Should Virginia Abolish their Independent Cities?

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

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

I support strong county governments with several weak municipal governments at the neighbourhood level, myself.

Virginia's independent cities are a lot like what we do in Ontario. Typically on maps we don't show the independent cities (called "single tier municipalities") as separate from the counties, but they are separate for all intents and purposes. Statistics Canada doesn't treat them separately either.

[Hatman 🍁]

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. 

[Hatman 🍁]

If you were from, Canada, you would understand the horrors of amalgamation. As for Jacksonville, it's a lost cause.

I agree that if Camden and it's county had a stronger county government and a weaker municipal government, it would be better off. The answer is to not eliminate the city of Camden, it's to make it weaker entity.

[Hatman 🍁]

Oh Canada, where not even the Capital has it's own thing. Every other democracy seems to...but nope not Ottawa.

Not sure how this came up, but this is a very incorrect statement. You will see that this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_districts_and_territories contains just 24 entries, several of which are not even democracies.

[Hatman 🍁]

Obviously Ottawa or Halifax style amalgamation incorporating rural areas is dumb. But balkanizing a metro area, thus making metropolitan governance and planning much more difficult, is even worse.

I really do not see what is wrong with the amalgamation of Toronto, for example. The only argument I've seen against it really is that it was a plan to gerrymander the city conservative--but considering that greater Toronto is a right-wing area, that's sort of tough luck. Toronto (and in this sense I include Pickering and Oshawa and Scarborough, which are as much a part of the city as downtown) is a right-wing city.

Two words: Rob Ford. Also, Mel Lastman, and now John Tory. Toronto is an extremely polarized city. It has no business being amalgamated as one municipality.