Talk:New England town/Archive 1

message: This article seems a tiny bit unbalanced in overemphasizing the differences between New England towns and midwestern towns/townships. Town/Township governments of states like Wisconsin and Michigan were modelled in large part on New England towns, although they probably drew influence more directly from New York, as many early settlers came from there. The concept however was borrowed as it existed from the late 18th and early 19th century. Since that time, the town/township forms of government in all of the places have diverged considerably. The basic concept behind a midwestern township is that it is the default local unit of government and cover the entire area of the state. The process described for town formation, In other parts of New England, it was not uncommon for “future towns” to be laid out along these lines (sometimes referred to as “townships”), but such areas would not be formally incorporated until they were sufficiently settled to organize a town government. In particular, much of the interior of Maine was originally laid out as surveyed townships., is nearly identical to how townships were organized in midwestern states. Note also that there is considerable variation in town/township governments among the states that use them. 
Also, while technically "unincorporated" in that they are organized by the state legislatures rather than incoporated as municipal corporations, they are regarded as corporate bodies under the law. Unlike truly unincorporated areas, which are unincorporated because the sparse population makes civil government largely pointless administrative overhead, civil townships in some midwestern states are strong forms of participatory government, generally much more closely attuned to direct input from residents than municipalities like cities or even villages. 
Don't get me wrong, I think there are important disctintions to be made and this article is a good start, but the article as is seems to have a lot of opinions and generalizations without offering much in the way of verifiable sources. older ≠ wiser 21:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial comments 

message: I am not very familiar with the municipal layout of Europe, but from what I know, land in Europe is also completely subdivided into municipalities or communes, i.e. no unincorprated territory. I could be wrong though. One thing I am sure of is that Japan uses the same model -- everything is an incorporated city/town/village with no unincorporated territory. There are entities similar to counties but are essentially groupings of towns and villages for electoral purposes. Some comparisons with countries using a similar setup might be helpful in clarifying the difference between New England towns and usual places in other parts of the US. --Polaron | Talk 15:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Having knowledge of France and, to some extent, other European social democracies, I can say that many European states have strong central governments, and that the towns, although incorporated, differ greatly from New England towns. Federal republics, like Germany, may be an exception, but, as I said, most of my experience has been with France. --AaronS 04:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  similarity with other countries 

message: Having grown up in New England, and having done some traveling, I can say that a lot of the generalizations made in this article are true, although they may be difficult to reference (although a bit dated, Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, has an excellent discussion regarding the New England town). Before I left New England, I had no concept of a piece of land that was not incorporated into a town or city and administered by a town or city government. I never understood the county government as having anything more than a historical meaning, and I had always thought that there was a sort of shared government between the town governments and the state government. The decisions that had affected my life the most were decisions made at Town Meeting, not in Boston, and not in Washington. Since then, I have traveled quite a bit, and I am no longer surprised (although it still seems foreign to me) by the idea of areas of a state that are not considered relatively sovereign and which are controlled by state or county governments. I can say, however, that many people from New England, who have not traveled as much, might still be surprised by this idea.
It's difficult to give a sense of authority to an article like this, since so little has been written on the subject. Also, it is just as much a cultural issue as it is a socio-political issue. While more references could be added, and while more research needs to be done, I think that the article, as it is, is not too inaccurate. --AaronS 04:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment 

