Hey, there! Log in / Register
Congratulations, Brookline: You're now America's largest town
By adamg on Tue, 04/04/2017 - 9:22pm
The MetroWest Daily News reports that after about a bazillion attempts over several decades, Framingham voters have finally voted to make their town a city.
And, of course, that means the passing of a torch: Framingham used to boast it was the largest "town" in America, but now that title falls to Brookline (don't let it go to your heads, guys) - under a definition in which a town is a place run by a town meeting (which rules out the towns of New York State, some of which are way larger, but they're really more like mini-counties).
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Are They Going To Wuss Out and Still Call It A Town?
Weymouth is legally a city, yet they still call themselves a town, because who would want to be associated with all that overbuilt stuff, lousy housing, unbelievable traffic, and rampant drug use that cities have.....like Weymouth.
Actually there are 14 municipalities in the state that are legally cities (Agawam, Barnstable, Braintree, Bridgewater, Franklin, West Springfield, Methuen, Palmer, Weymouth, Southbridge, Watertown, and Winthrop) but still call themselves towns, whilst much smaller places like North Adams, Easthampton, and Greenfield are not ascared to call themselves cities.
City of Homes?
When has Springfield called itself a town?
Springfield - Look Closer
West Springfield calls itself a town.
That's a pet peeve of mine
Statutory cities that pretend that they're still towns. Irrational of me, I know, but I guess I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this stuff. Methuen, by the way, calls itself a city, and has so since it adopted a strong mayor charter in the 1990s (from 1917 until then, it had a council-manager city charter, but still styled itself a town).
if the residents
prefer to be called a town it harms nobody. i'm not going to sit here while we have a president that discriminates against people's sexuality, gender, and nation of origin and then mock the ultimately inconsequential way that people refer to the place they've built their home.
like ho ho, look at me, i'm so evolved that i can take issue with framingham/weymouth/whatever massachusetts
doesn't impact me, i hope framingham sees benefit from its new form of government and that everybody is happy with it in the end (it only won by 105 votes i heard)
i hope the people in the 14 'other municipalities' enjoy both their form of government & also are warmed by the concept of living in a place that thinks of itself as a town
ultimately we're talking about the difference between fruits and vegetables here
Trans-Municipality
Exactly. If a municipality self-identifies as a town, who are we to judge? They grew up a town, were raised by town types, conduct there appearance like that of a town, then they're a town. Regardless of whether they have a city council/mayor/city manager, etc.
Stop town-shaming, people.
fruits and vegetables?
west roxbury is not a town.
Why the hatred on Weymouth?
Why the hatred on Weymouth? The opioid epidemic knows no boundaries. If you want to talk traffic, head a little north into Quincy for a real traffic treat. My point is, no town\city is perfect. Except Weston. No drugs or traffic there at all.
hmm if this is tru
re: weston that is some valuable market data tyvm!
You're welcome!
You're welcome!
as a disclaimer, I was just being snarky. I should have tagged it as so.
I would like a recount
...of how many people live in Brookline, I feel that allot of those people are real Turkeys!
WINTHROP?
QUALIFYS AS A CITY?
Winthrop is a town and is not
Winthrop is a town and is not even close to being the biggest by any measure. Less than 20k people and small land mass.
Town vs City has nothing to
Town vs City has nothing to do with size or population. It's about the form of government. Winthrop changed their charter and no longer has a Town form of government. It is not a town anymore, but still fancies the name "Town of Winthrop".
You mean congratulations Greenwich, CT
Greenwich, CT has a population of about 62,000, which exceeds Brookline's 58,700 residents, and has a selectmen/town meeting form of government.
Actually
Hempstead, NY
770,367
Brookhaven, NY
486,599
Islip, NY
335,543
Oyster Bay, NY
298,981
North Hempstead, NY
231,114
Babylon, NY
213,603
Huntington, NY
203,264
Ramapo, NY
136,235
Cary, NC
135,234
Smithtown, NY
117,801
These are all TOWNS
One larger than BOSTON
Actually
Those are not municipalities like our towns. They are subdivisions of counties and, more important, don't have the thing that make New England towns unique: Town Meeting.
So maybe we should specify "Town Meeting towns."