What Is A City Council?

Most communities, from small towns to larger cities, have a city council or a board of elected citizens who conduct the community’s business on a regular basis. There are a few distinctions to be made between the different types of governing boards, but generally speaking only the name is different.
The assigned duties and actions of the group of elected citizens is the same. Differences may come from the size, the legal status and the internal arrangement of districts in each community.

For example, a small community that is officially known as a village will usually have a “board” and a village president. Another, sometimes larger community might be organized as a city and have a council and a mayor. There is no significant difference between the two, other than size and name. The differences come from tradition and guidelines that may have been in place for decades, even centuries.

A city is generally larger than a town, while a town is usually larger than a village. Cities tend to have population density while a village’s residents and a towns residents are few and relatively spread out. However, most historical records don’t show any set technical differences between these three types of community in terms of how they are governed.

In all cases, the group of citizens is elected to carry out community business. A city council is a legislative body composed of people who live within the defined limits of the community. In some cases the members of a city council are elected from specific sections of the city, such as the aldermen who are elected from particular wards. In other cases the council members are elected at large, meaning they may live in any area of the community but still within the city’s defined limits. In some cases the mayor is a voting member of the council but will often vote only to break a tie or move some official decision forward.

A city council can be compared to a state or federal legislative body or congress, in that its members are chosen by the citizens to approve and pay bills, pass laws that apply to the particular area being governed and so on. These official groups are known by various names around the world, with such names as assembly, board and council.

The word “city” has roots in the 12th century or even a bit further back in history. It is closely related to other English words such as citizen and civil. “City” is meant to indicate a group of residents who are formally connected by the designation of the city in legal records. “Council” also has its base in the 12th century, though the term may have originally been applied to a deliberative body connected with a church parish or an area over which the church leaders had authority.

In the past couple of centuries, the term “city council” has transformed into an official/legal term applied to the elected citizens of a community who have the power to conduct business, build public roads and police the citizens.

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