Why are hamlets rare in New England?

[I’m not Stu]

Why are unincorporated CDPs rare in this region? My mother grew up in one and my paternal grandparents lived in one for a long time.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Because they have towns.  We have them in the midwest as well.  Township or city<County<State<Feds.  Everywhere is broken down into townships.

Many suburban cities of Minneapolis are just former townships that incorporated.

[Torie]

Because they have towns.  We have them in the midwest as well.  Township or city<County<State<Feds.  Everywhere is broken down into townships.

Many suburban cities of Minneapolis are just former townships that incorporated.

NY has towns, along with villages, and many CDP's as well. In Columbia County alone, I was amazed to see that there were several, when reading the ALICE report that came out for NYS.

[Figueira]

Hamlets are not rare. They're just usually not recognized by the census. In my area each town has at least three or four hamlets.

[Kevinstat]

Some municipalities in Maine do have places that, while maybe not Census-designated places, have a distinct identity.  Like South Gardiner.  (West Gardiner is actually it's own municipality.  South Gardiner is part of Gardiner, but don't try telling people there that it's not a real town.  It would probably be a CDP if Gardiner were not a city, or an "Independent Place" as the Census Bureau has it.)  And on Mount Desert Island, people will speak of villages as if they are towns.  The town of Mount Desert in the center of the island is basically a collection of disparate villages.  Same with Tremont in the southwest of the island, although there actually is a place on The Maine Atlas and Gazeteer called Tremont.  Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor have their eponymous villages or urban centers as their main focal points, but the town of Southwest Harbor also has Manset and the town of Bar Harbor has Hulls Cove, Salsbury/Salisbury Cove (spellings differ) and Town Hill.

Springvale in northern Sanford, in York County was a CDP until Sanford became a city.  The Sanford government website says "The City of Sanford, Maine" with "Village of Springvale" right below.

[Kevinstat]

Hamlets are not rare. They're just usually not recognized by the census. In my area each town has at least three or four hamlets.

You beat me to making that point while I was making a lengthy reply (and one I researched a little while making it, so it took some time).

[Figueira]

Hamlets are not rare. They're just usually not recognized by the census. In my area each town has at least three or four hamlets.

You beat me to making that point while I was making a lengthy reply (and one I researched a little while making it, so it took some time).

No, your post is good. In fairness I did kind of imply that hamlets and CDPs are the same thing in a previous post responding to ERM, and that was inaccurate.

[I’m not Stu]

Hamlets are not rare. They're just usually not recognized by the census. In my area each town has at least three or four hamlets.

You beat me to making that point while I was making a lengthy reply (and one I researched a little while making it, so it took some time).

No, your post is good. In fairness I did kind of imply that hamlets and CDPs are the same thing in a previous post responding to ERM, and that was inaccurate.

What is the reason these non-city non-township CDPs are rare in this part of the country?

[Figueira]

Hamlets are not rare. They're just usually not recognized by the census. In my area each town has at least three or four hamlets.

You beat me to making that point while I was making a lengthy reply (and one I researched a little while making it, so it took some time).

No, your post is good. In fairness I did kind of imply that hamlets and CDPs are the same thing in a previous post responding to ERM, and that was inaccurate.

What is the reason these non-city non-township CDPs are rare in this part of the country?

Because the sorts of places that would be CDPs in California are generally towns in New England anyway.

[Torie]

To me, a place which has a post office address, but is not incorporated as a city, town or village, nor is a CDP, is what I view as a hamlet. Columbia County has a lot of those. An example is Spencertown, which has a playhouse theater in it of all things. NY's governmental structure is complicated.   I mean, CA just has counties and cities, and that's it.

[Figueira]

To me, a place which has a post office address, but is not incorporated as a city, town or village, nor is a CDP, is what I view as a hamlet. Columbia County has a lot of those. An example is Spencertown, which has a playhouse theater in it of all things. NY's governmental structure is complicated.   I mean, CA just has counties and cities, and that's it.

Postal addresses don't correspond to towns or cities.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Not entirely relevant, but New England is the only part of the US where the subdivision of municipalities makes the slightest degree of sense. The rest of the US is a complete abomination.

I'm still not sure if my house is technically in Los Angeles or Culver City.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Not entirely relevant, but New England is the only part of the US where the subdivision of municipalities makes the slightest degree of sense. The rest of the US is a complete abomination.

