Bridgeport, Alabama
Bridgeport is a city in Jackson County, United States. At the time of 2010 census the population was 2,418, down from 2,728 in 2000. Bridgeport is included in TN-GA-AL Combined Statistical Area. Bridgeport developed after the 1840s, when European Americans established a riverboat landing here along the Tennessee River; this landing was a place for local farmers to trade their crops for other goods. Within a few years, a small hamlet known as "Jonesville" had developed around the landing, included a trading post, gristmill and several saloons; the Jonesville post office opened in 1852. Fluctuating river levels made riverboat trade unreliable, area merchants began campaigning for railroad access in the late 1840s; the first rail line reached Jonesville in 1852. A railroad bridge over the Tennessee River was completed in 1854, connecting the city with Chattanooga, Tennessee. In recognition of this accomplishment, the name of the city was changed to "Bridgeport." Construction of a second rail line connecting Bridgeport with Jasper, Tennessee, to the north, began in 1860, but was not completed until after the Civil War.
Because of its location on both a rail line and the Tennessee River, Bridgeport was a strategic site during the Civil War. The rail bridge at Bridgeport was among those targeted by the East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy in November 1861. Although this attempt failed, the bridge would be burned twice during the course of the war. Bridgeport was the site of a major skirmish on April 29, 1862, when Union General Ormsby Mitchel seized control of the city, numerous other small actions over the following year as Confederate forces attempted to regain control of the area; the city was burned by Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg in the Summer of 1863, but it was reoccupied by Union forces. In the latter part of the war, Bridgeport was the site of a major Union shipyard that built gunboats and transports for the Union Army; the USS Chattanooga was built here. In the early 1880s, brothers Frank and Walter Kilpatrick, investors from New York, along with their father, established a lumber company in Bridgeport.
Believing the city's location and resources had extraordinary potential for development, the Kilpatricks began buying up land in the area. Other investors became interested in the city, in 1889 the Bridgeport Land and Development Company was incorporated; this company bought up land and laid out a new grid pattern for the city, which incorporated in 1891. Frank Kilpatrick, who became the city's mayor, built a series of imposing Queen Anne-style houses on the street now known as Kilpatrick Row. Several factories, including a pipe works, stove works, rail car works, planing mill, were built along the river; the rapid development of Bridgeport came to an abrupt end, with the onset of the financial Panic of 1893. Investors withdrew from the area, the Bridgeport Land and Improvement Company went out of business. Frank Kilpatrick returned to Bridgeport in 1895, managed to lure some industry to the city; the Mission Revival-style Bridgeport Depot was completed in 1917, two hosiery mills were operating in the city by the 1920s.
The construction of the nearby Widows Creek Power Plant by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1950s brought a small housing boom to the city. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.2 square miles, of which 3.1 square miles is land and 0.1 square miles is water. The city is situated along the western bank of the Tennessee River, at river mile 410; this section of the river is part of Guntersville Lake, created by Guntersville Dam about 60 miles downstream from Bridgeport. The Cumberland Plateau rises prominently to the northwest, the plateau's southern extension, Sand Mountain, rises across the river to the east. U. S. Route 72 connects Bridgeport with South Pittsburg across the Tennessee state line to the north, Stevenson to the southwest; as of the census of 2000, there were 2,728 people, 1,159 households, 793 families residing in the city. The population density was 875.4 people per square mile. There were 1,290 housing units at an average density of 414.0 per square mile.
The racial makeup of the city was 87.76% White, 8.03% Black or African American, 1.43% Native American, 0.11% Asian, 0.37% from other races, 2.31% from two or more races. 1.32% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 1,159 households out of which 29.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.7% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 31.5% were non-families. 29.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.1% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.35 and the average family size was 2.88. In the city, the population was spread out with 24.0% under the age of 18, 8.4% from 18 to 24, 27.1% from 25 to 44, 24.9% from 45 to 64, 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.3 males. The median income for a household in the city was $28,981, the median income for a family was $33,712.
Males had a median income of $30,685 versus $19,583 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,779. About 9.5% of families and 13.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.4% of those under age 18 and 23.8% of those age 65 or over. As of the census of 2010, there were 2,418 people, 1,012 households, 686 families residing in the c
Bryant, Alabama
Bryant is an unincorporated community in Jackson County, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 3,295. Bryant covers a water area of 0.004 square miles. As of the census of 2010, there were 3,582 people; the population density was 65.9 persons per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 95.6% White, 0.3% Black, 1.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.9% from two or more races. 1.3 % of the population were Latino of any race. In Bryant the population was spread out with 23.2% under the age of 18 and 15.6% who were 64 years of age or older. Marriage status: 16.9% never married, 67.1% now married, 5.8% widowed, 10.2% divorced. The per capita income for Bryant was $20,113. About 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line. Bryant is home to Bryant Elementary School, part of the Jackson County School System. Bryant is home to Mountain View Christian Academy, a private Christian school with Pre-school through 12th grade. Bryant is the community of license for one radio station, WWFC-LP.
