There are six types of local governments listed in the Pennsylvania Constitution: county, township, borough, town, city, and school district.
They are often characterized by lower population densities over a widespread region, within which small clusters of housing and mixed main road businesses occur.
Larger, more densely populated municipal entities, usually ones with a well defined business district and recognizable as having the traditional attributes of a 'town' is the Pennsylvania borough.
Each other subdivision is subordinate to county governmental functions, which include administration of courts, jails, code enforcement, and land registration.
Counties in Pennsylvania serve the traditional roles for state including law enforcement, judicial administration, and election conduct.
Some of the other functions that Pennsylvania's counties may perform include public health, property assessment, and redevelopment.
Some of the welfare functions often performed by counties include mental health, geriatric care, community colleges, and library support.
[4] Seven counties currently have home rule charters: Allegheny, Delaware, Erie, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Luzerne, and Northampton.
Below the county level of organized services, everyone in Pennsylvania lives under the jurisdiction of at least two types of municipal governments.
The first type of municipal government will provide police and fire protection, maintenance of local roads and streets, water supply, sewage collection and treatment, parking and traffic control, local planning and zoning, parks and recreation, garbage collection, health services, libraries, licensing of businesses, and code enforcement.
The sense of belonging to a community in Pennsylvania is often tied to area High School sports teams.
Due to historic legalisms, Bloomsburg is the only officially designated and incorporated "town" in Pennsylvania.
Often they are little more than neighborhoods once serviced by a railway station, that once had a post office in the 19th century, or were clustered as supporting community housing for a local industry, which may no longer exist.
Many villages are identified by familiar PennDOT signs along a state highway even though the community has not chosen to incorporate into a borough.
The steep forested landscape and terrains of Pennsylvania generally forced settlements into relatively small areas that had appropriate conditions making it easy to build.
Modern heavy machinery has broadened the scope of where housing settlements and business can be situated, but at the cost of moving a lot of soils and rocks.
Townships in Pennsylvania were the first form of land grants established by William Penn, and are generally large in area with a sparse population centered on one or a few clusters of homes and a handful of businesses.
What outside Pennsylvania many would think are called "towns" are by law officially boroughs (often also spelled as boros) which are generally smaller than cities in terms of both geographic area and population.
Each borough elects a mayor and a council of three, five, seven, or nine members with broad powers, as determined by home rule measures.
Northern Liberties, Southwark, and Spring Garden were among the ten largest municipalities by population in the United States.
There are a total of 56 incorporated cities in Pennsylvania, the smallest being Parker, in Armstrong County, with a population of 840 (2010 census).
Most of the city's functions are independent of the state's control[9] because of their charters, which must pass legislative approval.
Like some other local governments, school districts are classified based on population and these classifications determine what regulations they follow.
An authority can be organized by any county, city, town, borough, township, or school district of the Commonwealth, acting singly or jointly with another municipality.