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  #81  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2022, 1:51 AM
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
There are basically five setups for core cities in the U.S.

Highly Incorporated States: Nearly every (or in some cases every) bit of land not in a city is incorporated within a town. This makes expansion of cities pretty nearly impossible, as towns will only merge with cities if the population of the town votes in favor, which never happens any longer. This is the primary reason why if you look at a map of any of the New England states, all of the cities (except for Boston and maybe Providence) are about the same size in land area as towns. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania suffer from this to a lesser extent. The good side of this is you end up with "sensible" boundaries, but it leads to a high level of municipal fragmentation.

Landlocked: This is a common configuration in older (read Rust Belt) areas of the Midwest, where the old survey township system was technically unincorporated, but in practice in the late 19th/early 20th century, more and more surrounding communities independently incorporated until a city was surrounded by "suburban cities" - which could not be merged in without the expressed support of the local population.

Sprawled: In a lot of areas with unincorporated county land, a core city is allowed to annex property as long as the owner okays it, with no local vote allowed. This leads to really weird "patchwork" expansion of cities, which often offer access to municipal services like water to help foster new development. These cities end up with often crazy borders, with lots of tiny enclaves of "non-city" relatively deep inside, and weird tentacles extending far into undeveloped land. This is common in the Sun Belt, but it can also be seen in newer Midwestern cities (Columbus, Kansas City, Madison, etc).

City-County Merger: A growing move in the modern era in the South/West is to consolidate city and county government. This has taken place in Jacksonville, FL, Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, IN, and Nashville, TN among other places. Somewhat confusingly, in these cases there is often one or more independent suburbs which retain self-government within the city-county. These tend to be cities which look big on paper, but don't feel that large, since most of the land area is comprised of former "suburbs."

Independent Cities: This is a special case where cities are not part of any county. This includes NYC (which technically covers five counties), San Francisco, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Denver. Oh, and every single city in Virginia. This happened by one of two ways - either through an early and complete consolidation between the city and the county (so that the whole city is urbanized) or through a breakoff of the cities from the counties. Unlike the city-counties mentioned above, they don't tend to "feel smaller" than the topline population suggests.
If we're going to get technical, San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia, and New Orleans are consolidated city-counties, and not independent cities. The difference between them and Nashville or Louisville is that they merged much sooner; the difference between them and Indianapolis or Jacksonville is that there are no exclaves in the former.
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  #82  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2022, 5:36 AM
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I've often wondered what could reasonably be considered "greater SF/Oakland", and included in expanded city limits. For example, what if the area stretching from Richmond to San Leandro, and SF to South SF, all had one government, instead of the current situation where there are 16 different cities in that area (which has a population of about 2 million people and an area of 185 square miles...slighter larger than SJ, or about equal to Albuquerque, for reference).

And sure enough, in 1912 there was a vote to combine those areas, as well as the area in Marin county stretching from Sausalito to San Rafael, into a "greater San Francisco", with a borough system like New York. Obviously the vote failed.

But what if it didn't? For example, maybe the Key system/Muni would have been one system, and twice as large, with nothing ever getting demolished. Maybe that would have led to the inner Bay Area outside of SF being more dense than it is now. Who knows.

For another example of how things could be different, there's the big swath of empty land just south of the SF border, that lies in the city limits of the suburb of Brisbane (pop. 5,000). There's been a housing shortage for decades, and it's a prime location for thousands of housing units, as it's right next to heavy rail and light rail stations, and a freeway, and sure enough there was a proposal for a big development with 4,000+ housing units, and office and retail. But Brisbane was upset that all the new housing/residents would upset the existing balance of power and destroy the "small-town character" (lmao they border SF!), and rejected it. They've since approved a plan with housing, finally, but there'll only be 2,000 units now. Imagine if a place like Brisbane had the power of a neighborhood (which is what it basically is), instead of a city.
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  #83  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2022, 12:16 PM
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I think its important to say that the object (to me) in having somewhat larger Cities, certainly relative to in the U.S. is not bragging rights, or where one ranks on a population survey or neat boundary lines.

Rather, its about a fairer distribution of wealth (tax base); educational opportunity for children (comparable wealth school districts); its about reducing silly, needless and needlessly costly fiefdoms w/their own Mayors/Councils, Police and Fire Chiefs etc etc.; and making sure services that should logically be read across arbitrary lines such as transit and eco-system management are so planned.