message: Not having received any response to the contrary, I'm going to go ahead and post the revised article to the main page.  I'm posting it as originally drafted, taking into account one change made to the main page by another individual subsequent to the above discussion.  MCT 22:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks OK, for the most part.  It still lacks sourcing, but nothing there really rings untrue to me.  Main complaints: it's too long, and bit dense and wordy. I think the same points could be made with far more concise language.  It seems to excessively belabor some points, and some other material verges on speculative commentary (e.g. the psychological/identity aspects between the town and its residents).  It veers a bit into long tangents on cities, plantations (simply rehashes material in the "see also" plantation (Maine) article), boroughs/villages, and non-town areas. The Statistics and Superlatives section should be whacked off for sake of brevity, as the biggest obvious thing, IMO.   Ripogenus77 23:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: A marked improvement in terms of a neutral presentation. But some additional references would be nice. I'm sure the Census GARM chapter was used for at least a portion of this, as well as the Census Bureau for the statistics. I'll have to re-read again more closely, but I suspect I'd agree with at least some of the comments from Ripogenus77. older ≠ wiser 00:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I grew up in New York State, lived for 8 years in California, lived for a couple of years in Illinois, a year in Germany, and have now lived in Massachusetts for a total of 9 years.  As a trained geographer, I feel that I have a good understanding of the different ways of organizing local government, territory, and even community identity. That said, I must say that this article strikes me as accurate and unbiased.  New England towns really are a unique entity.  Certainly there are points of similarity to New York towns and Midwestern townships, but New England towns have a number of unique qualities, which this article elucidates. I don't think that the article deserves the warning flags at the top of the page. I think that it should probably refer to a published source or two, and I will undertake to find a couple at my local library.  Once those are supplied, can we remove the tags?  Marco polo 19:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that the article is pretty accurate and doesn't really deserve the warning flags. JBH23 19:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Major revision of 4 October 2006

message: I've added a few references that might be helpful to those wanting more detailed information. The links to the online versions probably require subscription or access through a library or educational institution. --Polaron | Talk 19:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  further reading 

message: I would like to pare down the text to the Characteristics of the New England Town System introduction to make it more readable and scannable. I've removed a number of adjectives, intensifiers and adverbs and doubly or triply repeated qualifications. Mostly there are fewer words.   Comments and objections invited. Yellowdesk 20:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft (Oct 16, 2006) edited version of section [[New England town#Characteristics of the New England Town System | Characteristics of the New England Town System]]  

message: I added the Maine population density map / image to the article, since it most graphically shows a significant low density area. Here's the list in a form that is clickable, and won't take up tons of space, six New England population density maps for the 2000 census, plus other non-New England states. Yellowdesk 00:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population density maps, 2000 census 

message: Those of you who have taken an interest in this article may also be interested in looking at/editing a series of articles I've posted with county-by-county municipal population figures for the New England states.  You can find them by following the link in the New England town article to the List of New England towns.  I have MA, RI, CT and NH done back to 1900.  I'm working on VT but haven't posted anything yet, and will then move on to ME next.  I have data back to the first U.S. Census in 1790 and plan to eventually add pre-1900 data to the articles as well.   
MCT 04:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical Population Figures for New England Towns

message: "Most towns have traditionally been governed by a town meeting form of government." I would like to suggest that all towns have traditionally been governed (or legislated) by town  meetings. 69.128.165.25 02:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My point was in relation to the anonymous post, that "all" may not satisfy. - Yellowdesk 15:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First subsection 

message: This article assumes and proposes that New England towns are somehow distinct from the United States.  We know this to be false.  Other states may use other names, but it is all same.  This article seems to have been created for the sole purpose of fictionalizing New England as a separate entity.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrcee (talk • contribs) 06:28, March 23, 2007
:I've lived all over and never seen anything like a New England town. For one thing, as opposed to the South and West, there is no "unincoporated" land anywhere. The original settlers saw this as a benefit. I'm not so sure today, but it is a fact.
:Most towns, and they are mostly all towns in Vermont, can't do anything without guidance from the citizens. As oppposed to cities where we are constantly throwing the rascals out because they've done something the population didn't like. You don't have that disconnect in a town. The selectboard is simply a place to discuss what the board can do with the guidance it has received from the townspeople. Selectboards tend to continue forever in office as long as they are willing to do so. The pay is miniscule.
:Most of the town offices are filled by essentially unpaid volunteers. These people often have real authority and undergo training at their own expense - property appraisers, for example. These jobs would all be filled by paid bureaucrats if the county ran things.
:The major drawback in New England is the lack of coordination between towns that you get with a county government. Roads don't always run the right way. You can't get there from here. Don't have that in most other places. Tiny school boards for that town alone. A teacher's services become unnecessary to a district, s/he has to go elsewhere and look for a job, there is no "county school board" to reassign her/him. Elementary schools are always placed within a town. Unthinkable to do otherwise. Tiny towns are frustrated as to when to build new schools - it would be a lot easier with the help of other towns, but then the school wouldn't be close. Libraries are tiny and have lousy hours. Definite drawbacks. 
:Yes, you can point to some of the same features in other rural areas, but in NE these are built into the system. Elsewhere, they are purely voluntary.
:So I think the article is necessary. Student7 11:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not to mention, the US Census Bureau defines New England towns * town areas differently (NECTA v CBSA)Drhamad (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This Article Can't be for Real 

