Scholars in the area of state and local government, for the most part, ignore local governments called towns and townships, write them off as insignificant, or assume they will wither away and disappear over the next few years. Yet, these presumably insignificant local governments serve 51 million residents, nearly half the population of township states, and are of increasing importance as local governing bodies in urban and suburban areas. The activities of township governments range from providing very limited service to acting as full-scale municipal corporations that provide all local public schools and even county-type services.
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