City proper populations bloated by geographical size

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Eh, it's an excuse for everybody to post city limits . Who's gonna do Chicago???

Sizes aside, I HATE those bizarre boundaries. I cannot even stand to look at the City of Los Angeles map. In a site with such beautiful well-defined natural boundaries, how come they came up with such horrible shape?

[Northern Light]

As a matter of curiosity, I decided to look to see how many municipal governments in the Detroit area occupy roughly the same the same land area as the City of Toronto.

Toronto is 630km2, I got Detroit to be 632km2 by generally following the River, cutting inland to I-94 at the edge of the pointes, then up to Walter P. then Telegraph road to the Industrial Expressway and out to the River to capture River Rouge.

Here's what I found; Detroit has 17 governments (plus 3 partials) where Toronto has 1

Detroit
Hamtramck
Highland Park
Grosse Point Shores
Grosse Point
Grosse Point Park
Grosse Point Farms
Harper Woods
East Pointe
Hazel Park
Ferndale
Oak Park
Southfield
Dearborn
Ecorse
River Rouge
Melvindale

Also portions of:

Dearborn Heights
Lincoln Park
Allen Park

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

As a matter of curiosity, I decided to look to see how many municipal governments in the Detroit area occupy roughly the same the same land area as the City of Toronto.

Toronto is 630km2, I got a Detroit to be 632km2 by generally following the River, cutting inland to I-94 at the edge of the pointes, then up to Walter P. then Telegraph road to the Industrial Expressway and out to the River to capture River Rouge.

Here's what I found; Detroit has 17 governments (plus 3 partials) where Toronto has 1

(...)

And aside the problems we discussed on the last page, it's a waste of public resources: so many extra mayors, city councillors, public servants in general. Lots of redundancy, in a country voters always complain about paying too much taxes.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Eh, it's an excuse for everybody to post city limits . Who's gonna do Chicago???

https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/update...olitan-chicago

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Yuri

And aside the problems we discussed on the last page, it's a waste of public resources: so many extra mayors, city councillors, public servants in general. Lots of redundancy, in a country voters always complain about paying too much taxes.

This is very common in the Midwest and northeast.

[sopas ej]

Hawaii kind of handles things in the other direction... my sister and her family lived there from the late 1990s to about 2011 or 2012, before they moved back to California (though not back to southern California). I did some rudimentary studying on how things work in Hawaii because while my sister was living there, she told me that they don't have individual school districts like in California; all the schools are administered by the state. When she told me that, I was like "Whaaaat??"

Being the small state that it is, Hawaii only has 4 counties---5 counties, if you include the consolidated City and County of Honolulu. There are no incorporated municipalities in Hawaii; all communities are governed at the county level.

The City and County of Honolulu is basically all of the island of Oahu and some smaller outlying islands. The total population is 1,016,508, and that's for the whole city/county. BUT, for statistical purposes, the US Census Bureau treats Honolulu differently from the rest of US cities; they consider Honolulu's "city population" to be that of the "urban portion" of Honolulu, which would be 343,302. My sister used to live in "Honolulu," but some years later, they moved to "Pearl City, HI," which technically, is still part of the City/County of Honolulu, but was treated like a separate community, census-wise (population as of 2020 being 45,295).

What was the point of my saying all this? Sorry, I'm at work right now, so a bit distracted. I guess my point is that... I don't know. I think I was trying to compare the rest of the US, how Hawaii treats its population/municipalities differently. (?)

[dave8721]

South Florida (Miami-Dade County in particular) is a miss mash of a gazillion tiny cities, many 1 square mile or even smaller. At just 36 square miles, Miami is geographically the largest city in the region.

[PHX31]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Phoenix and Jacksonville for sure.

Just visited Columbus, Ohio for the first time. Very nice mid-sized city but it's population is DEFINITELY over bloated due to it's land size.

Some other cities that seem a little over bloated in their city proper population VS. their metropolitan area population:

San Antonio
Austin
Indianapolis

True, it bloats the overall population. On the other hand, skews density much lower.

[summersm343]

Originally Posted by PHX31

True, it bloats the overall population. On the other hand, skews density much lower.

Exactly. City of Phoenix at the very least could be cut off after Paradise Valley and Deer Valley. Everything north of that should not be within city limits.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Exactly. City of Phoenix at the very least could be cut off after Paradise Valley and Deer Valley. Everything north of that should not be within city limits.

Had Phoenix grown more pre warm, neighborhoods like Maryvale, Ahwatukee, Deer Valley etc would have been their own independent municipalities. Areas now Essentially defined as "Central Phoenix" would probably bee the only parts that were the city limits, essentially everything north of the Slat River and south of the Phoenix Mountain preserve about half of the size it is now but it would still be home to 75% of the current population.

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

I think Yuri is entirely on point.

