Somewhere in this blog I've mentioned the differences in local government between New York and Virginia. In New York, outside the cities, the counties are divided into towns for purposes of local road maintenance, tax collection, etc. and into central school districts for schools. My father was on the Chenango Forks Central School board for a number of years. (You can find a sample of what goes on in a town government in this recent supervisor's email.)
In Virginia the county handles the schools and other local functions, In NY Broome County has 16 towns, 7 villages, and one city--Binghamton.
I was struck in reading the Gordon-Reed/Onof book on Thomas Jefferson by a discussion of his letter on local government. In 1816 he was pushing to subdivide Virginia counties into smaller units, specifically in this instance "wards" which would handle local public schools (which Virginia didn't have). There's a reference to using the areas which were the basis for the militia (I'm guessing companies). He observes that the New England town meetings shook the ground beneath his feet and caused his embargo to fail.
He didn't persuade Virginia to adopt wards/towns. As I've done before, I wonder the effect of this difference in organization.
Robert Putnam in "Bowling Alone" argues for the importance of nongovernmental social organizations as schools for democracy. If he's right, surely the local government units are as important, if not more so.
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