Municipal services
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United Kingdom and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (December 2010) |
Municipal services or city services refer to basic
even provides a lighthouse service.The available municipal services for any individual municipality will depend on location, history, geography, statutes and tradition. Provided services may vary from country to country or even within a country. Services may be run directly by a department of the municipality or be sub-contracted to a third party.
Funding
Funding for the services provided varies with the municipality in question. Funding can include tax revenue (
In the UK, a combination of local
Municipalities in other countries may have other methods of funding (e.g. local income taxes or even from the profits of utilities or industrial concerns fully owned by the municipality).
United Kingdom
In the
However, special powers needed to be granted through Local Acts in Parliament (for example, the Manchester Corporation Waterworks Act needed for the construction of Manchester's reservoirs). As times changed, the Municipal Corporations continued to try to advance the cause of their municipalities. For example, in the 1930s aviation was the new technological frontier and municipalities worked to promote themselves with the development of municipal airports.
For the most part, UK municipalities lost their in-house utilities to the nationalisation and centralisation of public utilities. One notable exception is
One trend in the UK, (in the name of efficiency) has been the
In the UK, fire and police services are not under direct municipal control, even when a force can be closely identified with a specific municipal area such as Greater London. However, fire and police services are in part paid for by a
Geography
Where there is a substantial industrial urban population isolated from other conurbations, or when and where the growth in demand is so great that it becomes uneconomic or impractical for commercial organisations to provide, the municipalities concerned may assume functions necessary for the growth and functioning of the city.
This was the case in
See also
- Infrastructure
- Municipalization
- Museum
- Subsidization
- Theatre
- Urban secession
- cf. Community services