 
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1221
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 7:56 am: |    |
quote:Are there any other municipalities that cross county borders?
Memphis (2000 population: 1,129) is a city one square mile in size, whose southerly half lies in Macomb County and the northerly half in St. Clair County. [ map | info ] |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 2119
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 9:42 am: | |
Grosse Pointe Shores is also in both Wayne and Macomb counties. |
Taj920
Member
Username: Taj920
Post Number: 262
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 10:57 am: | |
Gistok:
Regarding Colonial Court -- the intersection of Robert John and Morningside is in St. Clair Shores, although barely. |
Clark1mt
Member
Username: Clark1mt
Post Number: 100
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 12:36 pm: | |
quote:Check out Sugar Island, Michigan (on the Detroit River near Boblo Island). What is that strip of land that runs east-west between Boblo and Sugar Island and crosses the international boundary?
The coordinates are: 42.090389,-83.138609
(plug them into Google Maps and use the Hybrid function).
I'd guess that is there to make sure ships stay in the adjacent shipping channel rather than try to go through what is probably a shallow area of the river. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1223
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 1:03 pm: | |
From the Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District web site:
To further deepen the Livingstone Channel, it was enclosed by a cofferdam from 1932 to 1935. In 1935, the upstream and downstream ends of the cofferdam were removed. The sides were left in place to compensate for the increased depth of the channel. An additional compensating dike, extending westerly from the west dike of the Livingstone Channel towards Sugar Island, was constructed in 1936.
In other words, that east-west strip of land is called a "compensating dike" and it was made of dredged materials taken from the bottom of the Detroit River. This compensating dike was constructed in 1936 one year after the adjacent Livingstone Channel deepening project was completed in 1935. The purpose of that compensating dike is to restrict the water flow in that area of the Detroit River, which had been artificially increased by the deepening of the Livingstone Channel. Without a compensating dike, portions of the lower Detroit River could have become rapids and the level of Lake St. Clair could have possibly even been lowered as a result of the increased flow through the deepened shipping channels. |
Hpgrmln
Member
Username: Hpgrmln
Post Number: 230
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 4:05 pm: | |
"In 1970, six residents still called the island home. Through the city’s Operation Eyesore, the remaining five dwellings were removed in 1989. With this went the last residents.
The island today is home to a Marathon Oil facility and a second private company"
So an oil facility is less of an "eyesore" than some harmless houses. Who determined this? |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1224
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 5:08 pm: | |
Novine wrote: That's the sprawl coming out of Toledo into Sylvania. If you go further east, you'll be hard pressed to see where the boundary lies as Bedford Township functions as a bedroom community of Toledo.
Using the Webfoot Maps Population Density overlay feature with Google Maps, I'm still "hard pressed" to find anyplace along the entire border between Lucas and Monroe Counties where it is not starkly visible. It's as if Michigan has a "wall" that deflects growth and economic development. |
6nois
Member
Username: 6nois
Post Number: 542
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 6:39 pm: | |
Midland has a small section that is in Bay County, and the residents often get shafted because the County of Midland takes advantage of the fact that these residents don't get to vote so if something like the jail is going to get built it will be right on that border, because the Midland residents in Bay County can't vote against it. |
Fordaspiregv
Member
Username: Fordaspiregv
Post Number: 13
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 9:59 pm: | |
The original poster is talking about my neighborhood. That sliver not very dense, but has a mix of old and new homes. One was for sale all summer, at a decent price too, but he took it off the market about 2 months ago.
I would figure that it would be a pain for Plymouth to maintain service to those households. It would make sense for Plymouth to sub-contract trash collection and other services to Livonia.
If there were ever a case for Schools-Of-Choice, those few houses there is a prime example. The high school is a half hour away when traveling during rush hour. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 259
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, October 20, 2007 - 11:09 pm: | |
Talk about SOT! Though intellectually stimulating (more to the point, disturbing), this forum is 'Discuss Detroit', not 'Discuss Suburban HELL'. |
Dsmith
Member
Username: Dsmith
Post Number: 130
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 4:03 am: | |
Another tidbit about the tiny City of Sylvan Lake is that it has land in 4 townships: Pontiac Twp, Waterford Twp, West Bloomfield Twp and Bloomfield Twp. |
Missnmich
Member
Username: Missnmich
Post Number: 619
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 6:54 am: | |
6nois, that little section of Midland in Bay County was originally developed by the Rapanos family because Midland City had an arcane Blue Law prohibiting restaurants from serving liquor by the drink! (Only bars and clubs had that right
to serve cocktails.)They built their entertainment complex across the county line and later got annexed. This would be a precedent for Detroit to legally absorb areas outside Wayne County (Dream on ..)
