples of the clash of urban community versus suburban market interests.
Advocates of highway development and suburban participation in urban government theorize that cities which protect themselves from the suburbs, forcing them to become self-sufficient small towns, cutting off the freeways, forcing commuters into subways, etc., are committing suicide by forcing business out into the suburbs. Advocates respond that cities depend more on their quality of life to attract migrants and professionals, and that remote work makes it possible for workers in the city to live anywhere, coming into town less frequently, without the rush.
Fully autonomous cities, or city-states, are the objective of urban secession. A modern instance of a city-state is the Republic of Singapore, which was expelled from Malaysia for a variety of political and social reasons. [1] Currently, Singapore is the sole city which has total independence, an indigenous currency, and a substantial military. The other two existing and de jure city-states are Monaco and Vatican City, which operate as, nominally, politically independent urban areas.
Certain cities like Hong Kong and Macau have a degree of autonomy, but not full political independence. Specifically, the status of a special administrative regions (SAR) has been conferred upon Hong Kong and Macau in the People's Republic of China. The reason for their relative autonomy stems from their existence for more than a century as European colonies, and a resultant difficulty of full reintegration.
In China, both Beijing and Tianjin are independent of the surrounding province of Hebei, of which they were formerly a part. Similarly, Shanghai is now independent from Jiangsu and Chongqing from Sichuan.
In Japan, Tokyo, as well as being a city,[ clarification needed ] forms a prefecture, falling into a special category of "metropolitan prefecture" having some of the attributes of a city and some of a prefecture. Within Tokyo, there are smaller units, "wards", "cities", "towns", etc., but some of the responsibilities normally assigned to cities and towns in other Japanese prefectures are handled by the Tokyo metropolitan government instead. [2] [3] [4]
In both South Korea and North Korea, special cities are independent from their surrounding provinces and city-states under direct governance from the central government. Examples are Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon and Ulsan in South Korea and Pyongyang and Rason in North Korea. In South Korea, the main criterion for granting secession from the province is a population reaching one million.
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, administers six cities, formerly part of the Republic of China's Taiwan Province, as special municipalities: Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan. (The People's Republic of China, which claims Taiwan, continues to recognise these municipalities as an integral part of PRC's purported Taiwan Province; the People's Republic of China regards Taiwan as its 23rd province, with Taipei as its capital.)
In Indonesia, the capital Jakarta was once part of West Java until it gained special autonomy status and broke away from its former province in 1961. The mayor position was replaced by governor, making it special autonomous province and operates independently from its surrounding provinces
Malaysian capitals Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya as well as Labuan island was once part of Selangor and Sabah respectively. In 1974 Kuala Lumpur was declared as first Federal Territory in Malaysia in order to prevent clash between Selangor state government and federal government, the state capital of Selangor was later moved to nearby Shah Alam. Later in 1984 Labuan was chosen by the federal government for the development Offshore financial centre and declared as second Federal Territory after Kuala Lumpur. Putrajaya declared as third Federal Territory later in 2001 after federal government finished developing the city as new federal capital while Kuala Lumpur stays as royal capital.
In Thailand, the capital Bangkok operates independently of any province and is considered a special administrative area. It is a primate city in terms of its large population, having nearly 8% of Thailand's total population.
The Brussels capital region, a densely built-up area consisting of 19 communes including the capital city Brussels, became one of Belgium's three regions after the country was turned into a federation in 1970. (In Belgium there are special circumstances due to the country's language communities.)
In Bulgaria the capital Sofia is an oblast of its own - Sofia-grad, while the surrounding area is divided between the Pernik Oblast and the Sofia Oblast.
Madrid has its own autonomous region, including a regional parliament even though Spain is a unitary state.
Paris and the Lyon Metropolis are their own departments in France.
The capital city of Bucharest is also a county within Romania.
Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the biggest cities in Russia, have a federal city status. Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the city of Sevastopol is also administered as a federal city, though Ukraine and most of the UN member countries continue to regard Sevastopol as a city with special status within Ukraine.
In the United Kingdom, London secessionism has gathered momentum [5] [6] [7] following the Brexit referendum, when the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union, but Greater London, which is its own region (unlike other urban areas in the UK), voted to remain in the EU.
In Germany there are two cities — Berlin and Hamburg — that are Bundesländer in themselves (thus, they are city-states within a federal system). The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is also a city-state, comprising two cities: Bremen and Bremerhaven. At the district level, many large and medium-sized cities form their own district-free cities (German: Kreisfreie Städte).
The city of Vienna is a federal state within the Republic of Austria. As in Germany, many large and medium-sized cities in Austria are separate from the regular districts, instead forming their own statutory cities (German: Statutarstädte).
One of the cantons of Switzerland, Basel-Stadt, is a city-state.
There are no city-states in North America. The District of Columbia in the United States and Distrito Federal in Mexico are federal government districts and not ordinary municipalities. As such, they are subject to the direct authority, respectively, of the U.S. and Mexican federal governments. The residents of Washington, D.C. did not elect their own mayor and city council until 1972, when the United States Congress extended home rule to the city. However, the actions of the mayor and city council must still be approved, at least retroactively, by the Congress, and no legislation passed by the Government of the District of Columbia can take effect until and unless the U.S. Congress approves it.
Urban secession is one of many possible solutions pondered by some Canadian cities as they contemplate their problems. It is one that is considered politically useful because of the strong secessionist movement in Quebec, as well as the weaker secessionist movements in Newfoundland (formerly independent), Alberta and British Columbia.
