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Greenville Annexations


vicupstate

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I used to get annoyed by SC's restrictive annexation laws. I wanted to see big-city numbers (or at least bigger numbers) for Greenville.

 

But then relatives of mine in another city got absorbed into a municipality against their will and with no real recourse, only to have their property taxes essentially double, with no discernible improvement in "services." I now see merit in SC's way of doing things, insofar as it seems (unwittingly?) to protect the property rights of individuals.

 

And anyway, why care about city-population figures? Atlanta does pretty well with a city population at less than 10% of metro. Orlando, where I live, is comparable.

 

Part of the problem with South Carolina's annexation laws are these quasi-governmental entities called Public Service Districts. 

 

Because South Carolina cities were essentially controlled by the State Government (via extremely powerful Senators for which there used to be one per county) until Home Rule was established in the 1970s, cities couldn't and didn't annex (a great example of this is in Greenville or Spartanburg, where you can easily see remnants of the original circular boundary in the city limits). Prior to Home Rule, the urban population (ie: not rural) that needed services that would typically be provided by local governments extended well beyond their boundaries. In order to cope with the demands of the increasingly urban population, the Public Services Districts were set up to help solve that problem.

 

Basically public service districts are quasi-governmental districts that can cover every service that you'd expect to find in a city: police, fire, medic, water, sewer, schools, soil conservation, etc. Typically it's one service per district (with water and sewer being the exception). They all have their own elected officials, taxing authority within their territory given area. Not only do they have their own taxing authority, they have their own staff. Now, in terms of why cities exist and why local governments exists - most rational people would argue that those services are the types of things that should be under one government structure. But not South Carolina. 

 

The State has set up a system where most of the key functions of local government aren't controlled by cities, so the main benefits of being in a city don't exist, and thus it doesn't always make sense to annex into a city.

 

This is why you see cities like Rock Hill and Columbia that have direct control over some utilities able to annex so much. The Lowcountry cities are similar - most of them control their water systems and are thus able to use it to annex. Charleston, North Charleston, and Mt Pleasant in particular are able to gobble up everything. Upstate cities in particular seem to be the most hampered by this arrangement.

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