Municipal corporation
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Municipal Corporations
Two traditional—and inconsistent—attitudes toward cities coexist in American thought. On the one hand, cities are places to be feared. They are prime locations for vice, crime, and alienation; they frequently advance their own parochial interests over the welfare of the states and the nation as a whole; they all too often allow an entrenched majority to threaten the rights of minorities. Thus James Madison, in The Federalist, no. 10, argued that local democracies were “spectacles of turbulence and contention … incompatible with personal security and rights of property.” Only by “extend[ing] the sphere” of political power to the nation, he contended, could the danger to liberty posed by localism be cured.
Cities, however, are also seen as a source of human vitality and as a vehicle for the exercise of freedom. The concentration of people within cities unleashes an unmatched amount of creative energy and innovation; city policies serve as laboratories for social and economic experiments that benefit the rest of the country; local governments alone are close enough to their constituents to permit popular participation in governmental decision making. Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America (1835), contended that “the strength of free nations resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within people's reach, they teach people how to use and enjoy it.”
The legal status of American municipal corporations (a term describing the legal form adopted by cities) reflects both of these inconsistent attitudes, but the negative image of cities predominates. Apprehensions about the nature of city life, about city parochialism, and about city invasion of minority rights have led to a host of limitations on local governmental power. The most important of these is that cities cannot adopt policies simply because city residents favor them. Cities can only exercise powers that have been delegated to them by the states, and the scope of such a delegation has traditionally been narrowly construed. Since the late nineteenth century, a number of American cities, in an attempt to overcome restrictive interpretations of city power, have been given general authority to exercise local self‐government under “home rule” charters. But even the power of home rule cities is limited. Home rule cities can usually legislate only on matters that are local in scope, and today fewer and fewer subjects are of only local concern. Home rule cities are also often prohibited from legislating in specific areas, such as enacting “private” or “civil” law.
Not only must city actions be undertaken pursuant to a power delegated by the state but any such action can be modified or reversed if the state or the federal government decides to do so. Cities have long sought federal constitutional protection from the exercise of this state and federal power to reverse city policies. But in 1907 the Supreme Court decisively rejected the attempt to impose constitutional limits on state power over cities in Hunter v. Pittsburgh:
Municipal corporations are political subdivisions of the State created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the State as may be entrusted to them. … The State, therefore, at its pleasure may modify or withdraw all such powers, may take without compensation such property, hold it itself, or vest it in other agencies, expand or contract the territorial area, unite the whole or part with another municipality, repeal the charter and destroy the corporation. … In all these respects the State is supreme, and its legislative body, conforming its actions to the state constitution, may do as it will, unrestrained by any provision of the Constitution of the United States. (pp. 178–179)
This extensive state power over cities has resulted in a wide variety of controls on city activity. The most important are state‐imposed restrictions on the ability of cities to raise revenue. Cities can only impose taxes that are authorized by the state, and even these taxes are subject to state‐defined limits. Strict controls have also been placed on city borrowing and profit‐making activities. Moreover, a host of other city policies, ranging from attempts to combat homelessness to efforts to control pollution, have at one time or another been preempted by contrary state decisions. Without effective state constitutional restrictions on state legislative power—which are rare—cities have no power to resist state policies with which they disagree or state mandates that city money be spent for state purposes.
Cities, like states, have been subjected to a vast array of federal controls in recent years as well. Since the 1970s, both city and state officials have become liable to federal criminal prosecution under an expansive interpretation of federal laws dealing with bribery, mail fraud, and extortion. Even federal laws that are inapplicable to states have been applied to cities. Cities, unlike states, are subject to federal antitrust laws. And although the Fourteenth Amendment's prohibitions on the abuse of governmental power applies equally to cities and states, cities, unlike states, have no immunity under the Eleventh Amendment from being sued in federal court and, unlike states, are liable for damages under Title 42, section 1983 of the U.S. Code for constitutional violations (see Sovereign Immunity).
