Cities

[Jane]

Was watching a programme on tv about tornadoes and one hit 'The City of Whatever' a place with 30 homes!

It's not the first time I've noticed this in American broadcasts but in New Zealand you have to have 50,000 people to make a city, and I think in the UK you need cathedrals and things.  (Is that right Emma?)  I guess Australia is more like us, but how exactly does it work in the US?

And on that subject, we have one quirky word for small towns - they're still called 'settlements'.  We almost never use the term village.

[emma]

To be a city in the UK you need a charter from the Queen. Traditonally it did go to a city with a Cathedral, but Kingston-Upon-Hull (where I grew up) is a city, but has no Catherdral.  That's because it was changed by Queen Victoria so Birmingham could become a city (although it does now have a Cathedral). It's complicated!

You can see more here if you are really interested.

[Jane]

You can see more here if you are really interested.

I read the Wiki article and touches on another subject.  When we were in Leyburn in Yorkshire we made the mistake of referring to it as a village and were told firmly that it was a 'market town'.  Another colonial oopsie!

[PastMember]

In the US, it's up to the individual States how to define what makes a place a city (vs a town, or something else).

Here's what Wikipedia says:

In the United States, the definition of cities (and town, villages, townships, etc.) is a matter of state laws and the definitions vary widely by state. A city may be, in some places, be run by an elected mayor and city council, while a town is governed by people, select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. There are some very large towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004) and some very small cities (such as Lake Angelus, Michigan, with a population of 326 in 2000), and the line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state. Cities in the United States do have many oddities, like Maza, North Dakota, the smallest city in the country, has only 5 inhabitants, but is still incorporated. It does not have an active government, and the mayoral hand changes frequently (due to the lack of city laws).

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 flip side 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. The word has often been co-opted by enterprising developers to make their projects sound welcoming and friendly.

In Illinois, cities must have a minimum population of 2,500 but in Nebraska, cities must have a minimum of only 800 residents. In Idaho, 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. 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.

In all the New England states, city status is conferred by the form of government, not population. Town government has a board of selectmen for the executive branch, and a town meeting for the legislative branch. 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.

In Pennsylvania any municipality with more than 10 persons can incorporate as a Borough. Any Township or Borough with at least 10,000 population can ask the legislature to charter as a city. In Pennsylvania a village is simply an unincorporated community within a township.

[Jane]

In the US, it's up to the individual States how to define what makes a place a city (vs a town, or something else).

Here's what Wikipedia says ...

:headbash:  Good grief!

[Bree]

My town I grew up in had about 50 year round residents and maybe 75 in the summer when the "summer people" came.

[Jane]

My town I grew up in had about 50 year round residents and maybe 75 in the summer when the "summer people" came.

But did it call itself a city?

[Vix]

I started to post exactly what Amanda did -- way last weekend! Of course, my internet started to have fits and wouldn't let me.

Living in Pennsylvania, I was accustomed to having mostly "boroughs" and a few major cities (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Erie, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton). I lived in Middletown, a borough or town. Of course, Middletown grew. . . and grew. It could probably be properly incorporated as a city (it had over 10,000 residents when I was growing up, more later). From there I moved to the village of Oriental -- about 300 people if you counted the outlying portions of that township (another division, governing section of a rural area, less than a county). From there I moved to a slightly more populated area -- Mifflinburg, second largest borough in Union County, total county population 42,000.

I now live in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which I would classify as a city, though not as large as neighboring Washington, DC. Gaithersburg has 5 zip codes and a population of 57,000.

[Bree]

My town I grew up in had about 50 year round residents and maybe 75 in the summer when the "summer people" came.

But did it call itself a city?

Actually there is a lot of controversy over it.  That article in wikipedia says that New England does it based on type of government.  We would never call ourselves a city, but a lot of people wouldn't call us a town, either.  Some people called it a village.

Right now the lady who has run the Post Office out of her barn for the last few decades is retiring, and if we can't find someone else to take it over we supposedly won't be a town anymore because we don't have a zipcode.

Of course, when you live in a town with 50 people, the local city might have 2,000 people and seem big enough to be a city.

[Avery]

My hometown was a town until it reached 50,000 people. Then it incorperated and became a city.

[PastMember]

There's a town in New Jersey called Bivalve... I visited there once and they had a population of 8 people!

[Jane]

There's a town in New Jersey called Bivalve... I visited there once and they had a population of 8 people!

I thought a Bivalve was a sort of shellfish!  I don't think we'd let eight people call themselves a town.  They'd have to be a settlement.