What is local government?

Local government is the administration of a specific geographic area smaller than a state. It can involve local self-government, where the community has the freedom to make decisions and take action. Local governments handle urban planning, deliver services, implement government programs, boost infrastructure, and manage resources. They offer services such as road construction, police, public assistance, health services, fire fighting, and education. In the U.S., there are around 85,000 local government units, the largest being the county.

What kinds of services does local government provide?

Local governments provide a wide array of services to support their communities. These include education, where local authorities manage public primary and secondary schools, adhering to both state and national policies. They ensure public safety through fire protection and traffic control , and maintain infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Local governments also address waste management , water supply systems , and garbage disposal , and offer amenities like parks and recreational facilities . They are also often involved in urban planning and zoning , public health services , and housing .

Who leads a local government?

Local governments are typically led by elected councils, with a mayor or city manager as the head. The structure varies, with some mayors holding significant executive power, while others primarily serve as council chairs. In the United States, common forms include the mayor-council system , where the mayor may be weak or strong, and the council-manager system , where an appointed city manager handles administrative functions. In New Zealand, local governments consist of elected councils at regional and city levels, along with community boards.

How are local government leaders chosen?

Local government leaders are chosen through various methods, including appointment or election. In many European countries, local councils elect mayors, often from the leading party. However, in places such as Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Japan, mayors are popularly elected. In the U.S., mayors are either elected by the public or chosen by an elected city council. The U.S. also uses different systems like the commission system, where voters elect commissioners, each heading a city department, or the council-manager system, where an elected council hires a city manager. Elections for local government bodies usually occur every three years.

How does local government make decisions that affect the community?

Local governments make decisions affecting communities through elected councils and various boards. These bodies handle community services, local infrastructure, resource management, and environmental concerns. They operate with powers granted by the central authority, combining specific grants and general permissions. Zoning and planning laws regulate land use, balancing individual property rights with community interests. These laws address issues like building codes and designated zones for different activities. The budgetary process, involving both executive and legislative branches, determines taxing and spending proposals. Public hearings and opportunities for review ensure community input and transparency in local government decisions.

How does local government get the money it needs to operate?

Local governments in the U.S. primarily fund their operations through a mix of locally determined taxes, including property taxes (historically a major source of revenue), retail sales taxes , and excise taxes on items like liquor, tobacco, and fuel. They also collect fees that function as taxes , such as vehicle stickers, pet licenses, and vehicle registration fees. Additionally, local governments may receive federal grants for specific purposes like education, health, and income security. They can also issue municipal bonds , essentially loans from citizens, to fund public projects, promising to repay the principal with interest.

local government

Introduction
Characteristics of local government
- Constitutional status
- Areas and authorities
- Powers
- Finance and local freedom
- Organization
- Central control

References & Edit History Related Topics

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local government; Federal Emergency Management Agency

Map showing the Tennessee Valley Authority region, with an orange-shaded area representing the Tennessee River watershed spanning parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. A red outline marks the broader area served by TVA power, including major cities and dam locations.

New York City Police Department: officers

Officers of the Metropolitan Police Department in Tokyo, Japan, checking for unlawful activities such as the use of a mobile phone while driving.

What inspired the High Line park project?

local government

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Last updated

Oct. 12, 2026 •History

Top Questions

What is local government?
Local government is the administration of a specific geographic area smaller than a state. It can involve local self-government, where the community has the freedom to make decisions and take action.

Local governments handle urban planning, deliver services, implement government programs, boost infrastructure, and manage resources. They offer services such as road construction, police, public assistance, health services, fire fighting, and education. In the U.S., there are around 85,000 local government units, the largest being the county.
6 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What kinds of services does local government provide?
Local governments provide a wide array of services to support their communities. These include education, where local authorities manage public primary and secondary schools, adhering to both state and national policies. They ensure public safety through fire protection and traffic control, and maintain infrastructure such as roads and bridges.

Local governments also address waste management, water supply systems, and garbage disposal, and offer amenities like parks and recreational facilities. They are also often involved in urban planning and zoning, public health services, and housing.
7 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Who leads a local government?
Local governments are typically led by elected councils, with a mayor or city manager as the head. The structure varies, with some mayors holding significant executive power, while others primarily serve as council chairs.

In the United States, common forms include the mayor-council system, where the mayor may be weak or strong, and the council-manager system, where an appointed city manager handles administrative functions. In New Zealand, local governments consist of elected councils at regional and city levels, along with community boards.
6 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How are local government leaders chosen?
Local government leaders are chosen through various methods, including appointment or election. In many European countries, local councils elect mayors, often from the leading party. However, in places such as Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Japan, mayors are popularly elected.

In the U.S., mayors are either elected by the public or chosen by an elected city council. The U.S. also uses different systems like the commission system, where voters elect commissioners, each heading a city department, or the council-manager system, where an elected council hires a city manager. Elections for local government bodies usually occur every three years.
6 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How does local government make decisions that affect the community?
Local governments make decisions affecting communities through elected councils and various boards. These bodies handle community services, local infrastructure, resource management, and environmental concerns. They operate with powers granted by the central authority, combining specific grants and general permissions.

