what is a township? (Pittsburgh, Warren: chapel, home, school districts)

[west seattle gal]

When looking at a map, Pittsburgh seems to be surrounded by townships. What are these? Also, a distant friend of ours lives around West View, but her address lists "Pittsburgh". Where are the official boundaries for Pittsburgh as an address? Finally, does anyone have a map of the different school systems for the Pittsburgh area?

So confusing, but intriguing.

[ditchdigger]

Google is your friend:

Township (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

//www.city-data.com/zipmaps/Pit...nsylvania.html

I presume the results in the Zip Code map are those areas with a "Pittsburgh" address. Maybe somebody else can confirm.

School districts, somebody else can help with. Gotta go to work...

[Annie53]

Where I live in Ohio......I have a city address.....but I don't live in the city or pay city tax or get city services, like police and fire. I actually live in a township....and if I had kids....they would go to the township schools.....not the schools in the city.

Don't ask my why.....cause I don't know.

However, I am glad I "live" in the city.....in name only.

[greg42]

Every inch of Pennsylvania is covered by a municipal level government, be it city, borough or township. This is common I believe in northeast states but perhaps not so common elsewhere, and the definitions and how the governments work vary from state to state. I know in neighboring West Virginia, for example, if an area does not lie within the boundaries of an "incorporated" city or town, the only government is at the county level. The rest of the areas are simply unincorporated, though sometimes they still have commonly used place names, which may or may not be associated with postal zip codes.

Ah, yes, the post office. What the post office says for town has no bearing on the municipality at all. The zip code boundaries do not match the municipal ones. In many of the zip codes that are considered "Pittsburgh" it's possible that the post office will accept other town names as the address, but sometimes they specify just one. The boundaries of an address that says Pittsburgh is just by the zip code boundaries, I believe anything with 152xx is a Pittsburgh zip code. The real confusion comes in when you bring out the names that are not even municipalities at all. This area is full of names that exist only to be a place name for a zip code: Wexford, Allison Park, Gibsonia, Glenshaw, Warrendale. Because of this, or other zip code boundary factors, many municipalities don't have their own zip code at all. A growing area can sometimes successfully petition the post office to get the boundaries changed and get their own; this happened in Cranberry Township.

The difference between borough and township is visible mostly in the governmental structure. A borough government is like a city: there's an elected mayor and council. In a township, there is an elected board of supervisors, which is effectively a council I guess but there is no mayor. The mayor in a borough as far as I can tell doesn't do much. He interfaces with the police, but he does not, as far as I can tell from my own borough's info, have veto power over the council. Townships are typically more rural whereas boroughs are typically more of a compact small town area. There is apparently some other structural differences because I live in a borough that is mostly rural and in fact used to be a township. They changed in the 50s or 60s I believe and I don't really know what it achieved but they certainly had something in mind.

[FreightTrainRunning]

Most of the county seems to use Pittsburgh as a mailing address but post-office designations have nothing to do with municipal boundaries. The post office really only cares about the zip code and doesn't care what town you actually live in. I have a couple neighbors here on the Northside who have all their mail delivered to "Allegheny City, PA 15233" as a protest against Pittsburgh's annexation of the Northside in 1907. As long as a letter says 15233, the post office will deliver it.

As for township, it just specifies a certain type of municipal government structure. From what I remember (I can't find a good reference online), PA has four basic types of local governments: township, municipality, borough and city. Each one of those has rule about how you can setup the local government, tax office, etc.

[Hopes]

Zip codes have nothing to do with government, just used for delivering mail. Not sure why you'd want a zip code map since it's meaningless for home ownership here.

Townships are local government, smaller than counties. Townships usually have a corresponding school district but often multiple townships ban together to create a school district.

Here's a map of school districts:



Here's a map of local governments:



Here's a zip code map:

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by greg42

Every inch of Pennsylvania is covered by a municipal level government, be it city, borough or township. This is common I believe in northeast states but perhaps not so common elsewhere, and the definitions and how the governments work vary from state to state. I know in neighboring West Virginia, for example, if an area does not lie within the boundaries of an "incorporated" city or town, the only government is at the county level. The rest of the areas are simply unincorporated, though sometimes they still have commonly used place names, which may or may not be associated with postal zip codes.

Ah, yes, the post office. What the post office says for town has no bearing on the municipality at all. The zip code boundaries do not match the municipal ones. In many of the zip codes that are considered "Pittsburgh" it's possible that the post office will accept other town names as the address, but sometimes they specify just one. The boundaries of an address that says Pittsburgh is just by the zip code boundaries, I believe anything with 152xx is a Pittsburgh zip code. The real confusion comes in when you bring out the names that are not even municipalities at all. This area is full of names that exist only to be a place name for a zip code: Wexford, Allison Park, Gibsonia, Glenshaw, Warrendale. Because of this, or other zip code boundary factors, many municipalities don't have their own zip code at all. A growing area can sometimes successfully petition the post office to get the boundaries changed and get their own; this happened in Cranberry Township.

The difference between borough and township is visible mostly in the governmental structure. A borough government is like a city: there's an elected mayor and council. In a township, there is an elected board of supervisors, which is effectively a council I guess but there is no mayor. The mayor in a borough as far as I can tell doesn't do much. He interfaces with the police, but he does not, as far as I can tell from my own borough's info, have veto power over the council. Townships are typically more rural whereas boroughs are typically more of a compact small town area. There is apparently some other structural differences because I live in a borough that is mostly rural and in fact used to be a township. They changed in the 50s or 60s I believe and I don't really know what it achieved but they certainly had something in mind.

Great post, Greg! And thanks to the OP for an interesting topic. I found this topic particularly interesting because, as you noted, some areas outside the northeast have very few municipal governments. The differences between villages, townships, etc. can be confusing when you're used to a system where communities tend to rely on county governments.

[gg]

It is very confusing to say the least. My zip code is the same as Sharpsburg and Aspinwall and I believe parts of O'Hara Twp. Oh that isn't all. If you live in Sharpsburg, most people will put "Sharpsburg, PA" on the return address. You live in Fox Chapel, you write, "Pittsburgh, PA". I have never seen anyone write, "Fox Chapel, PA". Aspinwall writes Aspinwall. Not sure about O'Hara, but I think they write, Pittsburgh.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

It is very confusing to say the least. My zip code is the same as Sharpsburg and Aspinwall and I believe parts of O'Hara Twp. Oh that isn't all. If you live in Sharpsburg, most people will put "Sharpsburg, PA" on the return address. You live in Fox Chapel, you write, "Pittsburgh, PA". I have never seen anyone write, "Fox Chapel, PA". Aspinwall writes Aspinwall. Not sure about O'Hara, but I think they write, Pittsburgh.

Is Mayor Lukey the mayor of Fox Chapel, or do you have your own mayor?

[gg]

Originally Posted by jay5835

Is Mayor Lukey the mayor of Fox Chapel, or do you have your own mayor?

FC has a mayor. I never understood the whole address thing. We use Sharpsburg's post office on one side of Fox Chapel and the other side is an O'Hara post office. Used to be a post office in Aspinwall, but it closed.