Local government in the United States is structured in accordance with the laws of the various individual states, territories, and the District of Columbia. Typically each state has at least two separate tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Some states further have their counties divided into townships. There are several different types of local government at the municipal level, generally reflecting the needs of different levels of population densities; typical examples include the city, town, borough, and village. The types and nature of these municipal entities varies from state to state. Many rural areas and even some suburban areas of many states have no municipal government below the county level, while others do not operate under a distinct county government at all. In other places the different tiers are merged, for example as a consolidated city–county in which city and county functions are managed by a single municipal government, or in the case of towns in New England, which in some states have completely replaced the county as the unit of local government.
The local governments described above are classified general purpose local governments by the United States Census Bureau. In addition, there are also often local or regional special purpose local governments. Special purpose governments include special districts that exist for specific purposes, such as to provide fire protection, sewer service, transit service or to manage water resources, and in particular school districts to manage schools. Such special purpose districts often encompass areas in multiple municipalities.
Read more about Local Government In The United States: History of Local Government in The United States, Types of Local Government, Councils or Associations of Governments, Dillon's Rule, Institutions, Indian Reservations, Census of Local Government, Examples of Local Government in Individual States
Famous quotes containing the words united states, local, government, united and/or states:
“I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The local snivels through the fields:
I sit between felt-hatted mums....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best, it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment’s sake. While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“There was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praisworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“The people of the United States have been fortunate in many things. One of the things in which we have been most fortunate has been that so far, due perhaps to certain basic virtues in our traditional ways of doing things, we have managed to keep the crisis of western civilization, which has devastated the rest of the world and in which we are as much involved as anybody, more or less at arm’s length.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)