Talk:Administrative divisions of Michigan

County government in the United States

Hello, Michigan! To defuse the edit war that has started at Category:County government in the United States, I'd appreciate some additional input on the topic of whether U.S. counties are (1) a level of local government or (2) an arm of state government. Discussion thus far is on my User talk page at User_talk:Orlady#County_government, but we could move it to a content-oriented talk page if desired. --Orlady (talk) 00:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello MI. I am the other side of the edit war. My claim is that although county officials may be elected or appointed locally (i.e. not statewide), the actual county government itself is an arm of the state government. This is consistent with the powers they exercise (elections, law enforcement, etc.). If we could have some academically informed input, I would appreciate it, because the general impression and intuition that people have is that county government is "local government," but to those who actually study political science formally, the difference is known. The compromise that I propose is the persons should be categorized under "local politicians" while the offices should be categorized under "state government." Greg Bard (talk) 8:39 pm, Today (UTC−4)

I have posted this issue to WikiProject United States, and WikiProject Politics. Please take your input to one or the other so I don't have to have 50 discussions. Greg Bard (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

User:Gregbard started discussion of this matter at User_talk:Orlady#County_government. Please don't start a whole new discussion at some WikiProject page. If there is a desire to move the discussion, let's copy the pre-existing discussion to the new location. --Orlady (talk) 02:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello, whoever may be listening!

The county or shire was invented by Alfred the Great back in the Ninth Century as the middle tier of government administration. The terms are interchangeable - 'shire' is from Old English; 'county' was imported to England from Normandy by the Normans. The top tier of government was the national administration of the Kingdom of Wessex; then came the shire (or 'county' as the Normans would later re-brand it), and below that were the towns, cities, villages, etc. comprising the third tier This system was brought to North America by English colonists and there subsequently British successors in interest.

Thus, in America, we have the unitary state; which is divided into counties; and then the counties are divided into townships. Unless you are in New England or New York, where they use the word "town" to mean "township," and use the word "township" to mean "town." Thus, the California "Town of Atherton" would be "Township of Atherton" if it were in New York -- but for the fact California passed a law decades ago under which the word "town" is legally just another way to say "city." So, while it calls itself the "Town of Atherton," state law recognises it to be the City of Atherton.

Anyway, the original three-tier system of unitary state government was State/County/Township or Town. In America, cities and villages are municipal corporations; just as they are in England. Except for New York and New England, where it means "township," the term "town" is rarely used in the United States to indicate a municipal corporation. In England, a "town" and a "city" are functionally the same thing. The difference in label usually depends on whether the main local church is a cathedral or an ordinary church. Thus, Canterbury, London, Westminster, York, and Winchester are all cities because their main churches are, respectively, Canterbury Cathedral, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral (notwithstanding it's RC instead of C of E), York Minster, and Winchester Cathedral (which gave its name to a popular 1960s ballad). Camden, on the other hand, is Camden Town not Camden City because it just has an ordinary parish church. Chelmsford, meanwhile, converted its parish church into a cathedral 1914; whereupon the former Town of Chelmsford became the City of Chelmsford. But I digress.

One important thing to remember for the whole of America: The basic unit of government is the unitary state, not the federal state. The federal USA is a kind of overlay. It is coextensive with the 50 unitary states but it is NOT superior to them because it is limited to the powers the U.S. Constitution assigns to it. All powers that are not assigned to the federal state are reserved to the 50 unitary states, which means that most government functions are exercised by the 50 unitary states not by the federal state. The 50 unitary states are free to decide for themselves which units or levels of government get to do what within their boundaries. In Michigan, for example, state universities are constitutionally autonomous jurisdictions that cannot be controlled by the state legislature or executive; they are fully subject only to the authority of the judicial branch of government. That is not the case for public universities in most other states.

In the two+ centuries since the English/British colonial period ended, many states - including Michigan - still operate with this basic three-tier system, in which there is a statewide tier of government; with some government functions decentralised to county tiers; and other government functions decentralised to township tiers. Where cities and villages are incorporated, they generally assume functions otherwise decentralised to townships. Depending on the particular state, villages usually remain part of the township(s) in which they are located but cities never do. In some states, such as Virginia, cities are not even part of the counties in which they are otherwise located, though may still serve as the seat for that county. The City of Fairfax, Virginia, for example, is legally separate from Fairfax County but is still the administrative seat for Fairfax County. So, the treatment of municipal corporations in relation to administrative tiers of state government is not uniform.