Zoning and planning laws regulate land use, balancing individual property rights with community interests. These laws address issues like building codes and designated zones for different activities. The budgetary process, involving both executive and legislative branches, determines taxing and spending proposals. Public hearings and opportunities for review ensure community input and transparency in local government decisions.
5 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How does local government get the money it needs to operate?
Local governments in the U.S. primarily fund their operations through a mix of locally determined taxes, including property taxes (historically a major source of revenue), retail sales taxes, and excise taxes on items like liquor, tobacco, and fuel. They also collect fees that function as taxes, such as vehicle stickers, pet licenses, and vehicle registration fees.

Additionally, local governments may receive federal grants for specific purposes like education, health, and income security. They can also issue municipal bonds, essentially loans from citizens, to fund public projects, promising to repay the principal with interest.
5 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

local government, authority to determine and execute measures within a restricted area inside and smaller than a whole state. Some degree of local government characterizes every country in the world, although the degree is extremely significant. The variant, local self-government, is important for its emphasis upon the freedom of the locality to decide and act.

There is more than a technical importance in the difference between the two terms, because they are related to the distinction sometimes drawn between deconcentration and decentralization. Local government is often, but not necessarily, related to the former; local self-government to the latter. These distinctions are important, even if they are blurred. Deconcentration broadly means that, for the sake of convenience, some functions have been devolved from a central government to administration on the spot. Power is still administered through officials appointed by and responsible to the centre, and authority and discretion are vested in the centre. On the other hand, decentralization represents local government in areas where the authority to decide has been devolved to a council of locally elected persons acting on their own discretion with officials they themselves freely appoint and discipline.

The term local self-government has been traditionally used of local government in the United Kingdom and Germany. Thus, the Basic Law (the constitution of Germany) says, “Municipalities must be guaranteed the right to regulate all local affairs on their own responsibility, within the limits prescribed by the laws.” On the other hand, the amended constitution of the French Fifth Republic says, “In the conditions provided for by statute, these [local communities] shall be self-governing through elected councils and shall have power to make regulations for matters coming within their jurisdiction.” This expresses the spirit of deconcentration.

However tightly bound to the central office’s authority and regulations local officials may be, a degree of discretion is unavoidable. Often, again, the fairly pure organs of local self-government, such as the borough councils in the United Kingdom, are obliged to execute the purposes of the central government. Primarily units of local self-government, they are simultaneously units of local obligation acting as ordered by the central government for services such as education and policing.

Thus, modern local government has a twofold aspect—it is a mixture of both deconcentration and decentralization, of central convenience and an acknowledgment that not all authority ought to be exerted by the centre. The mixture is revealed by the extent to which some of the powers exercised by local government units are exercised compulsorily and under fairly strict control by central authority with financial assistance, while others are not. This mixture produces the high complexity of modern local government. Further, local government is a departmentalization of the state’s work, based on the territorial distribution of services, as contrasted with (1) division into departments at the centre or (2) decentralization of functions to public corporations. In local government, territorial distribution of power is the essence.

The history of local government in Western Europe, Great Britain, the United States, and Russia exhibits the growing awareness of its significance. This awareness is a product of a development of parochial and town life which began long before the modern state emerged between the 15th and 17th centuries. Any central control over these and other areas was, until the 18th century, rather scanty. Notable exceptions were France under Jean-Baptiste Colbert or 17th-century Prussia, where local authorities were already overlaid by the heavy hand of the central intendants in the former and the war commissariat in the latter. Many Germanic states, such as the Hanse towns, were nothing but cities. In England and especially New England, the local units—parishes, towns, and cities—emerged from their origins as spontaneous self-governing units. This was also the case in Russia, although there the tsars took strict control of the cities through their provincial governors and over the mir—the village-cum-agricultural unit—through taxes, the police, and the boyars. The state colonized some cities from the beginning. The various local units were gradually integrated by the state, which exacted obligations from them regarding peace, crime and police duties, taxes, military supplies, assistance to the poor, and highways. By ordinances or statutes or judicial decisions, local units were subordinated, so that the idea of an inherent right to self-government was extinguished. By the 19th century all local units had become legal creatures of the state, subsidiary in authority and acting independently by sufferance alone.

The local freedoms of the 19th century were challenged by (1) speed of communications, which reduced administrative time, (2) demands of a planned economy, (3) growth of nationwide political parties with social welfare programs uniform for all parts of the nation, (4) growth of a consciousness favouring a national minimum of services, (5) realization that the best technical administration of modern utilities requires areas knitted together by a central plan that differs from the traditional ones, and (6) needs of civil defense against air attack. These are powerful forces working against claims to purely self-regarding government. On the other hand, local freedom is supported by need for (1) intimate local knowledge and variation, (2) intensity of local interest and enlistment of loyalty and cooperation, (3) small areas for easy impact of the citizen-consumers upon officials-producers, (4) an accessible area of political education, (5) counterweight to the abuse of central power, and (6) the democratic value of a plurality of political experience and confidence. In all plans, decentralization, whether to a regional agency such as the Tennessee Valley Authority in the U.S. or to traditional units, is pressing, necessary, and fruitful.

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