That said, there is no utility in making cities limitlessly large by population/geography.

We can reasonably debate where the line is where efficiency morphs into dis-efficiency/inefficiency.

Its somewhere north of 1M people; its somewhere north of 200 square miles of territory; but there is a point at which Councillors and Senior management in a City become too far removed from front-line service delivery and have too many constituents and service quality per dollar invested tends to stagnate over even decline.

The exact numbers will vary by place; and in each case one wants to way the trade-offs. But I think the main thing is not to be obsessed with 'bigger is better' in the same way that we ought not to think a collection of a dozen streets deserves its own dot on the map and associated bureaucracy.

The thing that offends the eye in certain cases in the U.S. is the inequality that results from excessive numbers of small cities/towns; and the rather absurd-looking, Gerry-mandered borders than include 'enclaves'/'exclaves' and seem to lack any logical rhyme or reason.
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  #84  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2022, 2:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Yuri View Post
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.
That is exactly what would happen if my city could annex all the developed areas on its fringes. On paper, Greenville is a tiny city of about 71,000 people. In practical application, it's probably in the 300,000 range. Even more if the incorporated towns in the sprawl were folded into it as well' with those it would approach 400,000. The city of Greenville has the best urban policies in the region, the various incorporated towns like Mauldin, Simpsonville, and Fountain Inn have policies of varying quality, and Greenville County has the most lax policies.
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  #85  
Old Posted Jun 13, 2022, 2:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Minato Ku View Post
Everyone love to complain about the administratives limits in the USA but France is quite bad about the small size of its city limits and the fact it doesn't reflect the reality of the City.

The urban area of Paris is home to 411 towns.
The metropolitan area is home of 1,794 towns.
France allows creation of regional governments, though. This concept doesn't exist in the U.S. The creation of modern New York City in 1898 was an attempt to address this missing tool of governance.
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  #86  
Old Posted Jul 8, 2022, 5:30 AM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Agreed. I think if most cities had their way, they would 'pull a Houston' and annex everything they could around them to pull in that extra tax base. My neighborhood was annexed in the late 90's which mean a huge chunk of middle class voters now paying Houston taxes.

Annexation by municipalities in California don’t always translate into a net increase in tax base when you factor in the costs to deliver municipal services. That’s the main reason there are 564,657 people living in the unincorporated parts of Sacramento versus 525,000 in the city of Sacramento. The City Council is (thankfully) reluctant to annex unincorporated parts of the county that would end up being a drain.

The same goes for other cities in the County like Elk Grove and Folsom. The only land they’re interested in adding residential are in the pastures around Elk Grove or the rolling hills South of Folsom (which is sad to see). The City of Sacramento is interested in infill but also South Sacramento and North by the airport. Annexing older established neighborhoods just doesn’t pencil out or so the City has said.
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  #87  
Old Posted Jul 8, 2022, 5:39 PM
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Originally Posted by TWAK View Post
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

Beat Steely!
Yes...and don't forget there are over 400,000 people with a Sacramento address that live in unincorporated Sacramento(outside city limits). I grew up in unincorporated Sacramento.
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  #88  
Old Posted Jul 9, 2022, 8:10 PM
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Originally Posted by urban_encounter View Post
Annexation by municipalities in California don’t always translate into a net increase in tax base when you factor in the costs to deliver municipal services. That’s the main reason there are 564,657 people living in the unincorporated parts of Sacramento versus 525,000 in the city of Sacramento. The City Council is (thankfully) reluctant to annex unincorporated parts of the county that would end up being a drain.

The same goes for other cities in the County like Elk Grove and Folsom. The only land they’re interested in adding residential are in the pastures around Elk Grove or the rolling hills South of Folsom (which is sad to see). The City of Sacramento is interested in infill but also South Sacramento and North by the airport. Annexing older established neighborhoods just doesn’t pencil out or so the City has said.
Some areas would pay for themselves, like Arden-Arcade, and places like Florin would be one of those draining areas for a time period. Many of the unincorporated areas are underserviced and it would help residents to be part of Sacramento. Plus Sac could finally have a higher city population than Fresno. Watt or Bradshaw should have been the true city limits, maybe further, and the interesting thig is all the areas with a "Sacramento" address. You can add El Dorado Hills to that area which is being built up like it's the 90's, and taking away open land.

