8. LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE STATES What is ordinarily referred to as the "State Government" is the central organization located at the State capital. But this central organization does much the smaller part of the work of the State. Unlike the National Government, which establishes its central organization for substantially all national activities, the State conducts a large part of its governmental business through locally elected officers. There is no one system of local Govern ment for the forty-eight States or for any of these States. The geography of local Government in each state is a patchwork, with the same territory often occupied by from ten to a dozen separate governing bodies, each with slightly varying boundaries, and with independent powers.
Certain types of organization may be termed the usual forms of local Government. These are (a) the county, which is found in all of the States, though the name "parish" is employed for a similar unit of local Government in Louisiana; (b) towns or town ships, which in most of the States where they are found are merely subdivisions or units of the county, although the New England town was the original area for local Government and is more important than the county; (c) the city. In addition to the city, which is theoretically the chief unit of local Government fo'r urban areas, most State laws provide for the incorporation of small communities as villages, with a simpler form of Government than that provided or permitted for cities.
In addition to these usual types of local Government, other forms will be found in each of the States. Park and sanitary districts in more settled areas, drainage and irrigation districts in rural communities, road districts, school districts and numer ous others will be found oftentimes occupying the whole or a part of the same territory as that covered by the usual types. Aside from several New England States in which the county is merely a convenient area for direct State administration, county Government has certain common characteristics. There is a lo cally elected county board, of varying size and composition, and there are a number of locally elected county officers who per form their duties largely without subordination to the county board, except as they may oftentimes depend upon the county board for appropriations. County boards are usually grouped
into two classes: (I) small boards of commissioners elected at large by the county; (2) large boards elected by townships and cities within the counties. But in a number of States, counties are divided into districts for the election of a small county board. In each county will be found a clerk (or clerks) of court and a sheriff. Each county provides a court house and a jail. Locally elected county judges and county treasurers will ordinarily be found, and a prosecuting officer elected by the voters of the county. In many States the county is a unit of school adminis tration, and there is a county superintendent of schools, usually elected by the voters of the county. A movement is now actively under way toward a more centralized executive organization in the county.
The terms "town" and "township" are usually employed to designate areas of local Government into which the county is divided, though in New England the town is the most important unit of local Government. New England towns have areas of from twenty to thirty sq.m., and usually include both rural ter ritory and more compact village settlements. About three-fourths of them have less than 2,500 inhabitants each, and hence may properly be classed as rural communities. The large communities usually become incorporated as cities, and generally the creation of city Government terminates the existence of town Government within the city's limits. The town meeting is the chief organ of government in the New England towns.
So-called town or township systems of Government are found in the great central group of States extending from New York to Nebraska. The forms of township Government in these States may be classified as follows: (I) Those which, as in New York, have the town meeting and township representation on the county board; (2) those, as in Minnesota, which have the town meeting but no township representation on the county board ; and (3) those, as in Pennsylvania, which have merely a local township organization, but no representation on the county board and no town meeting.