Russell M. Smith

Why New Cities Form An Examination into Municipal Incorporation in the United States 1950–2010

Municipal incorporation can have profound impacts on the urban and political geography of the regions in which they incorporate. These impacts and declines in the rate of municipal formation lead to the question of why municipalities incorporate. The authors synthesize an overview and analysis of the historical literature with a media literature review to construct a comprehensive classification system of theories that explain municipal incorporations. Twelve new micromotives such as eligibility for government grants and economic development are identified. Moreover, the review surprisingly reveals that spatial motives, in contrast to service motives, play the largest role in new municipal incorporations.

Planning for urban sustainability: the geography of LEED®–Neighborhood Development™ (LEED®–ND™) projects in the United States

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design®–Neighborhood DevelopmentTM (LEED®–ND™) is the latest planning-related attempt to develop more sustainable urban environs in the United States. LEED®–ND™ builds upon the previous work of Smart Growth, New Urbanism and Green Building models to create a rating system for a variety of development types and sizes. The purpose of this article is to explore the spatial distribution and key development attributes of LEED®–ND™ projects within the United States. Through LEED®–ND™, sustainable urbanism may become a major tool in reducing suburban sprawl and help urban regeneration efforts in the United States.

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DIMENSIONS OF NEWLY INCORPORATED MUNICIPALITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Scholarly literature on newly incorporated municipalities (nims) often focuses on why nims form. Instead of asking why nims formed, however, we ask why nims stopped forming. We first establish a temporal context for nims from 1950 to 2010, revealing an 86.2 percent decline in nim formation. The decline, triggered by stricter laws, smaller annexations, declining suburbanization, and boundary ossification, has profound implications for metropolitan fragmentation and public choice. We then establish a state‐level spatial context, revealing distinct high‐nim, low‐nim, and flux states due to boundary ossification, growth, and state/regional policy stimuli such as consolidation efforts, grants, and growth management provisions.

Green building in India: a comparative and spatial analysis of the LEED-India and GRIHA rating systems

With an urban population exceeding that of the entire USA, India has two systems for encouraging environmentally sustainable growth for its rapidly growing urban population. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-India is associated with the internationally known LEED program, which is administered in India by the Indian Green Business Council. Meanwhile, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) developed GRIHA (the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment). This indigenous green building standard is similar to the LEED system in recognizing development that meets certain environmental and sustainable development practices. This paper seeks to provide an overview of the LEED-India and GRIHA programs and examine the spatial dynamics of projects developed under LEED-India and GRIHA requirements. In the end, this analysis will provide important insight into these two competing urban sustainability programs in India and begin a discussion of the merits of each.

Influences on Municipal Annexation Methodology An Intrastate Analysis of Annexation Activity in North Carolina, 2000–2010

Investigations into municipal annexation have been largely conducted at the interstate unit of analysis and have focused on the impact of annexation legislation on overall annexation frequency. Interestingly, little effort has been placed on exploring the differences in intrastate levels of annexation activity by method of annexation available to municipalities. This analysis explores intrastate annexation activity through a multivariate regression examination of municipal annexation activity conducted in North Carolina between 2000 and 2010. Results surprisingly show that the key variables impacting voluntary contiguous, voluntary noncontiguous, and involuntary annexations are similar. Meanwhile, more research is needed to understand the unique factors that influence legislative annexation activity.

Why majority-minority cities form: non-White municipal incorporation in the United States, 1990–2010

ABSTRACT Forty-four majority-minority cities formed in the United States between 1990 and 2010. Why did these cities form in Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native-American majority and other non-White communities? Do these cities form to escape annexation, improve services, and control land use, as most new cities do? Or are other factors at play, such as race and social justice? Using a detailed content analysis, we explore the genesis of newly incorporated municipalities in non-White communities. Our findings reveal that while most majority-minority cities form due to standard stimuli, some majority-minority cities form in direct response to racism (rebound incorporations, environmental racism, and under-provision of services). Moreover, when compared to all new cities, majority-minority cities form more often due to nuisances and less often due to annexation threats and growth control, thus illuminating the role institutional racism plays in municipal incorporation.

An Examination of Municipal Annexation Methods in North Carolina, 1990-2009

Urban scholars have examined the impact of state laws on annexation activity for more than 50 years. These efforts have resulted in a better understanding of inter-state differences in annexation activity. Little thought, however, has been given to intra-state variation in method of annexation utilized by municipalities even though the method of annexation available by state can differ dramatically. This paper seeks to explore those intra-state differences though an examination of North Carolina’s municipal annexation activity between 1990 and 2009. North Carolina’s four methods of annexation are analyzed in an effort to better understand the complexities of annexation activity. The results of this study reveal that both types of voluntary annexation (e.g., voluntary contiguous and voluntary non-contiguous) are the most prevalent forms of annexation in North Carolina (accounting for 89.5 percent of all annexation activity) but that regional and municipal preferences exist, highlighting the need for additionally scholarly research endeavors.

New Cities of Color Socioeconomic Differentiation between Majority–Minority New Cities and White New Cities

Scholars often portray newly incorporated municipalities as white, wealthy suburbs. Yet this study reveals that 10 percent of new cities (forty-four cities) formed between 1990 and 2010 are black, Hispanic, Asian, and/or Native American majority cities. A careful examination of the data reveals not just racial differences but significant socioeconomic differences between new cities of color (CoCs) and majority white cities. By employing a probit model of statistical analysis, this research reveals that CoCs differ socioeconomically from majority white incorporating communities on variables such as median family income, average household size, and more.

Demographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics of New Cities

Who lives in the more than 400 new municipalities incorporated across the USA? The existing literature on municipal incorporations largely depicts these new cities as homogenous enclaves that consisted of wealthier, Whiter, and better educated residents than the unincorporated community from which they were created. Additional research had revealed that new cities and nearby existing communities were statistically significantly different along a range of socioeconomic variables, and another study found a relationship between income heterogeneity and the likelihood of municipal incorporation. The new communities incorporated over the last two decades are Whiter, older, have longer commutes, and have higher family incomes than the national average. Interestingly, they also had higher levels of poverty and lower levels of college attainment, which may be the result of a localized geography and the prevalence of new municipalities with the South Census Region. For the first time, research in this chapter compared new municipalities to their counties of origin (county from which they were created) and revealed that new cities are statistically significantly Whiter, better educated, and older when compared to the counties of origin from which they were established. In addition to the differences identified between new municipalities and the counties of origin, regional differences were also identified through the use of a t-test exploring the statistical significance between the two groups (i.e., NIMs and Counties of Origin by Region).

Why Do New Cities Form

The rationale behind incorporating a new municipality has evolved since the very first cities and continues to change. The provision of public services that were the mainstay of incorporation proceedings at the turn of the twentieth century has given way to concerns over growth, land use, and exclusionary practices. Today, annexation threats from nearby existing communities, the desire to control growth and development, racial and socio-economic prejudices and the provision of public services are but a few reasons explored through case studies in this chapter. Additionally, new municipalities are also changing how they provide the public services that they do offer by contracting with existing governments or private corporations as identified by Miller in his work which examined California incorporations. In the end, incorporation activity is often the result of a myriad of local concerns that when combined, results in an effort to incorporate a new municipality.