In Michigan, what makes a place a city has nothing to do with population size or a skyline, it’s a specific legal designation.
Tyler Augst, a Government and Community Vitality Educator with Michigan State University Extension, explains the different types of local government in Michigan and how the City of Kalamazoo’s government is structured.
A city is its own category of government
A city isn’t just a bigger township or a “fancier” village — legally, it’s an entirely separate category of local government. Villages sit layered on top of a township, but incorporating as a city removes that area from township control altogether. A city takes over the functions a township would normally handle — things like assessing, tax collection and elections — along with additional services cities typically offer.
Every city runs on its own charter
The specifics of how any given city operates come down to its city charter — a locally written document, approved by local voters through a referendum, that spells out the rules for how that city’s government does business. Michigan gives cities “home rule,” meaning each community gets to make its own choices about structure, staffing and how departments are organized, all recorded in that charter.
Two basic structures, with variations
There are two broad categories Michigan cities generally fall into:
- Council-manager structure: An elected city council sets policy, and a professional city manager — appointed by the council rather than elected — runs day-to-day operations. Augst said close to 200 Michigan cities use this structure, citing the Michigan Municipal League.
- Mayor-council structure: An elected mayor takes on additional responsibilities beyond a council seat. This comes in two common forms:
- A “strong mayor” system, more common in larger cities, where the mayor is directly elected, appoints and removes administrative officials, holds veto power, and treats the role as a full-time job with a salary.
- A “weak mayor-council” form, more common in smaller cities and similar to village government, where the mayor is a council member who leads meetings and holds some administrative duties, but department heads still run daily operations.
Roughly half of Michigan’s home rule cities elect their mayors directly — but the charter, not assumption, is what determines exactly what powers and duties come with any given office.
How Kalamazoo is structured
The City of Kalamazoo’s charter lays out a council-manager government: a mayor and six commissioners make up a seven-person legislative body, the City Commission. One of the six commissioners is selected as vice mayor — either the top vote-getter in the election, or another commissioner if that person doesn’t want the role. The City Commission is responsible for hiring the city’s key staff, including the city manager, city clerk, city attorney, assessor, and the directors who lead each city department.
Augst’s advice for residents in any Michigan city: your city charter is the definitive source for exactly how your local government works, who holds which role, and how those roles are filled.
