Should Virginia Abolish their Independent Cities?

[traininthedistance]

I understand keeping some of the bigger cities independent, like Richmond and Norfolk. But in the case of Virginia Beach, I think that should go back to Princess Anne County because there are actually a lot of rural areas which I think would benefit from being part of a county as opposed to being in a city. Plus, like I said, it would be a benefit to become a county. Sure, taxes would go up, but then you'd get better quality services.

In the case of VA Beach, absolutely nothing would change except the designation from "city" to "county".  It's one consolidated unit now, and your proposal would keep it that same consolidated unit.

And is there really all that much actual rural population there?  I don't think many folks live in the Great Dismal Swamp; whatever you call that political unit the vast majority of it is thoroughly suburban.

Is there some quirky historical reason they did this?

In other parts of the country, you see cities merging with counties and ceasing to be separate entities altogether (Louisville, Miami, etc). This is the opposite of it and I don't understand what the benefit would be.

I can't really find a concrete reason as to why they're independent.

And to your last point, I'm not sure why those large cities are consolidating with their county. Miami is different I think, as the city limits of Miami are not contiguous with Miami-Dade County as Louiville and Jefferson County's are or Indianapolis and Marion County's are. Not sure if that makes a difference or not?

Miami-Dade County is just branding; they didn't actually consolidate anything far as I know.

City-county consolidations are generally a good thing, and there is a long history of it dating back to Philadelphia's consolidation in the 1850s. You can have sensible regional planning; tax-base and service sharing; you don't have things like the pull-up-the-drawbridges class warfare of places like the Grosse Pointes, or in the South and West unincorporated patches that don't get any municipal services whatsoever for no good reason (I think one of our CA posters had a question about that awhile ago?), or closer to home the less-obviously-harmful but still crazy and wasteful phenomenon of boroughitis which leads to all sorts of inefficiencies and regulatory arbitrage and all that bad stuff.  In general, city governance should be at the metropolitan level as much as practicable, since that's the unit that really counts, and city-county consolidations are a step in that correct direction.

I understand that this can be a difficult thing to do in the real world; people have emotive attachments to their towns and there are real costs in switching over to anything new.  And I'm willing to believe that said switchover can be screwed up; perhaps that's what happened in Canada since many of our friends up north seem to be bitter about it.  Though, perhaps what happened in Canada could also have been BS cultural resentment (EWWW I don't wanna have to get along with those icky suburbs/urbs) or, worse, suburbs that benefitted by pretending to be separate from the core where convenient (while of course conveniently forgetting that they wouldn't exist without the core).  Anyway.  Obviously the details are tricky, but there are real and important benefits to consolidation.

[traininthedistance]

In an ideal world, yes, because cities would annex their entire metro.

In a more realistic sense, I think getting rid of independent cities seems a little counterproductive. I think what would be instead preferable would be consolidating some of the cities in the Hampton Roads area--all the small municipal units are generally detrimental to the region's profile as a major US metro area-- the urban and inner suburban parts should be merged into one unit. The fact that Virginia Beach is considered the center of the metro is kind of bizarre, IMO.

As for the rest of the state, I'd retain most of the independent cities, along with liberalizing annexation laws.

It's no more bizarre than San Jose getting top billing over San Francisco in the combined statistical area.  Which is to say, yeah it's a little bizarre.

[traininthedistance]

And I'm willing to believe that said switchover can be screwed up; perhaps that's what happened in Canada since many of our friends up north seem to be bitter about it.  Though, perhaps what happened in Canada could also have been BS cultural resentment

Our amalgamations covered WAY too much distance, which is what caused most of the problems.

E.g. I live in Halifax, which is an amalgamation of three cities in the Halifax metro, and Halifax County. The problem is that Halifax County is 100 miles from end to end. Other amalgamations were similar. This wasn't amalgamating the five boroughs so much as it was amalgamating Buffalo and Rochester or San Antonio and Austin!

Now I freely admit that amalgamation of the three cities/the built up part of the county was necessary, but our amalgamation took all the rural areas as well. Previously the legislature would pass a bill to expand the boundaries of one of the cities when the suburbs in the county got too big. However, the government at the time was trying to cut costs and mandated the bigger amalgamation as a cost cutting measure.

This resulted in outlying rural areas that had very little to do with the city having to pay much higher property taxes, and wanting services to match those taxes, which in turn puts strain on the system as  the city attempts to provide city-level services to outlying rural areas. (E.g. Bus service).

I believe Hatman had a similar experience in Ottawa. I'm all for making suburbs join their mother cities, but when I (or most other) Canadians hear the word amalgamation, we think of forcing cities and the boonies to merge together.

Ah, yeah, that does indeed make sense.  Amalgamation should, ideally, be tied to urban growth boundaries and encompass the built up areas and whatever small, contiguous tracts are earmarked for future development– and shouldn't include legitimately rural areas that would be at danger of becoming resentful or paved over in sprawl.  I do have plenty of sympathy for farmers who shouldn't have to necessarily pay city taxes for city services; I have less sympathy for suburbanites who don't want to have to share anything with the "inner city".

In the sclerotic American context, obviously sometimes city-county consolidations would take in some rural tracts, which is unfortunate- but not 100 miles unfortunate (unless you're making the City and County of San Bernardino or something, which would in fact be A Mistake), and a lesser evil than the worst balkanizations we have here.

[traininthedistance]

Yes, I've made it quite clear how much I hate amalgamation. Do you really want your city to turnout like Jacksonville?

Do you want your city to turn out like Camden?

[traininthedistance]

Yes, I've made it quite clear how much I hate amalgamation. Do you really want your city to turnout like Jacksonville?

Do you want your city to turn out like Camden?

I'd rather turn out like Camden than Jacksonville.

As would I; but the fear in these parts we're more likely to turn into Jacksonville than we were turning into Camden, prior to amalgamation. In Toronto, the suburbs are actually more Camden-like than the old city.  

I utterly fail to see any plausible mechanism by which Jacksonville would turn into an urbanist paradise if only it was a tiny entity surrounded by a patchwork of tiny suburbs.  If anything, "beggar-thy-neighbor" competition seems to me like it would make the situation worse.  I mean– has the fact that Atlanta is super penned in done anything to help the urban form of the metro area?  Come on.  All it's done is make sure that MARTA doesn't go where it needs to go.

Whereas I do see a potential path by which, if say Camden City and County were merged, the region's tax-base sharing and comprehensive planning would forestall or at least ameliorate the extreme disinvestment in an area that currently has no plausible way to pay its bills.

And also it would eliminate the insanity of multiple golf courses who like to be their own municipalities so they can make their own rules.  I mean, I'm sorry Hatman, if you were from NJ even you would see the light on this issue.