Which of these countries has the best municipal format?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

US - We all know it, big cities surrounded by sprawly suburbs. Sometimes the suburbs grow to be pretty big themselves (like Plano, TX or those -dale places in Arizona), but usually remain about medium sized and far smaller than the cities. Plus even smaller exurbs around them.

Canada - Same sized cities roughly, but the suburban areas aren't a patchwork of municipalities generally. Rather all the suburban areas are collected into large geographical municipalities. Hence you can end up with places like Richmond Hill and Pickering, Ontario which have populations in six digits but have low population densities and basically no real downtown or population center from what I can see. Essentially what would be suburban counties in the US.

Australia - Basically no real cities besides the downtown. Almost everyone lives in what's technically suburbs. And they tend to be really small, only the city centers as mentioned have populations in five digits. Essentially what classify as neighborhoods in the US.

I'd say Canada since it's the best for controlling sprawl if the local government wants to do so. I don't like the Australia model since it makes it difficult to distinguish who the actual urbanites and suburbanites are, although Minneapolis is kind of arranged in accordance with it with all its defined neighborhoods. But I think it's kind of silly that Minneapolis would be split into almost 60 separate cities if it were in Australia.

[Hatman 🍁]

Australia. I've often made fantasy maps of Ottawa to see what it would look like if it were a patchwork of smaller municipalities.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No fantasy map needed for Minneapolis:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, none of them, really. Local government in Australia and Canada is far too dependent on the whims of state/provincial governments and is openly dysfunctional in the U.S (New York is pretty much the only big city with logical boundaries). But that's just looking at boundaries. In most other respects, the 'municipal format' in Australia (while not very good) is objectively superior to that of Canada and the U.S, because things aren't systematically weighted towards local elites to the same absurd extent (with the principle exception, unless my memory is wrong and it might be, of the City of Melbourne which IIRC has a business vote of some kind).

[Platypus]

Well, none of them, really. Local government in Australia and Canada is far too dependent on the whims of state/provincial governments and is openly dysfunctional in the U.S (New York is pretty much the only big city with logical boundaries). But that's just looking at boundaries. In most other respects, the 'municipal format' in Australia (while not very good) is objectively superior to that of Canada and the U.S, because things aren't systematically weighted towards local elites to the same absurd extent (with the principle exception, unless my memory is wrong and it might be, of the City of Melbourne which IIRC has a business vote of some kind).

Both landholders and residents vote in council elections in Victoria, I think. Certainly my Aunt, who lives in the City of Stonnington, votes both in Stonnington and Port Phillip, where she owns a property.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, now you see... that sucks. Get rid of that and you'd win this contest by a mile

[Platypus]

Yeah, now you see... that sucks. Get rid of that and you'd win this contest by a mile

Meh, all they do is collect rubbish and spend money raised by parking fines and smoking bans on sending blind indigenous artists to East Timor in solidarity, if they're urban; or collect rubbish and spend money raised by overvaluing land and hunting bans on pamphlets attacking the state government over everything they do that is even vaguely rugional if they're rural/regional.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, now you see... that sucks. Get rid of that and you'd win this contest by a mile

Meh, all they do is collect rubbish and spend money raised by parking fines and smoking bans on sending blind indigenous artists to East Timor in solidarity, if they're urban; or collect rubbish and spend money raised by overvaluing land and hunting bans on pamphlets attacking the state government over everything they do that is even vaguely rugional if they're rural/regional.

Ah, but consider what local government in the U.S and most (all? Can't remember) Canada is like. You would still win