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Why Are City Boundaries So Weird?
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Many city limits look like a tangled mess. Why? The answer is a combination of politics, taxes, autonomy, systemic racism, contiguity, and topography.
Resources on this topic:
The Most Segregated City in America: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Segregated-City-America-Birmingham/dp/0813923344
Fiscal case for annexation: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Evgenia-Gorina/publication/326867365_Fiscal_effects_of_municipal_annexation_Evidence_from_a_large_national_sample_of_urban_municipalities/links/652ef34a0ebf091c48fd4511/Fiscal-effects-of-municipal-annexation-Evidence-from-a-large-national-sample-of-urban-municipalities.pdf
Politics in annexation: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/D-Austin/publication/4889705_Politics_vs_Economics_Evidence_from_Municipal_Annexation/links/602d4769299bf1cc26d22040/Politics-vs-Economics-Evidence-from-Municipal-Annexation.pdf
Birmingham info: https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/1970s-1980s_Birmingham_annexations
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/10/us/growing-birmingham-irks-neighbors.html
Vestavia Hills info: https://vestaviavoice.com/news/road-to-prosperity-how-two-boundary-crossing-annexations-ves/
Interesting contract cities info I didn't get to in the video: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2683&context=ulj
Produced by Dave Amos and the fine folks at Nebula Studios.
Written by Dave Amos.
Select images and video from Getty Images.
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