Other Defined Areas
In addition to general-purpose government entities legislating at the state, county, and city level, special-purpose areas may exist as well. Conservation districts are one such type of special purpose area, created for the purpose of conserving land, natural scenery, flora, and fauna.
Congressional districts are another example, formed for the purpose of electing members to the United States Congress.
Additionally, U.S. courts have ruled that there are smaller areas which are to be considered as fulfilling government functions, and should therefore be bound by the same restrictions placed on "traditional" (US-aligned) government bodies. These include homeowners associations (determined in Shelley v. Kraemer, Loren v. Sasser, Committee for a Better Twin Rivers v. Twin Rivers Homeowners’ Association), and company-owned towns (both for employees and for consumers, decided in the USSC case Marsh v. Alabama in 1946). Many homeowners' and neighborhood associations are considered non-profit organizations, but have the ability to raise taxes or fees, fine members for infractions against association-rules, and initiate lawsuits. The question of civil rights in such communities has not yet been conclusively determined, and varies from state to state.
Read more about this topic: Political Divisions Of The United States
Famous quotes containing the words defined and/or areas:
“The cliché that women, more consistently than men, turn inward for sustenance seems to mean, in practice, that women have richly defined the ways in which imagination creates possibility; possibility that society denies.”
—Patricia Meyer Spacks (b. 1929)
“... two great areas of deafness existed in the South: White Southerners had no ears to hear that which threatened their Dream. And colored Southerners had none to hear that which could reduce their anger.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 16 (1962)