There are many oddities along the Mississippi River as the River has changed its course to the east. Island 35 was formerly a densely populated farming area that belongs to Tipton County Tennessee, but the only bridge is to Mississippi County, Arkansas. To get to the county seat of Ripley, Tennessee, you have to travel 50 miles south to I-40 in Memphis, then 50 miles back north to the county court house. Needless to say, law enforcement was lax, and response time from the sheriff's office was 2-3 hours. Very few people remain on the Island today because modern agricultural methods have made their jobs obsolete.
I think the most interesting boundary anomaly in Detroit is the Parkview neighborhood west of the Rouge River along W. Warren Ave. It seems as if it should be Dearborn Hts.
The border makes a difference when your employer straddles the Detroit/Redford border, and the location of your office or workspace determines whether you pay Detroit income tax ...
(Message edited by missnmich on October 21, 2007) |
Hpgrmln
Member
Username: Hpgrmln
Post Number: 231
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 7:39 am: | |
"Talk about SOT! Though intellectually stimulating (more to the point, disturbing), this forum is 'Discuss Detroit', not 'Discuss Suburban HELL'."
I always perceived it to mean "the greater Detroit area".
I see you aren't for uniting people. Just what we need. More strained city/suburbs relations. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 644
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 10:10 am: | |
^^^^^The pretentious suburban haters are just as annoying as the Detroit haters! |
Fordaspiregv
Member
Username: Fordaspiregv
Post Number: 14
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 11:27 am: | |
-- qoute --
The border makes a difference when your employer straddles the Detroit/Redford border, and the location of your office or workspace determines whether you pay Detroit income tax ...
I bet everyone is fighting over the Redford spaces instead of the Detroit ones. Odd, I figured it would go by mailing address. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 5546
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 1:40 pm: | |
To paraphrase another forumer... "anyone with at least 50 posts and half a brain" knows that this forum is about all things metro-Detroit, and not just Detroit.
How sad it is to see people muck up a perfectly interesting thread with their own prejudices... such as the "Suburban HELL" comment. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 649
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 1:27 pm: | |
What is with that little arm on Pontiac northern border that sticks up into Auburn Hills. Speaking of Auburn Hills I have always loved its shape! Also I always used to wonder about that wierd diagonal border area of Detroit by Ford Road and Evergreen. Then I learned about the old French survey system and that is a corner of it that, that sticks into Detroit. I wish I had a good map to show it. |
Steelworker
Member
Username: Steelworker
Post Number: 1017
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 1:38 pm: | |
What about the couple streets of harper woods that jut into grossepointe woods |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 652
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 1:49 pm: | |
and Grosse Pinte Woods into Harper Woods. All the way to I94 I believe. |
Steelworker
Member
Username: Steelworker
Post Number: 1018
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 1:52 pm: | |
woops thats what i meant to say. |
Aarne_frobom
Member
Username: Aarne_frobom
Post Number: 67
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 4:28 pm: | |
A couple years ago, the City of Southgate announced that it wanted to install automated cameras that would issue traffic tickets to drivers violating the traffic signals on Allen Road at, I think, North Line and Eureka Roads. It was said there was an epidemic of violations at those two intersections. I didn't believe that driver behavior changed abruptly at these two points on Allen Road, and suspected that this was a revenue-raising scheme. I wondered how Southgate intended to manage the ticket machines, since Allen Road is the boundary between Southgate and Taylor and the boundary usually runs down the center of the section-line roads, and only two of the four approaches to each intersection would be in Southgate's jurisdiction. A look at a detailed map that showed both the city boundaries and the survey centerlines revealed what I suspected: the city limits of Southgate is just west of the centerline of Allen Road, and all four approaches to those two intersections are in Southgate. The two places said to have the signal-violation problem were coincidentally the two places where Southgate would have kept 100 per cent of the fines.