Despite these pervasive limits on city power, the Supreme Court in recent years has often extolled the value of “local control.” When faced with an equal protection challenge to school financing systems that made the amount of money available for education depend on district wealth, the Court, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), argued that the locally financed education systems were justified because of the importance of local control of education. “Local control,” the Court said, “is not only vital to continued public support of the schools, but is of overriding importance from an educational standpoint as well” (p. 49). In refusing to permit an interdistrict remedy to desegregate Detroit's school system in Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the Court again stressed the importance of the autonomy of suburban school systems, contending that “no single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools” (p. 741). (see Segregation, De Facto.) Similarly, the Court has refused to invalidate locally imposed exclusionary zoning ordinances despite their impact on the ability of low and moderate income people to find adequate housing, holding that the zoning ordinances are unconstitutional only if they are motivated by intentional racial discrimination (Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp, 1977; see also Housing Discrimination).
The Court's defense of local autonomy is also frequently expressed in cases upholding cities' attempts to preserve their character. Thus cities have been given considerable leeway to establish rules prohibiting unrelated adults from living together in a single house. “The police power,” the Court said in Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas (1974), “is ample to lay out zones where family values, youth values, and the blessings of quiet seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people” (p. 9). An equally deferential attitude has permitted cities to use zoning laws to concentrate or disperse “adult” movie theaters and book stores. “A city's interest in attempting to preserve the quality of urban life,” the Court stated in City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres (1986), “is one that must be accorded high respect” (p. 50).
There are many possible explanations for the Supreme Court's defense of local control in the desegregation, school financing, exclusionary zoning, and community character contexts despite its rejection of similar arguments when cities have asserted a right of local self‐government immune from state or federal control. One commentator has argued that the Supreme Court, like state legislatures, has deferred to local autonomy in cases in which suburban communities have sought to protect family values from problems associated with the inner city but has allowed strict controls over central cities' regulatory authority. Another commentator has suggested that Supreme Court cases defending local autonomy as well as legal doctrines subjecting cities to state and federal control are efforts to protect private property rights. Deference to suburban autonomy is one way to protect the interests of private property owners, and invalidating city regulation of private business is another.
A third explanation of the divided attitude toward local authority is also possible. Judges, like most of us, are ambivalent about city power. They see much in cities that they fear and much that they admire. What is feared and what is admired, however, seem inextricable. Perhaps the explanation of the division within legal thought about city power, then, lies in the division within the predominant vision of cities: cities embody both our fears and our hopes for the future of American democracy.
See also Police Power; Takings Clause.
Bibliography
- David J. Barron, Reclaiming Home Rule,
Harvard Law Review 116 (2003): 2255–2386. - Richard Briffault, Our Localism,
Columbia Law Review 90 (1990): 1–115, 346–454. - Gerald E. Frug,
City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls (1990). - Joan Williams, The Constitutional Vulnerability of American Local Government: The Politics of City Status in American Law,
Wisconsin Law Review (1986): 83–153
— Gerald E. Frug
West's Encyclopedia of American Law:
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Municipal Corporation
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
An incorporated political subdivision of a state that is composed of the citizens of a designated geographic area and which performs certain state functions on a local level and possesses such powers as are conferred upon it by the state.
A municipal corporation is a city, town, village, or borough that has governmental powers. A municipality is a city, town, village, or, in some states, a borough. A corporation is an entity capable of conducting business. Cities, towns, villages, and some boroughs are called municipal corporations because they have the power to conduct business with the private sector.
Generally, the authority to govern the affairs within a state rests with the state legislature, the governor, and the state judicial system. However, states give localities limited powers to govern their own areas. The origin of the municipal corporation varies from state to state. Municipal corporations are given the power to govern through either the state constitution or state statutes, or through the legislative grant of a charter.
States give municipalities the power to create an official governmental body, such as a board or council. Members of this body are elected by voters who live within the voting boundaries of the municipality. The local body has the power to pass ordinances, or local laws. These laws may not conflict with state or federal laws.
