Random Thought: Have the Virginia Cities Ever Considered Consolidation?

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Mid-Atlantic states have lower rates of incorporation because the counties are much more powerful than in, say, New England, where counties don't matter. Counties in Virginia or Maryland have virtually all the same powers as cities (in Maryland even more so, actually), so there's simply no reason for places there to incorporate.

In fact, in Virginia *all* cities are independent cities, not part of any county, and operate on the same level as counties. They cannot annex new land at all; they can only do a boundary adjustment if the county that surrounds them agrees to it, the same way 2 states might adjust their boundaries. Thus the difference between a city and a county is esoteric and almost completely negligible. This is a weird quirk of Virginia law, leading to some "cities" that look and feel more like counties, and some "counties" that look and feel more like cities.

There are "towns" in Virginia, which are incorporated places within counties (unlike "cities" which are, again, completely independent of any county). But towns in Virginia have very little power, so there's not much benefit in becoming one.

I would say in Florida, Counties are definitely more powerful than cities. Hence the huge Unincorporated areas. In Miami-Dade, the counties rather than the cities run the transit, usually the water and sewer, maintain most of the major roads, assess properties and collect taxes..etc. Cities handle their own zoning and planning though.
And annexation is pretty tough. The County has to ok even having a vote (which rarely happens), and then a majority of residents of the annexed area have to agree to it.

[kcexpress69]

On a side note, it seems as if the annexation laws are also pretty strong in South Carolina as well. Greenville's population would be close to 400,000 if they were more relaxed. Don't know about the cities in the rest of the state, but it seems odd that South Carolina has a population that will likely exceed 5 million by the end of the decade, and there are no cities that have more than 150,000 people.