message: Can't find a reference but in the old days, the first article on the warning was "Shall we vote to tax ourselves and if so how much?" Needless to say this took up a bit of the discussion, but the implicit idea of maybe not taxing "ourselves" this year always seemed a bit puckish to me! Student7 12:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vermont

message: There is a small group of islands along the coast of NE known as the Isles of Shoals that are legally part of Maine and New Hampshire.  Though they have no permanent population today, they did at one time (the NH portion was incorporated as the town of Gosport).  The big question I have is, how are they legally treated by the states WRT their incorporation status.  Are they treated as unincorporated land?  If so, they should be listed in the listbox for each state under the appropriate heading?  Or are they part of towns?  It would appear that, based on the nearest towns, they should be adminsitered as parts of New Castle, New Hampshire and Kittery, Maine.  How do these states treat these areas?  Just something that was bothering me about the completeness of this and other articles at Wikipedia on the subject. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:07, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Maine portion is adminstered as part of Kittery while the New Hampshire portion is part of Rye. New Castle does not have any islands within its boundaries. --Polaron | Talk 13:40, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  Cleared that up! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Status of the Isles of Shoals 

message: What is misleading about the See also link to Unincorporated area (New Jersey). That is exact same definition for entities like Hyannis. I will restore it unless someone can argue that the particular definition in that article (i.e. not separately incorporated) does not apply to New England. --Polaron | Talk 23:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hyannis is a unique situation.  There are very few situations like Hyannis.  Hyannis is a village within Barnstable, a unique sort of town with seven separate villages.  There are few if any towns that work like that.  To claim a commonality based on a single exception seems spurious.  --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that villages are not a valid political body in Massachusetts; the smallest possible municipality is the town. Note that the town of Barnstable provides all the services to "Hyannis". I think it is inapporpiate and misleading to call it an "unicorporated village" when it incorporation is impossible to begin with. With this logic, however, Manomet and Cedarville in Plymouth, MA; Bryantville in Pembroke, MA; and Weymouth Landing in Weymouth, MA could be considered "villages" to simply because there is no legal definition or capacity to be incorported. I plan on copying this on the "unincoparted area" page to nominate for deletion. Comments? Dexta32084 (talk) 23:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

