Cities, villages, townships& more

How places got to be the way they are

Joe GrimmJRN 300

Systems collide

Counties are biggest

Townships are the basic grid

Cities comes out of townships

Are unincorporated places real?

One-room schoolhouses grew up

Ta-da! The Post Office

Counties

Michigan has 83.

We are the only state where the capital city is not in a county seat.

Ingham: A bunch of squares

The reason Ingham looks this way goes back to 1787.

Times were simple then.

(No, I don’t remember personally.)

Northwest Ordinance, 1787

Northwest Ordinance also ...

Set rules for statehood (leading to the Michigan-Ohio war for Toledo)

Defined this area as part of the Midwest

Abolished slavery in the area

But did not emancipate slaves there

People build cities

... by rivers and rail

Cities come to Ingham

People carve cities out of townships.

And Ingham has an X factor ...

’scuse our dust

Cities determine highways

But little places hang on

Unincorporated and PROUD! (Try telling them they don’t exist.)

Schools: From one room ... districts

Pink School in Mason was moved to make room for a road project.

... to districts

94% of Okemos High School’s 1,390 students go on to college

It has not been without trouble

In 1927, 45 were killed and almost 60 others injured in the attack on the Bath school. It was about consolidation and taxes.

Michigan has 500+ districts

They do not follow city or township or even county lines.

Neither do Zip codes ...

... nor ...

U.S. Congressional districts

State House and Senate districts

County commission districts

Understand and ask

We focus on taxing entities:

Townships

Cities

School districts

County

Thank you.