| American citizens have created some 50,000 cities and special districts over the past three hundred and fifty years. The reasons why citizens have done so have changed over time as cities and special districts have been defined and redefined by state legislatures, the federal government, technology, and inventive individuals. For those who have created them, cities have been at various times defensive fortifications (1600s-1800s), increasers of land values (1600s-1950s), enforcers of class division and insurers of low taxes (1600s-1830s, 1916-1980s), enforcers of racial exclusion (1948-1970), providers of minimal services (1600s-1890), and providers of more extensive services (1890-1960). Cities could be these things because of their powers to define citizenship and residence, their powers to tax, issue debt, and spend money, and their powers to provide services. Special districts have been service providers throughout; they were turned to more insistently after gaining the ability to issue revenue bonds in the 1890s and after F.D.R. pointed out the ways in which these districts could be useful in the 1930s. Special districts have been important because of their powers to issue debt, spend money, tax, assess fees, and take land through eminent domain. Throughout these changes, the basic structure of the formation efforts has remained a collective action enabled by an entrepreneur. Since 1950, the major sources of entrepreneurial resources for city formation have been manufacturers, and the major sources of entrepreneurial resources for special district formation have been developers. These manufacturers and developers have shaped movements for the creation of cities and special districts, and, by and large, have determined when these movements would succeed. The governments created by these citizens and entrepreneurs have made their politics permanent and have given meaning to the limits of local politics in America. |
