Southern counties: county transplant from England; spread out, rural, agrarian/plantation economic system—needed "county seat"

Synthesis: towns and counties. Counties everywhere, citites or muncipalities chartered, "incorporated"

Jurisdiciton

Municipalities:

Mutually-exclusive

Annexations (conitguous)

Annexations by agreement

By town and oewnrrs (not couinty)

Power:

Sue, contract, tax, adopt local laws not kept at state or federal level.

Dillon’s Rule

Counties:

Agent of the state: courthouses, prisons, etc, but also the lcoal govenrment for unincorporated areas.

Special districts: powerful "phantom governments" water, rods, etc.

Local government’s major role in shaping land use is through zoning.

Like many property, land, and planning basics, zoning has European roots.

Also linked and based on nuisance doctrines, in this case applied very specifically to, for example, undesirable land uses (e.g., banned bsuinesses), and impact of one land use on adjacent land uses (transboundary air light or noise pollution).

In US also emerged as urban zoning in response to urban deterioration of the 19^th century, and the "City Beautiful" movement.

Zoning relies on the acceptable power of the state to regulate the type and intensity of land use in spatial context.

Test case was Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Realty, in 1926, where court upheld zoning and now often referred to as "Euclidian Zoning"

Zoning often regulates:

Types typically:

And may include some natural resource activities like mining and forestry

Important to note that zoning per se in US is mostly inside urbanized/annexed areas, not generally applied to rural areas. Very few counties in West, for example, have county-wide zoning outside of municipal areas.

Cummulative vs. non-cummulative

May also include "overlay" zones (this word comes from original practice of creating plastic/mylar overlays sheets to place on top of zoning maps so you could see what areas had to meet overlay standards in addition to standard zoning) for special land use desginations and standards in addition to zoning (e.g., commercial areas may have specific lighting requirements).

Zoning Map plus Text equals zoning documentation

Because zoning is a rather rigid land use tool, its application traditionally includes flexibilties: