Multi-county Municipalities

[Steely Dan]

The most famous example of a city that spreads across multiple different counties is obviously NYC, where each of the 5 borroughs are technically their own counties, even if they don't fully act as autonomously as counties usually do in most other places around the country.


But how about other examples?

I'm sure we could find hundreds of 2-county municipalities, but how about 3 counties? 4 counties? More?

In Illinois, the most extreme case I'm aware of is Aurora, IL, an old industrial satellite city of Chicago that was subsequently swallowed up by the great Chicagoland sprawl monster. It formed in the 19th century on the banks of the Fox River in the southeast corner of Kane county, relatively close to the 4-corners meeting point of Kane, Dupage, Will, and Kendall counties. In the 20th century, Aurora annexed outward as it grew, eventually spreading its municipal limits into all 4 counties, creating this mess:

[JManc]

Houston. It's mostly in Harris county but after decades of getting fat off annexations, it's spread into Ft. Bend and Montgomery counties.

[mhays]

Bothell on the edge of the Seattle area, partially in King and Snohomish Counties.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Allow me to introduce the bedlam that is the Portland Metro Boundaries:

See linked PDF

Among other things, we have:

Select parts of Portland edging into Clackamas and Washington Counties

Unincorporated neighborhoods spanning Washington and Multnomah Counties with Portland addresses, even when completely surrounded by Beaverton/Washington County

A chunk of Lake Oswego in Multnomah County

If you ask me, the only logical jurisdictional boundary in this metro is the OR/WA state border.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by JManc

Houston. It's mostly in Harris county but after decades of getting fat off annexations, it's spread into Ft. Bend and Montgomery counties.

A sliver of Houston has been Fort Bend for ages. I remember one kid at Dulles High School who lived in Houston and you know how long ago that must have been.

[xzmattzx]

There are a few municipalities in Delaware that are in two counties (and we only have 3 counties total, stacked on top of each other). Milford is the most prominent, because it's been in two counties for a really long time, and the town is split pretty evenly between the two counties. North Milford is everything in Kent County, and South Milford is everything in Sussex County.

Smyrna and Clayton are both in Kent County and New Castle County, but Smyrna only crossed into New Castle County in the last 25 years, and Clayton in the last 10-15 years.

The most notable place in Delaware is that we have a municipality that is as close to being in two separate states under one government as possible. Delmar, DE, and Delmar, MD, function pretty close to one municipality, even though they are actually two, because they share services across the border, like the police force, school district, utilities, etc. The main street through town is the border, so eastbound traffic is in Maryland, and westbound traffic is in Delawre. I did a photothread about Delmar DE/MD more than 15 years ago, HERE, but the photo links are gone. Delmar, as you can figure out, is combination of DELaware and MARyland.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

A sliver of Houston has been Fort Bend for ages. I remember one kid at Dulles High School who lived in Houston and you know how long ago that must have been.

Go Vikings!

[iheartthed]

Atlanta comes to mind as another major city that crosses county lines but only two counties, I think.

Suburban Detroit has at least two municipalities that cross county lines (Northville and Grosse Pointe Shores). I'm not aware of any Michigan municipalities that touch more than two counties. Actually, I just thought about one MI municipality that does touch more than two counties: Lansing, the capital.

[austlar1]

Fort Worth spans multiple counties. While it is primarily located in Tarrant County, where it serves as the county seat, the city also extends into Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise counties .

Similarly, the City of Dallas is located in multiple counties. While the majority of the city lies within Dallas County, parts of it also extend into Collin County, Denton County, Rockwall County, and Kaufman County.

[Austin55]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Fort Worth spans multiple counties. While it is primarily located in Tarrant County, where it serves as the county seat, the city also extends into Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise counties .

Similarly, the City of Dallas is located in multiple counties. While the majority of the city lies within Dallas County, parts of it also extend into Collin County, Denton County, Rockwall County, and Kaufman County.

What has always been crazy to me is that Fort Worth does not extend into Dallas County and Dallas doesn't cross into Tarrant. Fort Worth's city limits are even shared with the County limits for a short stretch.

[craigs]

California cities are legally barred from crossing county lines.

[Cirrus]

This is going to vary wildly state to state.

Wikipedia has a list of multi-county municipalities in the US, but I wouldn't trust it without verifying. The first one I looked up was wrong. There seems to be a lot of confusion about zip codes versus actual municipalities.

