Texas counties

[Samof94]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

[jimrtex]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

Why would you?

They have a minimal government structure. Folks would have to travel further to the county seat when they did need services. One of the big services is is maintenance of county roads. Would the absorbing county provide the same level of maintenance. If there is a major crime, call in the Texas Rangers, and the trial will be in district court.

Exceptions might be Dallam and Hartley, and Potter and (northern) Randall.

Delegate maintenance of the county website to a regional council of governments.

[Samof94]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

Why would you?

They have a minimal government structure. Folks would have to travel further to the county seat when they did need services. One of the big services is is maintenance of county roads. Would the absorbing county provide the same level of maintenance. If there is a major crime, call in the Texas Rangers, and the trial will be in district court.

Exceptions might be Dallam and Hartley, and Potter and (northern) Randall.

Delegate maintenance of the county website to a regional council of governments.

I am talking about ones that have very few people in them. One of them has less than 100. Having fewer counties would make sense as a lot of the infrastructure is redundant.

[jimrtex]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

Why would you?

They have a minimal government structure. Folks would have to travel further to the county seat when they did need services. One of the big services is is maintenance of county roads. Would the absorbing county provide the same level of maintenance. If there is a major crime, call in the Texas Rangers, and the trial will be in district court.

Exceptions might be Dallam and Hartley, and Potter and (northern) Randall.

Delegate maintenance of the county website to a regional council of governments.

I am talking about ones that have very few people in them. One of them has less than 100. Having fewer counties would make sense as a lot of the infrastructure is redundant.

What sort of infrastructure is redundant?

BTW, Loving County is the fast growing county in the country.

Which county would you merge the small counties with (start with the 8 counties with fewer than 1000 persons).

[The Houstonian]

Not a chance

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

Why would you?

They have a minimal government structure. Folks would have to travel further to the county seat when they did need services. One of the big services is is maintenance of county roads. Would the absorbing county provide the same level of maintenance. If there is a major crime, call in the Texas Rangers, and the trial will be in district court.

Exceptions might be Dallam and Hartley, and Potter and (northern) Randall.

Delegate maintenance of the county website to a regional council of governments.

I am talking about ones that have very few people in them. One of them has less than 100. Having fewer counties would make sense as a lot of the infrastructure is redundant.

What sort of infrastructure is redundant?

BTW, Loving County is the fast growing county in the country.

Which county would you merge the small counties with (start with the 8 counties with fewer than 1000 persons).

I'd start with merging Loving, Winkler, and Ward Counties into a Monahans County, with Monahans being the county seat. At 169+7110+10658= 17837 people (2010 census) and 677+841+836=2354 mi² area, it's still fairly small, especially compared to the trans-Pecos counties.

Now for the rest of the sub-1000, since you wanted ideas for all of them.

Borden seems to have most in common with Dawson.

Given the dominance of the King Ranch over both counties, Low population Kenedy should be merged into Kleberg.

While Kent is smaller in population than Stonewall to its east, I'd have the merged county keep the Kent name, but put the county seat in Aspermont.

King has several logical possibilities, but I already merged Stonewall with Kent, and merging with Dickens reduces the number of counties named after Alamo defenders, so merging with Knox, keeping the name of the smaller county and the county seat of the larger, as I did with Kent and Stonewall, seems the best solution here.

McMullen with LaSalle.

Roberts with Hemphill.

As for Terrell, I'd leave it alone for now. The only logical possibility to merge it with is Pecos and both Terrell and Pecos are trans-Pecos counties, which are all large in area. That said, it's down to around one-fourth of its 1950 population, so the merger may need to eventually happen.

[jimrtex]

Could you reasonably merge a lot of the ones that have very few people in them???

Why would you?

They have a minimal government structure. Folks would have to travel further to the county seat when they did need services. One of the big services is is maintenance of county roads. Would the absorbing county provide the same level of maintenance. If there is a major crime, call in the Texas Rangers, and the trial will be in district court.

Exceptions might be Dallam and Hartley, and Potter and (northern) Randall.

Delegate maintenance of the county website to a regional council of governments.

I am talking about ones that have very few people in them. One of them has less than 100. Having fewer counties would make sense as a lot of the infrastructure is redundant.

What sort of infrastructure is redundant?

BTW, Loving County is the fast growing county in the country.

Which county would you merge the small counties with (start with the 8 counties with fewer than 1000 persons).

I'd start with merging Loving, Winkler, and Ward Counties into a Monahans County, with Monahans being the county seat. At 169+7110+10658= 17837 people (2010 census) and 677+841+836=2354 mi² area, it's still fairly small, especially compared to the trans-Pecos counties.

Now for the rest of the sub-1000, since you wanted ideas for all of them.

Borden seems to have most in common with Dawson.

Given the dominance of the King Ranch over both counties, Low population Kenedy should be merged into Kleberg.

While Kent is smaller in population than Stonewall to its east, I'd have the merged county keep the Kent name, but put the county seat in Aspermont.

King has several logical possibilities, but I already merged Stonewall with Kent, and merging with Dickens reduces the number of counties named after Alamo defenders, so merging with Knox, keeping the name of the smaller county and the county seat of the larger, as I did with Kent and Stonewall, seems the best solution here.