I'm still not sure if my house is technically in Los Angeles or Culver City.

Minnesota is very straight forward

Township or City
-------------------
     County
-------------------
     State
--------------------
     Nation

To make matters somewhat confusing, school districts can span counties, cities, and townships.  Roads are improved by townships, cities, counties, and the state (even U.S. highways and interstate highways are built and maintained by the states).  Maintenance of all roads like plowing snow or grading gravel roads is often done by counties, however.  But also cities.

Then there is the question of Indian reservations, which have their own tribal governments separate from their township, municipal, or county governments.. except in the case of Red Lake, which has no official tie to the state and is thus a sovereign nation with treaty ties to the United States which means it is still within the legal boundaries of the federal government.  Except the school district in REd Lake which is funded largely by the state and conforms to state standards on curriculum, etc.

And your home address might correspond to a city you don't live in... or to a designated post office in a census designated place that is otherwise not a legal entity.

HOpe that clears it up!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fair enough. I guess the worst offenders are mostly Western States.

[muon2]

Maryland is pretty straightforward when it comes to dividing muncipalities. It helps that it's a smaller state.

I don't find that to be true at all. There are cities, towns and CDPs in MD counties that don't overlap, but also populated areas not in either a city or a CDP, just in the county. MD munis can be in more than one county, so there isn't a strict hierarchy that way either. The are unincorporated communities that might or might not be in a CDP. CDPs have no government, but cities and towns do. That's quite different from the organization Snowguy describes (though cities can straddle counties in MN, too).

The Census divides counties in MD into county subdivisions, to form a hierarchy, but those aren't governmental units like Midwest townships. It does make it so every part of a county with subdivisions is in a subdivision, but these don't line up with the cities and CDPs.

For example, Prince Georges county is divided by the Census into 20 subdivisions, and they have names. The Vansville subdivision has a small part of the city of College Park, parts of the CDPs of Beltsville, Calverton, Hillanddale, Konterra and South Laurel, and population in none of those. Here are the populations in those parts compared to the whole:

Beltsville 16530 of 16722
Calverton 6163 of 17724 (it straddles PG and Montgomery counties)
College Park 1781 of 30413
Hillanddale 104 of 5043 (also split between two counties)
Konterra 640 of 2527
South Laurel 0 of 26112 (there's land but no people in Vansville subdivision)
remainder of Vansville 2072

To add to the confusion, there's an unincorporated community of Vansville which is not a CDP itself, but is a part of Beltsville CDP.

[Torie]

To me, a place which has a post office address, but is not incorporated as a city, town or village, nor is a CDP, is what I view as a hamlet. Columbia County has a lot of those. An example is Spencertown, which has a playhouse theater in it of all things. NY's governmental structure is complicated.   I mean, CA just has counties and cities, and that's it.

Postal addresses don't correspond to towns or cities.

In New York, hamlets have no formal legal designation. They are just place names, that are not incorporated into anything. I assume that most hamlet names are used as post office addresses, but perhaps that is not the case. Some at least are. CDP's have no formal legal role in NYS either to my knowledge, but are a census designation, and data is collected by the census regarding them, which would not be the case for hamlets that are neither incorporated nor a CDP presumably.

[jimrtex]

Why are unincorporated CDPs rare in this region? My mother grew up in one and my paternal grandparents lived in one for a long time.

Is this true at all. Most New England states have a large percentage of their population that is places, in CDP's rather than incorporated places.

According to the Census Bureau "CDPs are usually defined in cooperation with local officials."

Unincorporated CDP is redundant. CDP stands for Census Designated Place. Historically, "places" were incorporated cities, towns, and villages, that had their own political government. Places with a population over 2500 were classified as urban, everything else as rural.

After WWII, the Census Bureau recognized that there were areas adjacent to major cities that were not incorporated, but clearly were urban and nature, and began recognizing unincorporated places. In 1940 there were special rules in place in New England, which were eliminated in 1950.

It appears that in 1950, Vermont had formally recognized villages, that were distinct from their containing town.

It appears that the Census Bureau was interested in identifying settlements that might qualify as urban, so that unincorporated places may have had a threshold of 1000. Smaller towns might not have settlements that were that large. Areas near Boston, Hartford, and Providence could be included in urban fringes, and thus didn't appear to be recognized as unincorporated places.