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Originally Posted by creamcityleo79 View Post
Yes...and don't forget there are over 400,000 people with a Sacramento address that live in unincorporated Sacramento(outside city limits). I grew up in unincorporated Sacramento.
I think the last annexation attempt was Freeport, which failed. Up here Lakeport is trying to expand, but one property was able to stop the whole process and extend it out further.
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  #89  
Old Posted Jul 11, 2022, 1:07 PM
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Originally Posted by TWAK View Post
Some areas would pay for themselves, like Arden-Arcade, and places like Florin would be one of those draining areas for a time period. Many of the unincorporated areas are underserviced and it would help residents to be part of Sacramento. Plus Sac could finally have a higher city population than Fresno. Watt or Bradshaw should have been the true city limits, maybe further, and the interesting thig is all the areas with a "Sacramento" address. You can add El Dorado Hills to that area which is being built up like it's the 90's, and taking away open land.


I think the last annexation attempt was Freeport, which failed. Up here Lakeport is trying to expand, but one property was able to stop the whole process and extend it out further.
I thought it was Arden-Arcade? The residents of that area voted it down. (for those not from the Sacramento area, Arden-Arcade is an area of about 90,000 residents with Sacramento addresses that live just outside city limits.)

Lake County is a really beautiful area. I shudder to even mention it anywhere for fear of people flocking there to live.
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  #90  
Old Posted Jul 11, 2022, 4:43 PM
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Originally Posted by creamcityleo79 View Post
Yes...and don't forget there are over 400,000 people with a Sacramento address that live in unincorporated Sacramento(outside city limits). I grew up in unincorporated Sacramento.
For California, Sacramento County is unusual for the number of people living in unincorporated territory. Typically, once development gains momentum, areas seek to gain incorporation to avoid being annexed by an adjacent city. Santa Clarita and Diamond Bar in LA County, Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino, Encinitas and Poway in San Diego come to mind. In Southern California, it's unusual for long-established urban areas to remain unincorporated. Plus in California, an area can continue to hire the county to provide police and fire protection even after incorporation. So there is no need to go to the expense of setting up separate police and fire departments: local control with minimal added expense. Was Sacramento County just so efficient at providing services that suburban areas didn't feel the need to incorporate?
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  #91  
Old Posted Jul 11, 2022, 7:09 PM
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Originally Posted by creamcityleo79 View Post
I thought it was Arden-Arcade? The residents of that area voted it down. (for those not from the Sacramento area, Arden-Arcade is an area of about 90,000 residents with Sacramento addresses that live just outside city limits.)
There was talk of adding it to the SOI and they had an incorporation vote. It was while ago though, so it could have included an annexation vote - but I doubt it.

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Lake County is a really beautiful area. I shudder to even mention it anywhere for fear of people flocking there to live.
It's affordable too.
shhhhh!
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  #92  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2022, 1:24 AM
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  #93  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2022, 12:53 PM
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For California, Sacramento County is unusual for the number of people living in unincorporated territory. Typically, once development gains momentum, areas seek to gain incorporation to avoid being annexed by an adjacent city. Santa Clarita and Diamond Bar in LA County, Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino, Encinitas and Poway in San Diego come to mind. In Southern California, it's unusual for long-established urban areas to remain unincorporated. Plus in California, an area can continue to hire the county to provide police and fire protection even after incorporation. So there is no need to go to the expense of setting up separate police and fire departments: local control with minimal added expense. Was Sacramento County just so efficient at providing services that suburban areas didn't feel the need to incorporate?
Very much so (sheriff, fire, trash pickup, roads, etc)! The difference between many of those places and unincorporated Sacramento is identity. The places you mentioned already had a different postal address. The 400,000 or so people in unincorporated Sacramento County that I'm speaking of have Sacramento addresses. So, their identity is already Sacramento. The same can't be said for places like Santa Clarita, Diamond Bar, or the others.

There are other places that are unincorporated in Sacramento County; but, they do have their own postal names and identities...Carmichael, North Highlands, Rio Linda, Fair Oaks, Orangevale, and others. This further solidifies the aforementioned Sacramento identity. Unless you're in the know about what is city and what is county (city has green street signs with white letters, county has white street signs with black letters), you may not know you're in one or the other...even if you live there.
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  #94  
Old Posted Jul 12, 2022, 12:53 PM
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There was talk of adding it to the SOI and they had an incorporation vote. It was while ago though, so it could have included an annexation vote - but I doubt it.


It's affordable too.
shhhhh!
It's on our list for when we move back already. But, I won't tell anyone lol
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