ancient cities

ole as well. But the notion that size matters has
also been embraced by opponents of annexation.
Many residents of small communities like their
connection to small city governments. Land speculators
sometimes prefer working with smaller governments,
and those interested in city services can
also find advantages in them.
These traditional pro and con arguments now
take place in the context of large-scale suburban
sprawl. Opponents of suburban sprawl, and of the
political fragmentation that generates it, frequently
favor making annexation easy. Supporters
of metropolitan fragmentation—or, as they are
more likely to put it, people who favor offering
potential residents a wide choice of communities
to live in—oppose it. Current annexation debates
also take place in metropolitan areas that are characterized
by wide disparities between neighboring
jurisdictions in terms of income, race, and ethnicity.
The greater these disparities, the more likely it
is that annexation will be fiercely contested.
The way in which these arguments for and
against annexation are resolved is significantly
affected by the different legal structures for annexation
established by state law. Some states (such as
Texas) have adopted rules that foster annexation
and others (such as Massachusetts) have adopted
rules that inhibit it. Many people assume that a territory
cannot be annexed over the objection of its
residents. But that is only one of the possible legal
structures for annexation decisions. The state legislature
can enlarge a city’s territory on its own without
a vote either of the expanding city or of the
territory to be annexed. The state legislature can also
authorize local elections. Yet these elections can be
organized in different ways. Residents of both
the annexing city and the annexed territory can be
entitled to vote on the annexation proposal, but
their votes can be counted either together, in one
ballot box, or separately, with a majority required in
each of the two jurisdictions. The dual ballot box
option empowers the territory sought to be annexed
to veto the annexation, whereas the single ballot box
option (assuming that the annexing city has a larger
population) makes annexation easier to accomplish.
Some states organize annexation by empowering
only the residents of the annexing city or its city
council to approve annexation. Under this scheme,
no vote at all takes place in the annexed territory.
Other states do the opposite: They enable the
Annexation
29
residents of the annexed territory to vote but deny the
vote to residents of the annexing city. Like the choice
between a single and dual ballot box, these alternative
structures can foster or inhibit annexation.
States clearly have the freedom to organize
annexation in any of these ways. All of the voting
procedures—along with the power of the state
legislature to make the decision itself—have been
upheld as constitutional. The leading U.S. Supreme
Court case, decided in 1907, is Hunter v. Pittsburgh.
That case upheld the single ballot box procedure.
It allowed Pittsburgh to annex neighboring
Allegheny over the objection made by Allegheny’s
residents that permitting the annexation, after a
majority of Allegheny’s residents voted against it,
would deprive them of protected property rights.
The justification for such a combined ballot box
is majority rule. A decision has to be made about
how best to govern an expanding metropolitan
region. If a majority of the combined territory favors
an annexation, a minority, often a small minority,
should not be able to stand in its way. The justification
for the dual ballot box, however, can also be
framed as a vindication of majority rule. In this case,
the majorities of the two areas are considerably
separately, not together. It is thought to be unfair,
from this point of view, for a territory to be absorbed
into another government structure over the objections
of a majority of its residents.
The state government’s selection from the list of
possible legal structures can have a considerable
effect on whether annexation takes place. It is easier
to annex a territory if it cannot veto the proposal.
Nevertheless, one should not assume that the choice
of procedure always dictates the result. The initial
annexation that enlarged Boston in the nineteenth
century was a result simply of state legislation.
Later, the law changed to require the consent of the
annexed territory. Yet that consent was forthcoming
from many suburbs, ending only with Brookline’s
rejection of annexation in 1874. Similarly, the
annexations in Los Angeles from 1909 to 1915
took place after a majority in both the annexing
and annexed territories supported the city’s growth.
Moreover, allowing the annexing city to decide the
issue by itself also does not determine the result.
The population of the annexing city can decide that
the annexation is not in that city’s best interest.
Determining whether a jurisdiction “consents”
to an annexation is sometimes complex. Although