Lets take a look at a couple of comparisons, I'll use the Canadian Province of Ontario on one side.

Population: 14.5 M

Area: 1,076,000km2 ( 415,598 square miles)

Number of Municipal Governments: 444

****

U.S. State of Georgia:

Population:10.52M

Area: 59, 425 miles square

Number of Municipal Governments: 535 (not including counties)

U.S. State of Michigan:

Population: 10,077,000

Area: 96,717 miles square

Number of Municipal Governments: 1,773 (all inclusive)

***

For the record, that last one is nuts!

Those are rookie numbers Pennsylvania has 13 million residents in 67 Counties and 2,560 Municipalities. Allegheny County alone has 133 independent municipalities for 1.2 million people.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

Allegheny County alone has 133 independent municipalities for 1.2 million people.

woah!

and i thought cook county was bad.

suburban cook county has 133 municipalities for 2.5M people.

Lake county, IL has 52 municipalities for 700K people.



anyway, here's my modest proposal for a revised "city of chicago" that would incorporate adjacent and nearby townships within cook county.

it would present a much "cleaner" look over the current jaggedy-edge city limits, and would eliminate damn near 100 suburban municipalities.

the new population would probably be around 4.5M people on ~650 sq. miles of land (roughly houston's land area).

[Buckeye Native 001]

Maybe because I work in municipal government in Arizona, but whenever I'm back in Ohio I have a difficult time wrapping my head around the purpose/function/execution of townships.

[summersm343]

Yep. A lot of municipalities in Pennsylvania make no sense. A lot of "boroughs" are surrounded by townships which go by the same name as the borough, but are technically separate municipalities with their own governments. It's really silly. I've long thought a lot of these townships should be dissolved into the borough they surround, municipalities merged, etc.

Of course, no standing politician will give up the municipality they govern.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Sizes aside, I HATE those bizarre boundaries. I cannot even stand to look at the City of Los Angeles map. In a site with such beautiful well-defined natural boundaries, how come they came up with such horrible shape?

A mad dash to get port access with LA and for California cities, the SOI is a better way to see what the city limits should/could be.


Source

Originally Posted by galleyfox

https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/update...olitan-chicago

Beat Steely!

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by summersm343

Exactly. City of Phoenix at the very least could be cut off after Paradise Valley and Deer Valley. Everything north of that should not be within city limits.

Yeah, they annexed a lot to avoid becoming landlocked. But they would have probably been better for it--see Tempe, which has been forced to grow up instead of out.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Maybe because I work in municipal government in Arizona, but whenever I'm back in Ohio I have a difficult time wrapping my head around the purpose/function/execution of townships.

Townships are most effective as a form of rural government, at least in Illinois. Arizona is not a very rural state, so townships wouldn’t serve a function that counties can’t fulfill.

Tax assessment, road maintenance, social and safety services, environmental protection, utilities, etc. are the primary functions.

For example, La Salle County, IL might want to give Streator, Ottawa, Peru, and Mendoza some separate regional powers. So the county delegates certain responsibilities to townships.

Chicago dissolved its townships because the neighborhoods don’t need fundamentally different services as towns and farms do.

[IcedCowboyCoffee]

Originally Posted by Yuri

In my view, there are no “bloated cities” issue, but a “tiny city” one. It would be preferable if US cities were much bigger in size, with less admin overlapping, a more reasonable tax base and better urban policies.

Dallas struggles with this.
Despite the metro area being, on a functional level, one massive contiguous city, it's really a collection of a couple dozen small cities. Dallas proper is so small that it's easy for people to live just outside the city and enjoy the city's amenities without paying into the city's taxes whatsoever.
In fact, the wealthiest parts of "Dallas" (Highland Park and University Park) are little islands that are surrounded on all sides by Dallas proper. It's goofy.

[edale]

Columbus was the first city that came to my mind. Despite being pretty centrally located in Franklin County, it spills into 2 adjacent counties (Fairfield and Delaware). The city/suburb distinction is meaningless when large swaths of the 'city' look like this.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

Townships are most effective as a form of rural government, at least in Illinois. Arizona is not a very rural state, so townships wouldn’t serve a function that counties can’t fulfill.

Tax assessment, road maintenance, social and safety services, environmental protection, utilities, etc. are the primary functions.

For example, La Salle County, IL might want to give Streator, Ottawa, Peru, and Mendoza some separate regional powers. So the county delegates certain responsibilities to townships.

Chicago dissolved its townships because the neighborhoods don’t need fundamentally different services as towns and farms do.

Rural areas, they absolutely make sense.

Most of the townships I'm thinking of (Anderson, Miami, Symmes) are suburbs of Cincinnati in Hamilton County, Ohio. All within at least a 20 minute drive to downtown. Just seems redundant to me.