The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlie the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities and counties in other states. In the United States, New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England; internationally, local government systems comparable to the New England town exist in much of Western Europe, such as the Gemeinden of Germany, the communes of France, the comuni of Italy, the gemeenten of the Netherlands, the municipios of Spain and the freguesias of Portugal.
New England towns are often governed by a town meeting, an assembly of eligible town residents. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island.
Both Connecticut and Rhode Island retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems and some other state services in the southern New England states while providing varying (but generally limited) services in the more sparsely populated three northern New England states.
Characteristics
Towns are laid out so that nearly all land within the boundaries of each state is allocated to a town or other corporate municipality. All land is incorporated into the bounds of a municipal corporation's territory, except in some very sparsely populated areas of the three northern New England states (primarily in the north). Towns are municipal corporations, with their powers defined by a combination of municipal corporate charter, state statutes, and the state constitution. In practice, most New England towns have significant autonomy in managing their own affairs. In most of New England, the laws regarding their authority have historically been very broadly construed, and towns in these states have nearly all of the powers that cities and towns with home rule typically have in most other U.S. states. New Hampshire and Vermont follow Dillon's Rule, which holds that local governments are largely creatures of the state. Traditionally, a town's legislative body is the open town meeting, which is a form of direct democratic rule, with a board of selectmen possessing executive authority. Only several Swiss cantons with Landsgemeinde remain as democratic as the small New England town meetings. A town almost always contains a built-up populated place (the "town center") with the same name as the town. Additional built-up places with different names are often found within towns, along with a mixture of additional urban and rural territory. Many (though not all) of these population centers have been designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as census designated places (CDP), which can be used by the Census Bureau for a separately named population center, or for an arbitrarily defined concentration of population within a town. There is no territory that is not part of a town between each town; leaving one town means entering another town or other municipality. In most parts of New England, towns are irregular in shape and size and are not laid out on a grid. The town center often contains a town common or town green, often used today as a small park. Virtually all residents of New England live within the boundaries of a municipal corporation. Residents receive most local services at the municipal level, and county government tends to provide no services in the southern three states, and limited services in the northern three states. Differences among states do exist in the level of services provided at the municipal and county level, but generally most functions normally handled by county-level government in the rest of the United States are handled by town-level government in New England. In Connecticut, Rhode Island, and most of Massachusetts, county government has been completely abolished, and counties serve merely as dividing lines for the judicial system. In other areas, some counties provide judicial and other limited administrative services. In many cases, the house numbers on streets and roads in New England reset to zero upon crossing a town or city line, and the street names themselves are usually different from town to town. Residents usually identify with their town for purposes of civic identity, thinking of the town in its entirety as a single, coherent community. There are some cases where residents identify more strongly with villages or sections of a town than with the town itself, particularly in Rhode Island, but this is the exception, not the rule. More than 90% of the municipalities in the six New England states are identified as towns. Other forms of municipalities that exist are generally based on the town concept, as well—most notably cities. Most New England cities have adopted a city form of government, with a council and a mayor or manager. Municipal entities based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, such as a Vermont village or Connecticut borough. In areas of New England where such forms do exist, they remain part of the parent town and do not have all of the corporate powers and authority of an independent municipality.
Historical development
Towns date back to the time of the earliest English colonial settlement, which predominated in New England, and they pre-date the development of counties in the region. Areas were organized as towns as they were settled, throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Town boundaries were not usually laid out on any kind of regular grid, but were drawn to reflect local settlement and transportation patterns, often affected by natural features. In early colonial times, recognition of towns was very informal, generally connected to local church divisions.
By 1700, colonial governments had become more involved in the official establishment of new towns. Towns were typically governed by a town meeting form of government, as many still are today. Towns originally were the only form of incorporated municipality in New England. The city form of government was not introduced until much later. Boston, for instance, was a town for the first two centuries of its existence.
The entire land areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island had been divided into towns by the late 18th century, and Massachusetts was almost completely covered early in the 19th century. By 1850, the only New England state that still had large unincorporated areas was Maine; by the end of the 19th century, most areas in Maine that could realistically be settled had been organized into towns.
Early town organization in Vermont and much of New Hampshire proceeded in a somewhat different manner from that of the other New England states. In these areas, towns were often "chartered" long before any settlers moved into a particular area. This was very common in the mid to late 18th century—although there were towns which predated that period and were not part of this process in southeastern New Hampshire, such as Exeter. Once there were enough residents in a town to formally organize a town government, no further action was necessary to incorporate. This practice can lead to inconsistencies in the dates of incorporation for towns in this region. Dates given in reference sources sometimes reflect the date when the town was chartered, which may have been long before it was settled, and not the date when its town government became active. In other parts of New England, some "future towns" were laid out along these lines, but such areas would not be formally incorporated as towns until they were sufficiently settled to organize a town government.
A typical town in the northern three states was laid out in a square. Each contained 36 sections, squares or . One section was reserved for the support of public schools. This was copied when the Continental Congress laid out Ohio in 1785–87.
Many early towns covered very large amounts of land. Once areas had become settled, new towns were sometimes formed by breaking areas away from the original existing towns. This was an especially common practice during the 18th and early 19th centuries. More heavily populated areas were often subdivided on multiple occasions. As a result, towns and cities in urbanized areas are often smaller in terms of land area than an average town in a rural area. Formation of new towns in this manner slowed in the later part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century, however. One late instance was the separation of Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, from the town of Lisbon in 1962. It has not taken place anywhere in New England in the last fifty years; boundary changes of any type are fairly rare.
Other types of municipalities in New England Towns are the basic building block of the New England municipality system, although several other types of municipalities also exist. Every New England state has cities. In addition, Maine also has a unique type of entity called a plantation. Beneath the town level, Connecticut has incorporated boroughs, and Vermont has incorporated villages.
Cities In addition to towns, every New England state has incorporated cities. However, cities are treated in the same manner as towns under state law, differing from towns only in their form of government. Most cities are former towns that changed to a city form of government because they grew too large to have a town meeting as its legislative body; instead, a city's legislative body is an elected representative body, typically called the city council or town council or board of aldermen. City governments are typically administered by a mayor (and/or city manager). In common speech, people often generically refer to communities of either type as "towns", drawing no distinction between the two.
The presence of incorporated boroughs in Connecticut and incorporated villages in Vermont has influenced the evolution of cities in those states. In Connecticut in particular, the historical development of cities was quite different from in the other New England states, and at least technically, the relationship between towns and cities is today different from elsewhere in New England. Just as boroughs in Connecticut overlay towns, so do cities; for example, while Hartford is commonly thought of as a city, it is coextensive and consolidated with the Town of Hartford; governed by a single governmental entity with the powers and responsibilities of the Town being carried out by the entity referred to as the City of Hartford. In legal theory though not in current practice Connecticut cities and boroughs could be coextensive (covering the same geography as the town) without being consolidated (a single government); also a borough or city can span more than one town. In practice, though, most cities in Connecticut today do not function any differently from their counterparts elsewhere in New England. See the section below on boroughs and villages for more background on this topic.