text: What about Dixville Notch and all the other entries in :Category:Unincorporated communities in New Hampshire? There are many similar cases throughout New England. --Polaron | Talk 23:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, outside of Maine, there are very few.  MUCH less than 1% of the population and about 1% of the land area in New Hampshire, and NONE of Massachusettes, Connecticut, or Rhode Island meets that definition.  Most of the places like that in New Hampshire and Vermont are simply accidents of history; they were surveying errors that no one felt like dealing with and have come down as odd exceptions.  They are not a significant portion of either population or land area, and exist purely as a curiosity.  --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, looking at that category again, most of those are "villages" which ARE parts of incorporated places, but this is a rather small list, given the number of towns (compare the list you gave to :Category:Towns in New Hampshire, which are ALL incorporated towns) and you'll see what I mean.  --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess you could say there are two different meanings of "unincorporated".  The first is "not separately incorporated" (which is the category Hyannis belongs in), the second "not incorporated at all" (Dixville Notch).  In most parts of the country, the second is the typical meaning.  But in New England and New Jersey the first is often what's intended, since the municipal layouts of those states allow for many examples of communities that meet the first definition, but few that meet the second (in NJ, MA, CT and RI, there are literally none).  There is a section of this article devoted to the "not incorporated at all" areas in New England, which as already noted are not at all standard operating procedure in the New England system, although some such areas do exist.  The section on boroughs and villages addresses the matter of places that are "not separately incorporated".  :Category:Unincorporated communities in New Hampshire seems to be mixing together places that meet either definition of "unincorporated", which is confusing. --MCT (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  see also link to unincorporated area 

message: The Unincorporated area (New Jersey) is not an identical concept to a New England town.  It is related to a New England village, which is an unincorporated area within a town.  New Jersey has true unincorporated areas, which lack any self-governance.  This situation, with a few very tiny and insigificant exceptions, does not exist in five of the six New England states.  While New Jersey has towns, they are civil townships which are NOT the same a New England towns.  A New England town is a unique construct, and does not have analogues in other places.  Even if you are trying to claim that the Unincorporated area in Jersey is equivalent to a "village" in New England, its not that good of an analogy, since Villages are separate urban compacts within an incorporated town; think of it as two downtowns within a single city.  The very definition of on the page you are linking, "Unincorporated areas in the state of New Jersey are well-defined communities that are part of one or more incorporated municipalities but are not independent municipalities in their own right." is patently NOT similar to a New England town, since all New England towns ARE independent municipalities in their own right.  --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you are mistaken. New Jersey has no unincorporated areas. While New Jersey has a municipality type known as "townships" and were originally simple civil townships, in modern times, they are now full-fledged incorporated municipalities. See Township (New Jersey). --Polaron | Talk 23:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. Even so, the link should say something like this: "Unincorporated area (New Jersey), which is similar to a village in New England." To equate an unincorporated area as defined in the New Jersey article with a New England town is patently wrong.  It is equivalent to a New England "village".  --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I like your wording -- much clearer and less confusing than mine. Thanks. --Polaron | Talk 23:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Polaron is correct about New Jersey townships being incorporated.  New Jersey townships are probably the closest thing to a New England town that you'll find in any other state, although they're certainly not exactly the same.  The two biggest differences are that the townships are often carved out by incorporated boroughs, and there is probably somewhat less of tendency for residents to think of the township/town as a single coherent community and somewhat more of a tendency to identify with "unincorporated areas"/"villages" than in New England.  I agree that an Unincorporated area (New Jersey), as described in at the link, is very similar in concept to a (not separately incorporated) "village" in New England.  Along the same lines, New York's system is likewise somewhat similar to New England, and the term "hamlet" is used there for the same.  Since a NJ "unincorporated area" and a NY "hamlet" are like a New England "village", though, not a New England town, would it make more sense to work this into the discussion of villages rather than have it as a "See" reference at the end?  --MCT (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: For the record, this article was just linked in Government of New York for having similarly structured towns. That is, the phrase was already in their article. Someone just linked it! Student7 (talk) 12:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Jersey unincorporated areas still not the same idea.  Read both articles again 

message: The section on unincorporated areas seems a bit long. Maybe it can be forked? The beauty of forking is that then state articles can more easily link to sections. The drawback is that then newbies start adding everything to the main article not realizing that it is already in the forked one!   :)   Student7 (talk) 12:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if it is called New England unincorporated areas. Most of the area of the the U.S. is unincorporated. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 20:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ready for forking?

