City, County, State in the USA

地方自治：美国的市、县、州

City in the USA

In the United States of America, the classification of population centers is a matter of state law; consequently, the definition of a city varies widely from state to state. In some states, a city may be run by an elected mayor and city council, while a town is governed by the people, a select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. There are some very large municipalities which label themselves as towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004 or Cary, North Carolina with a population of 112,414 in 2006 ) and some very small cities (such as Woodland Mills, Tennessee, with a population of 296 in 2000), and the line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state. The lack of a clear-cut definition of a city in the United States can lead to some counter-intuitive labeling; for example, before it was dissolved in 2002^[48] Maza, North Dakota, with only 5 inhabitants, was a city as by North Dakota law any incorporated location is deemed a city regardless of size. California has both towns and cities but the terms "town" and "city" are considered synonymous. The nation's top five largest cities are New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia.^[49]

In some U.S. states, any incorporated town is also called a city. If a distinction is being made between towns and cities, exactly what that distinction is often depends on the context. The context will differ depending on whether the issue is the legal authority it possesses, the availability of shopping and entertainment, and the scope of the group of places under consideration. Intensifiers such as "small town" and "big city" are also common, though the converse of each is rarely used.

Some states make a distinction between villages and other forms of municipalities. In some cases, villages combine with larger other communities to form larger towns; a well-known example of an urban village is New York City's famed Greenwich Village, which started as a quiet country settlement but was absorbed by the growing city.

In Illinois, cities must have a minimum population of 2,500 but in Nebraska, cities must have a minimum of only 800 residents. In Oregon, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa, all incorporated municipalities are cities. In Ohio, a municipality automatically becomes a city if it has 5,000 residents counted in a federal census but it reverts to a village if its population drops below 5,000.^[50] In Nebraska, 5,000 residents is the minimum for a city of the first class while 800 is the minimum for a city of the second class. The Constitution of Idaho makes no distinction between incorporated towns or cities.^[51]

In all of the New England states, city status is conferred by the form of government, not population. Town government has a board of selectmen or Town Council for the executive branch, and a town meeting for the legislative branch, but unlike the US Government, the executive acts only as an administrative body and cannot override the will of town meeting. New England cities, on the other hand, have a mayor for the executive, and a legislature referred to as either the city council or the board of aldermen.

In Virginia, all incorporated municipalities designated as cities are independent of the adjacent or surrounding county while a town is an incorporated municipality which remains a part of an adjacent or surrounding county. The largest incorporated municipalities by population are all cities, although some smaller cities have a smaller population than some towns. For example, the smallest city of Norton has a population of 3,904 and the largest town of Blacksburg has a population of 39,573. The other U.S. independent cities are Baltimore, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada.^[52]

In Pennsylvania, municipalites with more than 10 persons can incorporate as a borough. Any township or borough with a population of at least 10,000 can ask the state legislature to charter as a city. In Pennsylvania, a village is simply an unincorporated community within a township. Parker, Pennsylvania is known as the smallest city in the United States.

County in the USA

As with the shires of Anglo-Saxon England, counties in U.S. states are administrative divisions of the state in which their boundaries are drawn. Where they exist, they are the intermediate tier of unitary state government, between the statewide tier and the immediately local government tier. Counties are used in 48 of the 50 unitary states; the other two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) have abolished their counties as functional entities, and Massachusetts is in the process of doing so. Of these remaining 48 states, 46 use the term "county" while Alaska and Louisiana use the terms "borough" and "parish", respectively, for analogous jurisdictions.

Depending on the individual state, counties or their differently named equivalent may be administratively subdivided themselves into civil townships, e.g., Michigan, which has civil townships and charter townships (or townships are called "towns" in states where "township" means "a town" or "village", e.g. New York); or counties may contain no large municipal corporations, e.g. Virginia, where all cities are independent cities; or they may contain cities and unincorporated areas, e.g., California, which historically divided its counties into townships but has abolished the latter.^{[citation needed]}

Louisiana has entities equivalent to counties called parishes. Alaska is divided into boroughs, which typically provide fewer local services than do most U.S. counties, as the state government furnishes many services directly. Some of Alaska's boroughs have merged geographical boundaries and administrative functions with their principal (and sometimes only) cities; these are known as unified city-boroughs and result in some of Alaska's cities ranking among the geographically largest "cities" in the world. Nevertheless, Alaska considers such entities to be boroughs, not cities. Alaska is also unique in that more than half the geographic area of the state is in the "Unorganized Borough", a legal entity in which the state also functions as the local government.^{[citation needed]}

New York has a unique system where 57 of its 62 counties are independently-operated administrative divisions of the state, with normal county executive powers; while the remaining five are administrative divisions of the City of Greater New York. These five are each called borough in context of City government – Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island (formerly Richmond); but are still called "county" where state function is involved, e.g., "New York County Courthouse", not "Manhattan". The county names correlate to the borough names respectively as New York County, Bronx County, Queens County, Kings County, and Richmond County.

In two states and parts of a third, county government as such does not exist, and county refers to geographic regions or districts. In Connecticut,^[5] Rhode Island^[6] and parts of Massachusetts^[7][8] counties exist only to designate boundaries for such state-level functions as park districts (Connecticut) or judicial offices (Connecticut and Massachusetts). In states where county government is nonexistent or weak (e.g., New Hampshire, Vermont), town government may provide some or all of the local government services.

Most counties have a county seat, usually a city, where its administrative functions are centered. Exceptions include the nation's smallest county, Arlington County, Virginia, which contains no municipalities. In several instances throughout the nation, a municipality has merged with a county into one jurisdiction so the county seat is coextensive with the county. This is the case in the City and County of San Francisco, CA, and in the City and County of Philadelphia, PA. A similar arrangement is found in the "Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County" where the metropolis of Nashville has merged into the county of Davidson (but, other than Nashville, a few municipalities - such as Belle Meade - still exist with some administrative functions). Miami-Dade in south Florida is a unique example of the merger of some functionality resulting in a two tier arrangement of governmental authority and administrative responsibility. New York City is famously coextensive with five counties or boroughs: the Bronx (which is Bronx County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Manhattan (New York County), Queens (Queens County), and Staten Island (Richmond County). Some New England states use the term shire town to mean "county seat".

State in the USA

A U.S. state (abbreviation of United States state) is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile.^[1] Four states^[2] use the official title of Commonwealth rather than State. State citizenship is flexible and no government approval is required to move between states (with the exception of former convicts on parole).

The United States Constitution allocates certain powers to the federal government. It also places some limitations on the state governments. State governments are allocated power by the people (of each respective state) through their individual constitutions. By ratifying the United States Constitution, the people transferred certain limited sovereign powers to the federal government from their states. Under the Tenth Amendment, all powers not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited to the states are retained by the states or the people. Historically, the tasks of public safety (in the sense of controlling crime), public education, public health, transportation, and infrastructure have generally been considered primarily state responsibilities, although all of these now have significant federal funding and regulation as well (based largely upon the Commerce Clause, the Taxing and Spending Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution).

Over time, the Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the federal government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a continuing debate over states' rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states' powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government as well as the rights of individual persons.

Congress may admit new states on an equal footing with existing ones; this last happened in 1959 with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii. The Constitution is silent on the question of whether states have the power to leave unilaterally, or secede from, the Union, but the Supreme Court has ruled^[3][4] secession to be unconstitutional, a position driven in part by the outcome of the American Civil War.