McMullen with LaSalle.

Roberts with Hemphill.

As for Terrell, I'd leave it alone for now. The only logical possibility to merge it with is Pecos and both Terrell and Pecos are trans-Pecos counties, which are all large in area. That said, it's down to around one-fourth of its 1950 population, so the merger may need to eventually happen.

But why would you merge them in the first place?

So you can grab their tax base, and make people drive an hour to the courthouse? Do you want to consolidate the schools too? And kill the communities?

Do you work for some hotel chain that builds out on the interstate?

[Senator tack50 (Lab-Lincoln)]

Given Texas (much like the rest of the rural US) is built on a grid, can't you simply make the squares larger?

Here would be my proposal forTexas under such an assumption. Only one county in this map is smaller than 5000 people. The number of counties gets cut from 254 to 161, almost 100 counties get cut.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fee90257-05e5-47b6-ab7c-1123bf486c2c



Admittedly this is a very arbitrary map and if Texas wanted to cut on its number of counties it'd need a ton of intervention from people who actually know the area but at least in the west this is what I mean by "making the squares larger"

[jimrtex]

Given Texas (much like the rest of the rural US) is built on a grid, can't you simply make the squares larger?

Here would be my proposal forTexas under such an assumption. Only one county in this map is smaller than 5000 people. The number of counties gets cut from 254 to 161, almost 100 counties get cut.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fee90257-05e5-47b6-ab7c-1123bf486c2c



Admittedly this is a very arbitrary map and if Texas wanted to cut on its number of counties it'd need a ton of intervention from people who actually know the area but at least in the west this is what I mean by "making the squares larger"

If the people who live in these smaller counties want to dissolve their county government, they should certainly be allowed to do so.

[Brittain33]

How often do people drive to their county courthouse?

[Brittain33]

Rockwall is a total absurdity and should be dissolved. Kaufman is probably the best bet to provide services.

Somervell and Hood pair nicely together in one reasonably sized county.

Delta, Franklin, and Morris counties in the Arkansas region of the state are too small to be viable.

[Sol]

Rockwall is a total absurdity and should be dissolved. Kaufman is probably the best bet to provide services.

Rockwall is actually pretty populous--why dissolve it?

[Brittain33]

Rockwall is a total absurdity and should be dissolved. Kaufman is probably the best bet to provide services.

Rockwall is actually pretty populous--why dissolve it?

1/5 the area of neighboring counties, no independent identity other than suburban Dallas sprawl. Other county seats are within easy driving distance.

[Southern Delegate Punxsutawney Phil]

With all due respect I am yet to see why low population is an argument to merge counties to begin with. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

[Sol]

With all due respect I am yet to see why low population is an argument to merge counties to begin with. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

Big waste of government funds?

[Southern Delegate Punxsutawney Phil]

With all due respect I am yet to see why low population is an argument to merge counties to begin with. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

Big waste of government funds?

[citation needed]

[Blairite]

With all due respect I am yet to see why low population is an argument to merge counties to begin with. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

Making the map look prettier?

[Southern Delegate Punxsutawney Phil]

With all due respect I am yet to see why low population is an argument to merge counties to begin with. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem.

Making the map look prettier?

The map is pretty enough as it is!

[Senator tack50 (Lab-Lincoln)]

To be honest, this thread gives me an idea of a "county consolidation" trend for other states. Perhaps I'll do that some time soon

[Brittain33]

To be honest, this thread gives me an idea of a "county consolidation" trend for other states. Perhaps I'll do that some time soon

Georgia is a worse offender than Texas for stupid counties.

[Big Abraham]

To be honest, this thread gives me an idea of a "county consolidation" trend for other states. Perhaps I'll do that some time soon

Georgia is a worse offender than Texas for stupid counties.

Throw Virginia in there too. I have no idea why so many of its cities are separate from the county they share a name with.

[Brittain33]

I was curious why the reform-minded state government during the Reconstruction era didn’t seize the opportunity to fix mistakes made by the previous slaveholder governments of Texas, but looking at maps from the 1870s, it looks like the micro-counties and underpopulated counties were developed at a later date after the descendants of slave holders seized control.

[Sol]

Well, smaller counties weren't such a bad thing back in the day, when there were more people living in rural areas and travel was difficult.

[Blairite]

To be honest, this thread gives me an idea of a "county consolidation" trend for other states. Perhaps I'll do that some time soon

Georgia is a worse offender than Texas for stupid counties.

Throw Virginia in there too. I have no idea why so many of its cities are separate from the county they share a name with.

It's a dumb constitutional quirk that should be changed.

[The Birth of Babalon]

To be honest, this thread gives me an idea of a "county consolidation" trend for other states. Perhaps I'll do that some time soon

Georgia is a worse offender than Texas for stupid counties.

Throw Virginia in there too. I have no idea why so many of its cities are separate from the county they share a name with.

It's a dumb constitutional quirk that should be changed.

Of the 41 independent cities in the United States, 38 are in Virginia. Three other states have one each (Maryland, Missouri, and Nevada).

16 of Virginia's said 38 independent cities have a population of less than 20,000.