(The ticket-camera scheme was smacked down in an opinion by the state Attorney General in which he reminded Southgate that Michigan traffic tickets must be issued by actual cops witnessing a violation.) |
Hpgrmln
Member
Username: Hpgrmln
Post Number: 235
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 7:34 pm: | |
I believe the area Fareastsider is referencing used to be "Pontiac Twp". Auburn Hills is a relatively young city. I suspect that odd-shaped area probably is due to annexation.Auburn Hills got most of the area, the rest was given to Pontiac.If I could locate a map from the '60s or '70s, I could confirm that. Pontiac TWP was dissolved around the early 80's, much like Avon Twp (now Rochester Hills). |
Yaktown
Member
Username: Yaktown
Post Number: 245
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 12:04 am: | |
Fareast, that little area you were referring to contains wetlands and the city landfill. It's all Pontiac from Collier Road north. It does have a weird boundary probably due to when Pontiac Twp became the city of Auburn Hills in 1984. I always thought AH had a weird shape, it's sort of like an upside-down L. |
Bearinabox
Member
Username: Bearinabox
Post Number: 304
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 12:20 am: | |
Sorry for the threadjack, but why do people on this forum commonly use "TWP" rather than "Twp" as an abbreviation of "township?" Is there an actual reason for it, or is it just some sort of weird typo? |
Hpgrmln
Member
Username: Hpgrmln
Post Number: 237
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 7:39 am: | |
Emphasis. Most people just think of the city of Pontiac. "TWP" is only 3-letters (no kidding!)and may easily be overlooked by fast readers.This way it stands out to avoid confusion. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 183
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 11:46 pm: | |
Novi Township: There's a bit of history to this. When the Ford plant was built at I-96 and Wixom Road, it was located in Novi Township. People in the Wixom area got the idea to capture the tax revenues from the plant by incorporating as a village. The remainder of Novi Township then pushed to incorporate as a village. According to state law, a certain percentage of signatures on the incorporation petition had to be signed by residents in each platted subdivision or they would not be included in the village. Two subdivisions, Brookland Farms and Northville Estates, opted out so when the village was incorporated, those subdivisions were excluded. Northville Estates later voted to be annexed into the City of Northville along with a portion of the village (which is one part of Northville that extends into Oakland County). When Novi incorporated as city, it did so along the village boundaries, so Brookland Farms was left as part of the Township.
What many people don't know is that during the time that Novi was a village, a number of areas of the village were detached from the village under a state law that allowed farms to petition to be removed from village boundaries. By the time the city incorporated in 1969, there were portions of the city almost entirely cut off from the rest of the city by township peninsulas extending into the city. Some of these properties were developed including one that became the Chateau Estates Mobile Home Park. [Also, the township became the location for the first two self-service gas stations in the area in the early 1970s. At that time, city ordinances prohibited self-service gas stations]. The city sought to annex all of the remaining township areas and the city and township battled all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court over the annexation. The township finally threw in the towel when they realized that the residents of the Mobile Home park were in support of the annexation and were prepared to vote in numbers that would have led to the Brookland Farms area being carried into the city. The city was allowed to annex everything but Brookland Farms.
Today, it's Michigan's smallest township by area (but not population). There is no township hall and the township relies on the city for most services. Meetings are held in the homes of the Township Board members and elections are held in the garage of one of the Board members. The township doesn't have water and sewer services but since most homes are on 1 acre lots, this isn't that big an issue for most residents. They pay taxes at about 1/5 the rate of city residents making it a tax-haven within the boundaries of the city of Novi.
Fenton: A couple of years ago. Fenton annexed a small portion of Holly Township that was completed separated from the rest of the Township by wetlands. It's been developed as part of a larger subdivision in Fenton. So Fenton now extends into Oakland County.
New Baltimore: The city used to be in both Macomb and St. Clair Counties. Under a little-used state law, the city voted to move the county boundary so that the entire city now lies in Macomb County.
Auburn Hills: As others have noted, the city's boundary resulted when most of Pontiac Township was incorporated as the city of Auburn Hills. The city of Pontiac had gradually expanded into the township through annexation including the landfill property mentioned earlier. When the city annexed some of the land that the Silverdome is located on, the township responded by seeking to incorporate, which would stop all future annexations. Technically, Auburn Hills wasn't the entire township. The village of Lake Angelus fell partially in Pontiac Township and partially in Waterford Township. After AH incorporated, Lake Angelus incorporated as a city, and Pontiac Township was no more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P ontiac_Township%2C_Michigan |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 184
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 10:03 am: | |
One other item I wanted to mention about Lake Angelus, as those who have been to Great Lakes Crossing know, the portion of Lake Angelus that shares a boundary with the mall area is completely undeveloped. That's because the city owns that property and I believe it was acquired to preclude development of that area. LA also owns land in the City of Pontiac, also to provide a buffer between the existing homes in LA and the adjoining area in Pontiac. At one time, LA asked to annex that land from Pontiac into LA but Pontiac opposed it. |
Me3head
Member
Username: Me3head
Post Number: 17
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 6:25 am: | |
Apparently, cities that cross county borders are much more common in non northwest-territory states. I learned this after some research I did when I found it odd that West Des Moines, IA is basically 50% in 2 different counties. |
Cmubryan
Member
Username: Cmubryan
Post Number: 469
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 8:10 am: | |
Try managing an apartment community 50 yards from an Auburn Hills police station in Auburn Hills but being in Pontiac and at the mercy of the cash strapped, under staffed Pontiac Police! Yea that arm is great! |
Craig
Member
Username: Craig
Post Number: 380
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 8:28 am: | |
...and what's the story re: Royal Oak Township? Two pieces?
Another thing: a friend who used to work at American Axel told me that City taxes were determined by where one stood, the plants falling across the Detroit/Hamtramack border. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 189
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 9:45 am: | |
I think RO TWP is down to one piece that lies along 8 Mile Road. The northern piece was annexed into Oak Park through a couple of elections in the past couple of years. |
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