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Atlanta comes to mind as another major city that crosses county lines but only two counties, I think.

Suburban Detroit has at least two municipalities that cross county lines (Northville and Grosse Pointe Shores). I'm not aware of any Michigan municipalities that touch more than two counties. Actually, I just thought about one MI municipality that does touch more than two counties: Lansing, the capital.

Yes about 10% of the city limits of Atlanta falls in DeKalb County. The remainder in Fulton. I'm in DeKalb but within the City of Atlanta limits. There's also the airport, which is mostly in Clayton County...I'm not sure if some or all of the airport is considered within the city limits.

[xzmattzx]

How does it work if you live in one of these cities that is the county seat but you're in another county? Like if you live in the City of Atlanta and in DeKalb County? Can you vote for Fulton County positions because your municipality is in that county, or can you note vote for them despite your municipality being under control of those elected positions? Do you get any county services from the county that you do not live in, because of your municipality?

[ColDayMan]

Ohio has a shitload but the most notable is the state's largest, Columbus. The primary county is Franklin but it also spiders into Delaware and Fairfield counties. Tiny little Bellevue, Ohio (population: 8,249; 6.25 sq mi) extends into four counties: Huron (primary), Erie, Sandusky, & Seneca. Dayton, Middletown, and Youngstown also snake into adjacent counties.

Borders are just lines on a map. No rules, no mercy!

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

How does it work if you live in one of these cities that is the county seat but you're in another county? Like if you live in the City of Atlanta and in DeKalb County? Can you vote for Fulton County positions because your municipality is in that county, or can you note vote for them despite your municipality being under control of those elected positions? Do you get any county services from the county that you do not live in, because of your municipality?

My local taxing authority is in DeKalb (Decatur), and I receive my tax bills from them, but about 95% of what they collect is on behalf of the City of Atlanta. I have City of Atlanta Water & Sewer, Fire and Police, and my tax dollars go to City of Atlanta Public Schools, etc., but my tax money gets sent to DeKalb/Decatur.

Actually the biggest issue for people like me is 911 service. People like me don't use it because invariably DeKalb 911 will pickup and time is wasted transferring things over to City of Atlanta. We have actual 7 digit numbers programmed into our phones to avoid that snafu.

[Six Corners]

Kansas City lies solidly across three counties: Jackson, Clay, and Platte

DuPage County gets to count Chicago as one of its incorporated cities. There’s a field at the end of a runway at O’Hare that is within Chicago corporate limits and lies within DuPage County.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Six Corners

gets to count Chicago as one of its incorporated cities. There’s a field at the end of a runway at O’Hare that is within Chicago corporate limits and lies within DuPage County.

Yeah, you end up with the oddball situation where Chicago is technically the largest city in Dupage county, yet not a single city of Chicago resident lives there, cuz the part of the city in Dupage is just that little SW corner of ORD, and is thus uninhabited.

Wikipedia lists Aurora as the largest city in Dupage county, but Aurora shares its population among 4 dufferent counties, and most of them aren't in Dupage county. The largest municipality in Dupage county with the most people technically living within Dupage county's borders is probably Naperville, but even then, a decent sized chunk of Naperville sprawls south into Will county. It gets quite messy.


California did it correctly

[3rd&Brown]

Fascinating and odd.

I'm not used to this sprawling city business. I'm in PA and I'm pretty sure towns can't annex anything at this point.

The most confusing thing about PA, particularly for suburban jurisdictions, is that very often you live in a particular township but have a completely different mailing address slash zipcode slash place name. Almost no one uses the actual name of the township they live in to describe where they live. Generally the place name is tied to the local post office the name of which my guess is tied to what might have initially been the hamlet or village it served which was eventually usurped by the township.

I can think of a million examples, but I can imagine it's REALLY confusing for transplants to the area. And the names are rarely even related.

Concord Township = Garnet Valley
Whitemarsh Township = Lafayette Hill
Lower Merion Township = Gladwyne, Penn Valley, Bala Cynwyd, etc etc.
Willistown Township = Malvern
East Marlborough Township = Kennett Square

Sorta bonkers.

[plinko]

Arizona now has a few, despite the fact that its 15 counties are generally huge.
Peoria, Wickenburg, Apache Junction, Queen Creek, and Marana all straddle two counties.