In my last post, we looked at city council size of the core cities of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan regions.

In this post, we will focus on those cities’ county legislative bodies.  Perhaps more so than in the case of the cities, the function and complexion of county legislative bodies vary widely from state to state and from city to city.  In many states, a county legislative body, in fact the county government itself, is very weak and merely supervises the few county services that may be provided.  In other states, there is no county government at all; for instance, in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, all vestiges of the county – including the sheriff – have been removed and replaced with municipal offices.  Of course, these states are so geographically small that many regional functions that are routinely found at the county level can be efficiently achieved at the state level.

Other county governments are non-existent due to consolidation.  Philadelphia and New York are trailblazers in this regard, as both consolidated with their counties in the nineteenth century.  In fact, New York could be seen not only as a pioneer in city-county consolidation, but also its most extreme manifestation, for not only was the County of New York merged into the new municipal government, but so were the Counties of Kings, Queens, Richmond and the southern tip of Westchester (the Bronx).  In addition, all cities and villages within those counties were wiped away in favor of what promoters originally dubbed “Greater New York” (including the third largest municipality in the country at that time, the City of Brooklyn).

The third classification of non-existent counties in our list below are situations where the cities are themselves independent; that is, instead of the central city merging with its county, these cities actually seceded from it.  This odd situation is present in St. Louis, Baltimore and Richmond, where Virginia law requires all municipalities classified as “cities” to be independent of their counties.

For the purpose of this post, we will call all county legislative bodies “county commissions,” the predominant name in most states.  The county commissioner-to-resident ratio ranges from a high of one per two million in Los Angles County to a low of one per 50,000 in Milwaukee County.  Of these counties listed, the mean size is 8 members, and the mean ratio is one member per 325,000 residents.  In some counties, the county commission holds both administrative as well as legislative power; in others, there is a chief executive in charge of the administrative branch who can go by many names.  Shelby County is one of four counties in this list that has a mayor.  In my next post, I will combine both the county commission numbers to the city council numbers of the cities listed below so a better comparison may be made with the consolidated and independent cities’ legislative bodies.

%
Elected Co. pop.
2009 Legis. Ratio co. in
City County co. pop seats pop/seat exec.? city
1 New York 5 counties 8,363,710 * 100%
2 Los Angeles Los Angeles Co. 9,848,011 5 1,969,602 no 39%
3 Chicago Cook Co. 5,287,037 17 311,002 no 54%
4 Dallas Dallas Co. 2,451,730 4 612,933 Co. Judge 52%
5 Philadelphia Philadelphia Co. 1,547,297 * 100%
6 Houston Harris Co. 4,070,989 4 1,017,747 Co. Judge 55%
7 Miami Miami-Dade Co. 2,500,625 13 192,356 Mayor 17%
8 Washington, DC NA 591,833 *** 100%
9 Atlanta Fulton Co. 1,033,756 7 147,679 no 52%
10 Boston Suffolk Co. 753,580 ** 81%
11 Detroit Wayne Co. 1,925,848 15 128,390 Co. Exec. 47%
12 Phoenix Maricopa Co. 4,023,132 5 804,626 NA 39%
13 San Francisco San Francisco Co. 815,358 * 100%
14 Riverside Riverside Co. 2,125,440 5 425,088 no 14%
15 Seattle Kings Co. 2,567,098 9 285,233 Co. Exec. 23%
16 Minneapolis Hennepin Co. 1,156,212 7 165,173 no 33%
17 San Diego San Diego Co. 3,053,793 5 610,759 no 42%
18 St. Louis NA 354,361 *** 100%
19 Tampa Hillsborough Co. 1,195,317 7 170,760 no 28%
20 Baltimore NA 636,919 *** 100%
21 Denver Denver Co. 598,707 * 100%
22 Pittsburgh Allegheny Co. 1,218,494 15 81,233 Co. Exec. 26%
23 Portland Multnomah Co. 726,855 5 145,371 no 77%
24 Cincinnati Hamilton Co. 855,062 3 285,021 no 39%
25 Sacramento Sacramento Co. 1,400,949 5 280,190 no 33%
26 Cleveland Cuyahoga Co. 1,275,709 3 425,236 no 34%
27 Orlando Orange Co. 1,086,480 6 181,080 Mayor 20%
28 San Antonio Bexar Co. 1,651,448 4 412,862 Co. Judge 82%
29 Kansas City Jackson Co. 705,708 9 78,412 Co. Exec. 64%
30 Las Vegas Clark Co. 1,902,834 7 271,833 no 29%
31 San Jose Santa Clara Co. 1,784,642 5 356,928 no 53%
32 Columbus Franklin Co. 1,150,122 3 383,374 no 66%
33 Charlotte Mecklenburg Co. 913,639 9 101,515 no 75%
34 Indianapolis Marion Co. 890,879 * 90%
35 Austin Travis Co. 1,026,158 4 256,540 Co. Judge 74%
36 Virginia Beach NA 433,746 *** 100%
37 Providence Providence Co. 627,690 ** 28%
38 Nashville-Davidson Davidson Co. 635,710 * 94%
39 Milwaukee Milwaukee Co. 959,521 19 50,501 Co. Exec. 63%
40 Jacksonville Duval Co. 857,040 * 94%
41 Memphis Shelby Co. 920,232 13 70,787 Mayor 73%
42 Louisville-Jefferson Jefferson Co. 721,594 * 77%
43 Richmond NA 192,913 *** 100%
44 Oklahoma City Oklahoma Co. 716,704 3 238,901 no 77%
45 Hartford Hartford Co. 879,835 ** 14%
46 New Orleans New Orleans Par. 223,388 * 100%
47 Birmingham Jefferson Co. 665,027 5 133,005 no 34%
48 Salt Lake City Salt Lake Co. 1,034,989 9 114,999 Mayor 17%
49 Raleigh Wake Co. 897,214 7 128,173 no 44%
50 Buffalo Erie Co. 909,247 15 60,616 Co. Exec. 30%

* Consolidated city-county.

** No county government.

*** Independent city.