In Quebec, with a secessionist movement and linguistic dichotomy, the division of a newly independent Quebec has been a strong undercurrent, with some having a Province of Montreal remaining in Canada, sometimes containing only the West Island and the West Shore of Montreal.
For many decades, the urban communities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have been configured separately from their respective provinces, for purposes of apportioning Members of Parliament after the national censuses conducted every five years. [ citation needed ]
Various proposals have been made for New York City to secede from New York State. On a lower level, some states permit or have permitted a city to secede from its county and become a county-equivalent jurisdiction in its own right. Whether the new county-equivalent jurisdiction is considered to be a consolidated city-county like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or San Francisco, California or an independent city like St. Louis, Missouri is a matter for each such state to decide. In November 2018, the Georgia General Assembly allowed voters in a wealthy enclave of Stockbridge, Georgia to decide if they wanted to secede, which they then declined to do. [8] In Ohio, hundreds of cities and villages have withdrawn from their surrounding townships by forming paper townships. [9]
The 2007 Royal Commission on Auckland Governance was set up by the New Zealand Government to investigate possible changes to the administration of Auckland. The city was in 2009 named as the country's only supercity with the merging of several former councils, and in 2010 the Auckland Region became a unitary authority governed by the Auckland Council. Suggestion has since been made that the region could become an independent city state. [10]
An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity.
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, which rank immediately below the national government and form the country's first level of jurisdiction and administrative division. They include 43 prefectures proper, two urban prefectures, one regional prefecture and one metropolis. In 1868, the Meiji Fuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures to replace the urban and rural administrators in the parts of the country previously controlled directly by the shogunate and a few territories of rebels/shogunate loyalists who had not submitted to the new government such as Aizu/Wakamatsu. In 1871, all remaining feudal domains (han) were also transformed into prefectures, so that prefectures subdivided the whole country. In several waves of territorial consolidation, today's 47 prefectures were formed by the turn of the century. In many instances, these are contiguous with the ancient ritsuryō provinces of Japan.
Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession. A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent of the group or territory from which it seceded. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.
A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions of municipalities, school district, or political district.
Taiwan is divided into multi-layered statutory subdivisions. Due to the complex political status of Taiwan, there is a significant difference in the de jure system set out in the original constitution and the de facto system in use today.
The seat of government is "the building, complex of buildings or the city from which a government exercises its authority".
Special wards are a special form of municipalities in Japan under the 1947 Local Autonomy Law. They are city-level wards: primary subdivisions of a prefecture with municipal autonomy largely comparable to other forms of municipalities.
For administrative purposes, Papua New Guinea is divided into administrative divisions called provinces. There are 22 provincial-level divisions, which include 20 provinces, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, and the National Capital District of Port Moresby.
The states and federal territories of Malaysia are the principal administrative divisions of Malaysia. Malaysia is a federation of 13 states (Negeri) and 3 federal territories.
A federal capital is a political entity, often a municipality or capital city, that serves as the seat of the federal government. A federal capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government, where its location and relationship to subnational states are fixed by law or federal constitution. Federal capitals may or may not be considered states in themselves, and either exercise significant political autonomy from the federation or are directly ruled by the national government located within their premises, as federal districts.
Regionalism is a political ideology that seeks to increase the political power, influence and self-determination of the people of one or more subnational regions. It focuses on the "development of a political or social system based on one or more" regions, and/or the national, normative, or economic interests of a specific region, group of regions or another subnational entity, gaining strength from or aiming to strengthen the "consciousness of and loyalty to a distinct region with a homogeneous population", similarly to nationalism. More specifically, "regionalism refers to three distinct elements: movements demanding territorial autonomy within unitary states; the organization of the central state on a regional basis for the delivery of its policies including regional development policies; political decentralization and regional autonomy".
There have been various movements within Canada for secession.
A capital district, capital region, or capital territory is normally a specially designated administrative division where a country's seat of government is located. As such, in a federal model of government, no state or territory has any political or economic advantage relative to the others because of the national capital lying within its borders. A capital territory can be a specific form of federal district.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall is the city council which administers the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. This council was established after the city was officially granted city status on 1 February 1972. Their jurisdiction covers an area of 243 square kilometres.
Kuala Lumpur is the largest city in Malaysia; it is also the nation's capital. The history of Kuala Lumpur began in the middle of the 19th century with the rise of the tin mining industry, and boomed in the early 20th century with the development of rubber plantations in Selangor. It became the capital of Selangor, later the Federated Malay States, and then Malayan Union, Malaya and finally Malaysia.
A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city".
In the context of the United States, secession primarily refers to the voluntary withdrawal of one or more states from the Union that constitutes the United States; but may loosely refer to leaving a state or territory to form a separate territory or new state, or to the severing of an area from a city or county within a state. Advocates for secession are called disunionists by their contemporaries in various historical documents.
Greater Kuala Lumpur is the geographical term that determines the boundaries of metropolitan Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Though similar to the term "Klang Valley", there remains a variation between the two. Ranked as the 30th-largest in Asia, it covers a total land size of 13,565.61 km2.
The Penang secessionist movement was a separatist movement whose objective was to achieve the independence of Penang from the Federation of Malaya. Between 1948 and 1957, the movement was driven by commercial elites, predominantly from non-Malay ethnic backgrounds. It stemmed from concerns that Penang's non-Malay majority would be marginalised under the Ketuanan Melayu agenda and that Penang's economic prospects would be undermined by the new Malayan government. Ultimately, the movement was defeated in Penang's legislature and attempts to garner support from the British government were unsuccessful.
19.9 per cent of the 2,001 people surveyed agree[d] it [London] would be better off as its own country.