Yeah, sometimes there’s equipment, but for example some of the volunteer firemen keep the fire trucks at their home so that there’s equipment showing up at the same time as the rest of the guys. It’s such a patchwork system. At my current location, I’ve been unsuccessful in discovering (despite calls, emails, etc.) which of the volunteer fire departments is ‘mine’: the one that’s physically closer but the next township over, or the one officially in my township but twice as far away.
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N=2 in my case, but both my former county and current county had their hospitals in the county seat. Which is also what your USPS address lists, if you don’t live in an actual town (or other defined metropolitan area): the county seat, no matter how near or far you are to it.
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Many are remnants of the old rail networks we use to have. Many still have rail go through them for agriculture/freight. So, if you like food, then most of your feedstock came from those places. Not to be too mean here, but did you bother to search online before posting this? It seems you have no grounding in the historical basis for how the US developed and you should consider reading up before handwaving small towns as mere suburbs.
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Well, to be fair, even suburbs aren’t ‘mere’ suburbs!
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Yeah, in fact, many were small towns at one point. It’s fascinating how many towns were just abandoned around the Twin Cities area that got swallowed up by the surviving ones. It’s like one big mushroom cluster of towns. Plus, many suburbs were tied by streetcar or intercity rail that served other purposes. Basically, every 'burb was once a small town that grew up due to industrialization.
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Yes. As all governments that are within a state are defined by the state they are in.
Some state defined local municipality collects taxes from residents and provides services of some type.
My understanding is that the City, Town, Township, Village, some state incorporated entity, refers to the way that entity governs. Is there selectmen, a board, a council, a mayor, a town manager, who is elected, who is appointed, what rights does that incorporated entity have for how it interacts with those that live within its boundaries.
There’s advantages and disadvantages to each of the different structures. What works well for 2,000 people vs 30,000 vs 500,000 is not the same.
Edit: A short google rabbit hole later and I found this:
There is indeed a difference between a town and township.
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Is a 500 person town not just a village? Actually, village isn’t a word used much in America, is it? I wonder why?
(ETA: except in Delaware, I see, having read all of yr post. Well well)
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I don’t know, I grew up in a Borough in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Also:
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Translation:
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I grew up in a village that was part of a town that was a suburb of NY.
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I wonder what motivated the OP
I live in a Township inside of a city. Combined population about 11,000.
We do not have a hospital or a college.
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Where I live we have EMS and for several years now a real live fire department but I remember the all volunteer system. A couple friends were volunteers, they all had pagers and were always on call.
Here’s the scary part where I live.
If/when I have my next heart attack EMS will take me to a hospital that can not do an intervention, they can only stabilize me and then put me back in an ambulance or helicopter.
We had a really good customer who was high up in the EMS chain, he’s been trying to get legislation that would allow EMS to decide which hospital to take patients based on their ability to provide life saving treatment.
His advice was if I’m unconscious call EMS and roll the dice. If I’m not unconscious keep popping nitro and have my wife drive me over the county line and then call 911, that way they’ll take me to a top cardiac hospital.
Sucks but I’m not ready to give up small town life yet.
My dad had a bad stroke in his small town, my mom rode with him in the ambulance. It was a white knuckle ride for 45 minutes to get him to the hospital.
They moved to an assisted living place in the big city within a couple months.
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What really sucks about these kinds of just almost malignantly disinformed hot takes is that it actually matters.
The misleading narratives around urban and rural demographics and economies are being used to hurt us all…
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Almost like we’re pawns on a chessboard, being played against one another.
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I grew up in the Skook!
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… it seems like the whole reason for incorporating in the first place is usually when the local rich people want their own cops 
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IN the river? Yikes!
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