Kernen wrote:San Lumen wrote:No I don’t think they do not to mention it would be extremely unpopular
They do. That's called general police power.
They wouldn't. But they have the legal power. Its not barred by the Constitution, and anything not bared or limited by the federal constitution in the US is reserved to the state. NY state can totally break up NYC into 10,000 individual towns. They won't, and nobody will ever vote for that. But the legislature is possessed of the power.
I'm no lawyer, but having read the
NYS constitution, I don't think so.
Powers and duties of legislature; home rule powers of local governments; statute of local governments.
§2. (a) The legislature shall provide for the creation and organization of local governments [but apparently not their destruction] in such manner as shall secure to them the rights, powers, privileges and immunities granted to them by this constitution.
(b) Subject to the bill of rights of local governments and other applicable provisions of this constitution, the legislature:
(l) Shall enact, and may from time to time amend, a statute of local governments granting to local governments powers including but not limited to those of local legislation and administration in addition to the powers vested in them by this article. A power granted in such statute may be repealed, diminished, impaired or suspended only by enactment of a statute by the legislature with the approval of the governor at its regular session in one calendar year and the re-enactment and approval of such statute in the following calendar year.
(2) Shall have the power to act in relation to the property, affairs or government of any local government only by general law, or by special law only (a) on request of two-thirds of the total membership of its [the local government's] legislative body or on request of its [the local government's] chief executive officer concurred in by a majority of such membership, or (b) except in the case of the city of New York, on certificate of necessity from the governor reciting facts which in the judgment of the governor constitute an emergency requiring enactment of such law and, in such latter case, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the legislature.
In short, it appears that once NYS chartered NYC, it was beyond their control, except in terms of general laws about cities. There's a bit in the previous section about the rights of cities being interpretted liberally, so I think attempts to break up NYC with a "general" law that only affected it would be shot down by the NYS Supreme Court.
Edit: this constitution is dated 2014, after the referendum Ethel mentioned upthread. NYC maybe have grabbed a few more rights to prevent a repeat of that.
It wouldn't surprise me if other states with single, dominating cities have similar laws, simply because the city's residents wanted to prevent backwards, rural outsiders from meddling in the affairs of proper, civilized, cosmopolitan urban folk.