message: I re-wrote the section on Census Treatment of the New England town system.  In doing so, I removed the following text:
"Because virtually all land in New England is covered by incorporated municipalities, it is extremely difficult for cities to annex new territory. As a result, most large cities in the region are much smaller in terms of land area than those in other parts of the U.S. where annexation is more common. For example, both New Haven and Hartford contain only about 18 square miles, and Boston only has 48 square land miles, so these cities have extremely high population densities, along with very low per capita incomes. If these cities were in the South or Southwest, they would rank among the largest and richest cities in the country, as they would likely include the very wealthy and densely populated suburbs that surround them".
I don't disagree with any of the above, but it didn't really seem to fit the section.  This isn't really something driven by Census policy, and it isn't even really unique to New England (though it certainly is an issue for cities in New England, and the town system is definitely the root of that).  I couldn't come up with a good way to work it into the article elsewhere.  I tried putting it into the Historical Development section, which already mentions in passing that municipal boundaries are relatively fixed and boundary changes rare, but it didn't seem to fit there either.  The point of all this is that I cut this text because it didn't fit, not because I thought what it says is inaccurate.  If others feel that that this text should be included in the article, and can figure out how to do that (even by putting it back into the Census Treatment section), feel free to do so.    MCT (talk) 16:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good removal.  Also, it should be noted Boston has annexed several towns or parts thereof over time; Roxbury, Brighton (including Allston), Charlestown, and Dorchester were all once independent towns, though all of these were annexed in the 1800's.  I can't think of any more recent annexations, though I agree that the demographic interpretation was both uncited and did not belong in the article.  --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Annexation Policy

message: Excellent use here of statitics on area and population (especially population) to show how arbitary the distinctions between "towns" and "cities" are, despte the Census treating them so differently.  I think a crowning addition would be some stats about density of population.  I'm sure the most densely populated towns have a considerably greater density than the least densely populated cities. 
Tommymic999 (talk) 05:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics on Area and Population 

message: One characteristic of Vermont, New Hampshire and perhaps other NE towns is the numbering of "town highways" by number which has allowed renaming of roads without messing up pre-existing surveys. But perhaps this exists outside of NE as well. I do not know. But if unique to NE, it should be here I think. Student7 (talk) 02:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how it works in Vermont, but in New Hampshire "town highways" are not numbered for public use.  Some towns may use an internal numbering system, but anyone who has driven anywhere through most of New England has noted how roads change name at town borders.  New Hampshire Route 3A, for example, is "Webster Street" in Hudson, "Charles Bancroft Highway" in Litchfield and "Brown Avenue" in Manchester, but during that whole trip the actual roadway is continuous, with no noticable change to indicate that you were leaving one "road" and starting another, just random name changes at each town border.  That sort of thing happens all over, so I am not sure what numbering scheme you are referring to, because I have not run across it in any states I am familiar with (NH, Mass, and Conn. mostly).  I am not even aware of towns maintaining their own "highway" networks; towns are far too small to have such "highway" networks, local roads are often town maintained, but unless a local road is part of a state highway, then it isn't numbered at all, usually.  --Jayron32 02:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

text: Numbered town highway networks are probably unique to Vermont. Connecticut doesn't have them. Massachusetts has an internal number for some non-state route arterial roads but is not used except as an inventory number. I think New Hampshire has something similar called O-roads but again it's just an internal number. I don't know about Maine and Rhode Island. --Polaron | Talk 18:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: New Hampshire has them too. Like most states, this number is not generally publicized. In Vermont, I happened to go into a town where the "TH 7" sign was attached below the current road name, but this is rare. Your town clerk will tell you about "Town Highways!" (or: check your survey if  you own property!) I just wondered if they existed outside these two states. They must else how would surveys have kept up pre-GPS, with road names changing? Student7 (talk) 12:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Infrastructure

message: There seems to be no place to discuss offices unique to New England. Town clerk is mentioned in passing, but that is about it. Nothing about listers, or the Grand List, or Grand Juror, or Fence Viewer; While some of these are unique to Vermont only, some must be shared with (most likely) New Hampshire or Massachusetts.Student7 (talk) 13:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Offices