Local government in Connecticut

The primary unit of local government in the U.S. state of Connecticut is its 169 towns. Each of these towns may contain incorporated cities or boroughs, as well as unincorporated villages.

New England towns are geographically similar to civil townships in that the entire territory of the state is completely subdivided into towns. However, they differ primarily in that New England towns, particularly in Connecticut, have broad home rule, and have powers comparable to those that a city in other states would normally have. There are advantages and disadvantages to this system: residents have a greater voice in the decision-making process over local issues. On the other hand, the state's delegation of broad powers to the towns sometimes results in bitter rivalries between towns stemming from projects and programs that encompass multiple towns, as town residents and officials have historically placed local interests ahead of the interests of the region or state as a whole. Decades of legal battles between Bridgeport and Stratford over the expansion of Sikorsky Airport and political fighting between Norwalk and Wilton surrounding construction of the US 7 Freeway are examples.

Connecticut is divided geographically into eight counties, but these counties do not have any associated government structure. The Connecticut General Assembly abolished all county governments on October 1, 1960. The counties continued to have sheriffs until 2000, when the sheriffs' offices were abolished and replaced with state marshals through a ballot measure attached to the 2000 presidential election. Counties are, however, still used by the state to organize its judicial and state marshal system. Connecticut's court jurisdictions still adhere to the old county boundaries, with the exception of Fairfield, Hartford, and New Haven counties, which have been further subdivided into multiple court jurisdictions due to their relatively large populations.

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