I understand how a village grows into a town and a town into a city, etc, but I can’t find an understandable answer to how the whole process begins initially. Do a group of people just form a contract and agree to share responsibilities? Who gives up the land? Perhaps it was easier to understand when there was more available land? Any help understanding how the whole ball gets rolling would be much appreciated.
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This is one of those things that will obviously depend on where you live.
First off, you might want to ask the question: “what is a village (or small town)?”
Is it just a cluster of houses near to each other?
In that case, the basics are pretty simple. People buy land from whoever owns it, they get permission from the government to build houses, build them and move into them. Or companies or governments do the first few steps. If those houses are close together then at some point they’ll start being called a village.
Now that simple process does hide a bunch of complexities, particularly in the planning process. For example, in the UK, the local authority will consider transport, local services, demand for housing, the environment, and various other things. They, or other public organisations (like the NHS), will also have duties to provide things to people who live there. If the local authority isn’t happy they’ll stop those houses being built.
But if you mean “how do you form a village/town government?” that’s a different question. In England & Wales district and unitary councils and London boroughs can create new parish councils, which are the lowest level of government in much of the country. So if you want a parish council for your village that’s who you’re going to have to persuade. You’ll need more than 150 electors in your village first though. After the parish council is created there’ll be elections to select its members. (Caveat: local government in the UK is bewildering and has about a million variations and exceptions.)
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