Neither anymore is the number of tiers of state government decentralisation. Many New England states have abolished their county governments, while keeping the traditional county boundaries general state-level administrative purposes. Thus, Middlesex County is still on the map in Massachusetts but all of the functions of the former county government (except the county court) are now executed directly by the state government, or were transferred to the local township (town) and/or municipal governments. California, by contrast, went the other direction in the 1960s and abolished its townships. All of the functions formerly exercised by township governments are now exercised by county governments.

So, in sum, many of the 50 unitary states in confederation still operate with the classic triple-tier system of government decentralisation invented c. 1120 years ago by Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and all Engla Land (they eventually contracted that to England); while others have gone to a two-tier system of government. Note that in Louisiana, what the rest of the country calls "county" is called a "parish"; and in Alaska, it is called a "borough." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:C300:3189:ACC2:DC73:1617:F949 (talk) 17:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

What does this have to do with anything? --Criticalthinker (talk) 17:22, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

County Board of Supervisors

The article now mentions that counties once had County Boards of Supervisors until it was struck down by the federal courts, but gives no citetation for this fact. Could someone add where this information came from? Did county board of commissioners replace this form of government or did it exist along beside it? Also, could someone add information on the maximum and minimum size of a county commission? I did some prelim work and it seems it's done by population with the max number being 21, but what's the minimum number and what is currently the smallest commmission in the state? It seems someone update the page, but didn't cite much and actually didn't answer some of the more basic questions that arise. --Criticalthinker (talk) 14:56, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

"Incorporated"

This article needs to be changed, as it promotes the myth that townships are not corporate entities. In Michigan, they are: http://www.michigantownships.org/mitownships.asp 12:41, 23 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.29 (talk)

But, a county can also sue and be sued, yet we don't refer to them as "incorporated." Townships are not incorporated entities in the way that word is almost exlusively used. I think this article does a better-than-decent job of making known townships are different than townships in a lot of other states in that every square mile of Michigan belongs to a local government. IT's safe to say that all townships in Michigan are local governments. To definitively state that they are incorporated is either straight-out incorrect, or it muddies explaining the difference between cities/villages and townships. It is really more than enough to simply leave it at the fact that a township in Michigan is both an administrative division and a local government. --Criticalthinker (talk) 15:07, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

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Administration divisions

After some years of thought and research on this term, I'd like to propose splitting off cities and villages from the definition, and put them clearly in seperate categories. The only administrative divisions of Michigan are counties and then townships. Cities (subordinate to/under county government) and villages (subordinate to/under township government) are not statutory divisions, but local governments created by choice. For clarity, I'd propose two categories to make sure that people realize that counties and townships are administrative divisions of the state, and that cities and villages aren't. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll be making these changes soon since no one has said anything. What I may do now, instead, is put cities under the county section and villages under the township section since that is what each incorporated municipality is directly subordinate to since, again, incorporated municipalities in Michigan aren't statutory administrative divisions of the state. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, along with doing this, it might simply be better to rename the page "Subdivisions of Michigan" so that it makes sense to include both administrative divisions (counties and townships) and incorporated municipalities (cities and villages), which are political subdivisions. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I disagree. They are administrative divisions of the state. They are not administrative divisions of the state government, but they are of the state. Cities and townships are not independent of the state, they are creations of Michigan, they have no validity outside the sovereignty of Michigan, if they were not creations of Michigan they would have no legal status anywhere (including Michigan).

This confuses people when someone says "of the [jurisdiction]", this can be and is contextual. For example, when we say that "Olympic gold medal winners of the United States", we don't mean gold medal winners that are subordinate to the United States government, or are creations of the United States, but we mean they are from the United States or they were part of the (semi-private) US olympic committee.

The lack of "administrative" and the addition of "sub" prefix does nothing to change this. "Divisions of" and "Subdivisions of" mean the same thing, and "administrative" is an adjective that differentiates it from other divisions of the state, like "geographical divisions of Michigan". Traditionally in the US we would have called this article "Political divisions of Michigan", but just as you are confused about "administrative", you would also be confused about "Political", so we thought that "Administrative" would cause less of these proposals per month. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 00:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Regular unified

The county section of the argument mentions the four different options for county government in the state, and actually singles out and explains in a sentence the regular unified option of government. What is strange, though, is that once given that special treatment, there is not even an example listed of a county with this forum of government. So, which counties use the unified form (i.e. appointed county manager) of governance? --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

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