[umanwizard]

Another point is that in some parts of the country the concept of “city” breaks down. There is basically no meaningful difference between being from suburban neighborhoods of Glendale, AZ and nearby suburban neighborhoods of Phoenix. (People who are too young to be dealing with water bills, garbage collection, etc. often don’t even know which one they live in).

Even the US Postal Service doesn’t necessarily respect local political boundaries. I grew up in Phoenix, close to the Glendale border, and my address said “Glendale, AZ”.

[mehrdadn]

> Even the US Postal Service doesn’t necessarily respect local political boundaries. I grew up in Phoenix, close to the Glendale border, and my address said “Glendale, AZ”.

Oh what the heck! How does that even work? So the official city you live in is not the city that USPS considers you to live in? If a federal form asks you what city you live in, what do you put down (without committing perjury if there is such a risk)? Do you write something different for state and local governments? And how does one figure out what city they officially live in then? Sorry I have so many questions but this one is just twisting my brain in so many ways!

[joncrane]

Nope, the "City" in the address is the name of the Post Office that delivers the mail.

So you may be on the west end of one town, and the post office that's closest to you is in another town (or is just named after another town, the name of the post office can be arbitrary as well). That's your address.

It even affects property values. You can look at boundaries between post offices and people will pay more to have an address with a desirable post-office name.

[sigstoat]

> So you may be on the west end of one town, and the post office that's closest to you is in another town (or is just named after another town, the name of the post office can be arbitrary as well). That's your address.

it isn't even that consistent. when living in a rural area, the city in my address was the (very nearby) city. my post office was located in a rural area on the other side of that city, and its address had the name of a small town that maybe legally it was in, but wasn't thought of as being near there.

[paxys]

People even fight over city boundaries all the time, just so their side of the street would fall into a posh area.

[mehrdadn]

Learning more every day! Thanks!

[astura]

The "city" in your postal address is simply the city of your closest post office, the one that delivers your mail.

Municipal boundaries don't matter at all to USPS because that's simply not how they deliver mail. I've lived in three different addresses in three different cities in New York whose mailing address city was a different city than where that place was located.

There exists entire towns that don't have any mailing addresses.

To answer your questions:

you don't really tell government forms when you live, you tell them your address. If anyone (government or not) asked where I lived I'd tell them the city where my house was located, not it's mailing address. But your mailing address could also be a "valid" response, because it's got that mailing address. It's just not at all a big deal and "close enough" is not a problem, honestly, because people don't often know exact political boundaries.

>And how does one figure out what city they officially live in then?

A map, property records, memos from town/city, nearby signage, looking at who's provides your municipal services (garbage, police..), looking who's sending you your property tax bill, maybe your state's website, or just call the closest town/city hall and ask (they can at the very least tell you if your address is or is not in their political jurisdiction)

[maxerickson]

Voter registration will also usually show which political divisions you occupy.

[umanwizard]

Well, not everyone even lives in an incorporated city or town. Rural areas are usually not part of them, for example. So I don't think there are any federal forms that would ask you that. As far as I know they just ask for your address.

For example, the form to apply for a passport is here: https://eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds11.pdf . The only place it asks for city is as part of the mailing address.

In general, the ways individual states decide to divide up their local administration are just not something the federal government cares about. Arizona could decide tomorrow to abolish all its cities and counties and just administer everything centrally, and they'd be perfectly allowed to do that under federal law.

Another example of federal institutions not matching local ones is court districts. The Southern District of New York (i.e., of New York State) contains part of NYC. The Eastern District contains a different part, and also land that is not part of NYC.

[mehrdadn]

> In general, the ways individual states decide to divide up their local administration are just not something the federal government cares about. Arizona could decide tomorrow to abolish all its cities and counties and just administer everything centrally, and they'd be perfectly allowed to do that under federal law.

This isn't the impression I've gotten though? Just looking at tax forms, 1040 literally asks for "home address" on one line, and "city, town or post office, state, and ZIP code" on the next line. They certainly seem to care about the city? Now the problem is my common sense would dictate that the city should be the one used for the mailing address rather than what you officially live in, but that's not what it literally says -- it just says "city, town or post office". And given you're signing under penalty of perjury it seems kind of awful that there should be this kind of ambiguity?

[umanwizard]

Yes, "city" is one of the fields in your postal address, which is not necessarily related to what your particular state decides to call its "cities".

If you live in Phoenix but your postal address says "Glendale, AZ", then you would put "Glendale" on that form.

If you are genuinely confused about this and write "Phoenix" instead, (or, for example, "New York, NY" even though your address says "Brooklyn, NY"), I would be very surprised if any court would convict you of perjury. Your statement having been literally true is an affirmative defense to a perjury charge. The worst that will happen is the IRS won't be able to send you mail.

[dragonwriter]

> So I would be surprised if there is any federal form that requires you to put the "city" you live in, outside the context of a USPS address.

Forms that ask for separate physical and mailing addresses often use the shape of a USPS address for the physical address (including ZIP code), even though many of the fields may not apply. “Physical locations all have addresses shaped like postal addresses” is a common belief that is often reflected in form (and software/DB) design.

[umanwizard]

I would describe the issue here, though, as "Federal government believes everyone has a USPS address (mailing and/or physical)", as opposed to "local political divisions within a state are particularly meaningful to the federal government".

The thrust of my point is the same -- the feds don't ask you to write a city outside the context of an address. The fact that they assume addresses exist is a separate issue, IMO.

[funkymike]

Where I am from cities cannot legally cross county boundaries. But the people who live just across the county line still have a postal address with the name of the city because doing anything else would not make sense on a practical level. In fact I'm not sure if they are technically in a city at all.

[umanwizard]

Cities can cross county boundaries in some states, though -- NYC, for example, contains five counties within its city borders.

[dragonwriter]

> So the official city you live in is not the city that USPS considers you to live in?

Postal addresses have to do with mail delivery and are only loosely associated with political geography.

> If a federal form asks you what city you live in, what do you put down (without committing perjury if there is such a risk)?

The city you live in. See above regarding postal addresses and political geography.

> And how does one figure out what city they officially live in then?

The high latency method is “register to vote, then find out what city’s elections you get ballot material for”. Election authorities can reliably translate postal addresses to electoral districts. (The mappings are publicly available and you can use them directly, but it takes more research to locate them.)

[umanwizard]

A substantial portion of people do not live in any incorporated city, town, village, etc. This is part of why the concept of census-designated place exists. It's not just a farmer thing -- a lot of what you would consider to be small towns are unincorporated.

Example: Black Canyon City, a small town (arguably becoming a very outer suburb of Phoenix). Population ~5,000 in 2010. Totally unincorporated with no city hall, mayor, or anything like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canyon_City,_Arizona

So I would be surprised if there is any federal form that requires you to put the "city" you live in, outside the context of a USPS address.

[mehrdadn]

Wow, I see. Thanks!

[hizxy]

Much different. East Valley suburbs have more to offer.

[umanwizard]

Not sure what you mean. Glendale isn't in the East Valley.

[hizxy]

Yes. Glendale is West.