What are the different types of city government?

Answer 1

1. "strong mayor - weak council", "no mayor -- council" and "weak mayor -- strong council".

   The strength of a council is that it can represent the diverse interests of a community and the strength of overlap of knowledge bases and the self-checking between members. Also a strength that the negative forces of corruption and bribery are diluted by the number of members. The weakness is inability to reach consensus on many issues, inability to reach timely consensus when time is of the essence, and the human nature build up of personal and political acrimony that impairs discussion and decision making.

   The strength of a mayor -- one person who makes the day to day decisions and can have the power to make decisions and exercise authority in urgent or emergency matters. The weaknesses are arrogance and single point of failure. The mayor is only one, when a mayor makes a bad decision it is often unchecked before damage can be done.

   Councils are found effective in small communities where decisions are rarely immediate. Perhaps 5,000 people or less.

   Council-managers are found effective in medium sized communities where day to day decision making authority becomes more important. Perhaps concentrated districts of up to 25,000, and huge spread out districts of up to 1 million. This is where the "mayor" is a day -to-day manager but still must wait for council direction or approval on decisions such as hiring and firing, non-petty or non-regular expenditures, and of course all capital expenditures.

   Strong mayor, weak council covers the remainder.

   It is important that decision making be made in a timely fashion at the most local level, yet also the one where honest responsibility for the costs and effects of expenditures can be had.

2. (I OWN NOTHING)

Answer 2

Mayor-Council, Commission, City Manager Plan

Answer 3

Mayor- council
council manager
commission
representative town meeting

Answer 4

The three main forms of government are:

• Democracy
• Monarchy
• Dictatorship

Answer 5

mayor-council form, commission form, and council-manager form

Answer 6

mayor-council plan

commision plan

council- manager plan