Most of the government Americans deal with day to day is local: trash pickup, schools, building permits, police, parks, and water. Local governments vary enormously, from New York City, with a budget larger than most states, to tiny towns run by volunteers. Their structure depends on state law and local charters.
This guide explains the types of local government, how they are organized, what they do, and how they relate to the states.
Nearly every state is divided into counties, called parishes in Louisiana and boroughs in Alaska, with about 3,000 nationwide. Counties typically run courts, jails, elections, property records, public health, and social services, and in rural areas they also provide roads and policing. They are usually governed by an elected board of commissioners or supervisors, along with separately elected officials such as the sheriff, clerk, assessor, and prosecutor. Some large counties have an elected county executive.
The Constitution does not mention local governments. They are created by states, and courts have long followed Dillon's Rule, named for Iowa judge John Dillon, which holds that localities have only the powers expressly granted by the state. Many states instead grant home rule, letting cities or counties adopt charters and govern local affairs unless state law says otherwise. Either way, states can create, merge, or override local governments, and in recent years many states have preempted local laws on minimum wages, firearms, policing, and other topics.
Municipalities, including cities, towns, and villages, provide services such as police, fire, water, streets, parks, and zoning. In the mayor-council form, an elected mayor runs the executive branch, with strong or weak powers depending on the charter. In the council-manager form, now the most common, the elected council hires a professional manager to run day-to-day operations. Townships in the Northeast and Midwest provide services in unincorporated areas, and New England towns still hold town meetings where residents vote directly.
Property taxes are the largest source of local tax revenue, especially for schools, supplemented by local sales and income taxes in some places, fees for services such as water, and aid from states and the federal government. Many states limit how fast property taxes can rise. Local governments borrow by issuing municipal bonds, usually tax-exempt, to build schools, roads, and water systems. Pension and retiree health costs strain many city budgets.
Most cities hold nonpartisan elections, and many schedule them in odd years or spring, when turnout can fall below 20 percent. Supporters of local control say decisions should be made closest to the people affected, while others argue that fragmentation into tens of thousands of governments creates inefficiency and inequality between rich and poor areas. Debates over housing and zoning, policing, homelessness, and state preemption have made local government a growing focus of national politics.
About 12,500 independent school districts, governed by elected school boards, run public schools in most states. Special districts are the most numerous kind of local government and are created for a single purpose, such as water, fire protection, transit, libraries, hospitals, parks, airports, or mosquito control. Many are governed by appointed boards and have their own taxing or borrowing power, which makes them less visible to voters.
See the next level up in how state government works, learn who runs schools in who runs your schools, or see who polices your community in who polices America.