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New England states (incl RI, CT) are a bit of a funny example, though, because of the way they use "towns" in a way that that I (from the midwest) associate mor
by blahedo 12y ago
New England states (incl RI, CT) are a bit of a funny example, though, because of the way they use "towns" in a way that that I (from the midwest) associate more with counties. Across RI, CT, and MA (and maybe the northern states too), every bit of land is allocated to a "town", even if they are well outside the central population concentration of that town, and indeed even if there are multiple, differently-named, population concentrations. (These latter are often called "villages", and may cross town boundaries and in a couple cases even state boundaries. They don't really have any formal legal existence other than having a name people use to refer to them.)
Anyway, so the idea that RI and CT have discarded counties as governmental units has mostly to do with the fact that they have replaced them with something else.
- maxerickson 12y agoI lived in CT briefly. I only hinted at it with the comment about townships, but I'm impressed that they recognized the redundancy and did something about it. (If I understand correctly, they moved most of the regional functions up to the state and most of the more local stuff down to the towns, so the towns do more than a town might in other states, but not quite the same things as a county)