Most states grant so-called home rule powers to municipalities in the state constitution and state statutes. Home rule is a flexible grant of power from the state to the voters of a municipality. The first grant of home rule was given to the city of St. Louis in 1875 when the state of Missouri created a new state constitution that gave the city the power to create its own government.
Home rule gives municipalities the power to determine their own goals without interference from the state legislature or state agencies. It gives municipalities room to experiment with new approaches to government without first seeking approval from the state. It also allows municipalities to act more quickly on issues of local concern because they do not have to seek approval for their actions from the state legislature. Although home rule powers are broad, in no event may a municipality enact a law that is specifically precluded by state law or that is contrary to state law. For example, a municipality may not vote to decriminalize narcotics that are illegal under state law. It may, however, strengthen existing state laws. For instance, a municipality may act to restrict the sale of alcohol to a greater degree than is done in other municipalities.
The alternative to home rule is Dillon's Rule, a set of principles related to municipal power formulated by the influential jurist John Forest Dillon in 1872. Under Dillon's Rule, municipalities exercise only the limited powers specifically granted by the state, the powers necessary to carry out the specifically granted powers, and the powers indispensable to the declared purposes of the municipality. Few states rely on Dillon's Rule, and the trend among states is to give municipalities more power in deciding local issues.
The governmental authority most commonly exercised by municipalities is the police power. The term police power does not refer to the authority to create police departments, although it does include that power. Police power is the power of state and local governments to enact laws governing health, safety, morals, and general public welfare. On the local level, such ordinances range from the provision of local police to zoning laws to laws on domestic partnerships. The authority of states to exercise police power can be found in the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. States, in turn, grant police power to municipalities, and the municipalities exercise that power within their respective borders. The grant of police power from the state to municipalities can be found in state constitutions or state statutes.
States also commonly give their municipalities the power to enter into contracts. This power can be exercised only by action of the local governing body. The body must give notice of its intent to hire a private party for local government work. For example, if a municipality seeks a contractor to construct a building, the municipality must publish a notice of its intentions in a local newspaper and post other notices in public places. A municipality should not hire a private company if a member of the governing body has a financial interest in the company.
A municipality must exercise ordinary and reasonable care in providing safe public places and safe public services. If a municipality fails to exercise reasonable care, it may be held liable for resulting injuries. For example, if a person falls through a manhole and into the sewer, the city may be liable for any injuries resulting from the fall if the manhole cover was not secure. In this respect, a municipality may be liable for its negligence just like an individual. The most common tort cases against municipalities are based on personal injuries caused by defects or obstructions in public streets, sidewalks, drains, and sewers.
Since the 1960s, cities across the United States have begun to decay because of lack of resources. To increase municipal resources, cities have imposed a variety of fees on private developers. Such fees include charges for building permit approvals, plat approvals, and water or sewer connection; impact fees that take into account future costs of a development; and special assessments for benefits given to a developer by the city. For example, a city may impose a transportation exaction fee on the developer of a residential subdivision to pay for the laying and maintenance of new roads that must be built to serve the subdivision. Developers have argued that such fees force private parties to pay for public functions, and they have attacked the fees as being beyond the power of the city government. In some cases their challenges have been upheld.
Municipal corporations are an important feature of the political structure of the United States. Incorporating a municipality gives it the freedom to form a society that is distinct from other localities in the state and around the country. This idea of local control is the same concept that animates the constitutional division of the country into a collection of smaller states. By giving municipalities some autonomy, individuals are more capable of participating in politics and gaining a measure of control over their lives than if political activity occurred only on the federal and state levels.
See: land-use control.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including (but not necessarily limited to) cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located. Often, this event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter.
With the notable exception of the City of London Corporation, the term has fallen out of favour in the United Kingdom, but the concept remains central to local government in the United Kingdom, as well as former British colonies such as India and Canada.
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Municipal charters
A city charter or town charter (generically, municipal charter) is a legal document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the middle ages. It's considered to be a municipal version of a constitution.
Traditionally the granting of a charter gave a settlement and its inhabitants the right to town privileges under the feudal system. Townspeople who lived in chartered towns were burghers, as opposed to serfs who lived in villages. Towns were often "free", in the sense that they were directly protected by the king or emperor, and were not part of a feudal fief.
