Urban township (Michigan)

An urban township is a designation of a unit of local government in the U.S. state of Michigan as prescribed by section 2 of Public Act 281 of 1986, being section 125.2152 of the Michigan Compiled Laws. The designation allows a general law township or charter township to be considered a municipality under the auspices of the act, and create what is known as a "local development finance authority," in the same way a city or village is entitled. This authority is created in order to, according to the long title of the act, "encourage local development to prevent conditions of unemployment and promote economic growth." Powers entitled to such authorities include the issuance of municipal bonds and tax increment financing.

There are five different methods in which a township may be designated an urban township by the state. Common requirements between all methods are a population requirement, which usually mandates that there be 20,000 residents in a township—though that number can be as low as 10,000—and in one case, the population requirement is not on the township at all, but the county; the population of said county must be over 1,000,000. This, however, only applied to two counties as of 2003 (Wayne and Oakland).