Today the process for granting charters is determined by the type of government of the state in question. In monarchies, charters are still often a royal charter given by the Crown or the state authorities acting on behalf of the Crown. In federations, the granting of charters may be within the jurisdiction of the lower level of government such as a state or province.
By country
Brazil
In Brazil, municipal corporations are called municípios and are created by means of local legislation at state level, or after passing a referendum vote of the affected population. All municipal corporations must also abide by an Organic Municipal Law which is passed and amended (when needed) at municipal level.
Canada
Main article: Local government in Canada
In Canada charters are granted by provincial authorities.
Germany
In Germany, municipal corporations existed since antiquity and through medieval times, until they became out of favour during the absolutism. In order to strengthen the public spirit the city law of Prussia dated 19 November 1808 picked up this concept. It is the basis of today's municipal law.
India
Main article: Municipal Corporations in India
In India a Municipal Corporation is a local government body that administers a city of population 200,000 or more. Under the panchayati raj system, it interacts directly with the state government, though it is administratively part of the district it is located in. The largest Municipal Corporations in India currently are Mumbai, followed by Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. The Corporation of Chennai is the oldest Municipal Corporation in the world outside UK.[1]
The Municipal Corporation consists of members elected from the wards of the city. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor are elected by the members among themselves. A Municipal Commissioner, who is from the Indian Administrative Service is appointed to head the administrative staff of the Municipal Corporation, implement the decisions of the Corporation and prepare its annual budget.
The Municipal Corporation is responsible for roads, public transportation, water supply, records of births and deaths (delegated from central government Births and Deaths Registration Act), sanitation that includes waste management, sewage, drainage and flood control, public safety services like fire and ambulance services, gardens and maintenance of buildings. The sources of income of the Corporation are property tax, entertainment tax, octroi (now abolished from many cities) and usage fees for utilities.
Republic of Ireland
Main article: City status in Ireland
In Ireland, municipal corporations existed in boroughs since medieval times. The Corporation of Dublin, officially styled the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the City of Dublin had existed since the 13th century. Corporations were established under the royal charter establishing the city or borough. The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 abolished all but ten of the boroughs and their corporations. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 created two different types of borough, county boroughs had essentially equal status to counties - these comprised Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford (as well as Belfast and Derry, which are now in Northern Ireland). The other boroughs were non-county boroughs.
The Local Government Act 2001 abolished the title of municipal corporation. Corporations of county boroughs (renamed cities) were renamed City Councils. Non county boroughs were abolished, but those towns which were previously non-county boroughs were allowed to use the title of Borough Council. Royal charters remain in force for ceremonial and civic purposes only.
South Africa
The municipality of Durban was called the Durban Corporation.[2]
Sweden
In Sweden until 1951, cities were established by royal charter; see City status in Sweden.
Philippines
Main article: Cities of the Philippines
From the beginning of American colonial rule, Philippines cities were formally established through laws enacted by the various national legislatures in the country. The Philippine Commission gave the city of Manila its charter in 1901, while the city of Baguio was established by the Philippine Assembly which was composed by elected members instead of appointed ones. During the Commonwealth era, the National Assembly established an additional ten cities. Since achieving independence from the United States in 1946 the Philippine Congress has established 124 more cities (as of September 2007), the majority of which required the holding of a plebiscite within the proposed city's jurisdiction to ratify the city's charter.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, cities are granted that status by Royal letters patent: see city status in the United Kingdom.
United States
Main article: Local government in the United States
In the United States, such municipal corporations are established by charters that are granted either directly by a state legislature by means of local legislation, or indirectly under a general municipal corporation law, usually after the proposed charter has passed a referendum vote of the affected population.
See also
References
- ^ "The first corporation" (in English). Chennai: The Hindu. 2003-04-02. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/04/02/stories/2003040200100300.htm. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ^ [1]
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Oxford Companion to the US Supreme Court
The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Copyright © 1992, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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