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Estillfork, Alabama
Estillfork is an unincorporated community in Jackson County, United States. It is located in a rugged area at the head of the Paint Rock Valley in northern Jackson County. Just south of the community, the stream with which it shares its name, Estill Fork, joins Hurricane Creek to form the Paint Rock River; the Cumberland Plateau rises to the east, the Alabama-Tennessee state line passes a few miles to the north. Estillfork has a post office with ZIP code 35745; the community and stream were named for early settlers in the area. Prince's General Merchandise, a general store which once served Estillfork, was established by Pete Prince in the early 1940s. Media related to Estillfork, Alabama at Wikimedia Commons
Town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are larger than villages but smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish them vary between different parts of the world; the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the original meaning of the word: a fence of any material. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom. In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, built a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them. In Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, the word is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. In Old English and Early and Middle Scots, the words ton, etc. could refer to diverse kinds of settlements from agricultural estates and holdings picking up the Norse sense at one end of the scale, to fortified municipalities.
If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs and touns developed. For example, "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" was built around a fort and came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, "town" is an alternative name for "city" or "village". Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township". In general, today towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry and public services rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities. A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, e.g. in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. In the United Kingdom, there are historical cities; the modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, migration of city dwellers to villages has further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.
Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town. Towns exist as distinct governmental units, with defined borders and some or all of the appurtenances of local government. In the United States these are referred to as "incorporated towns". In other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be "unincorporated". Note that the existence of an unincorporated town may be set out by other means, e.g. zoning districts. In the case of some planned communities, the town exists in the form of covenants on the properties within the town; the United States Census identifies many census-designated places by the names of unincorporated towns which lie within them. The distinction between a town and a city depends on the approach: a city may be an administrative entity, granted that designation by law, but in informal usage, the term is used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town though there are many designated cities that are much smaller than that.
Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age and pattern of land use. He identified five types of town: Infantile towns, with no clear zoning Juvenile towns, which have developed an area of shops Adolescent towns, where factories have started to appear Early mature towns, with a separate area of high-class housing Mature towns, with defined industrial and various types of residential area In Afghanistan and cities are known as shār; as the country is an rural society with few larger settlements, with major cities never holding more than a few hundred thousand inhabitants before the 2000s, the lingual tradition of the country does not discriminate between towns and cities. In Albania "qytezë" means town, similar with the word for city. Although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian "qytezë" means "small city" or "new city", while in ancient times "small residential center within the walls of a castle"; the center is a population group, larger than a village, smaller than a city.
Though the village is bigger than a hamlet In Australia, towns or "urban centre localities" are understood to be those centers of population not formally declared to be cities and having a population in excess of about 200 people. Centers too small to be called towns are understood to be a township. In addition, some local government entities are styled as towns in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, before the statewide amalgamations of th
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land, not governed by a local municipal corporation. Municipalities dissolve or disincorporate, which may happen if they become fiscally insolvent, services become the responsibility of a higher administration. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. In most other countries of the world, there are either no unincorporated areas at all, or these are rare. Unlike many other countries, Australia has only one level of local government beneath state and territorial governments. A local government area contains several towns and entire cities. Thus, aside from sparsely populated areas and a few other special cases all of Australia is part of an LGA. Unincorporated areas are in remote locations, cover vast areas or have small populations. Postal addresses in unincorporated areas, as in other parts of Australia use the suburb or locality names gazetted by the relevant state or territorial government.
Thus, there is any ambiguity regarding addresses in unincorporated areas. The Australian Capital Territory is in some sense an unincorporated area; the territorial government is directly responsible for matters carried out by local government. The far west and north of New South Wales constitutes the Unincorporated Far West Region, sparsely populated and warrants an elected council. A civil servant in the state capital manages such matters; the second unincorporated area of this state is Lord Howe Island. In the Northern Territory, 1.45% of the total area and 4.0% of the population are in unincorporated areas, including Unincorporated Top End Region, areas covered by the Darwin Rates Act—Nhulunbuy, Alyangula on Groote Eylandt in the northern region, Yulara in the southern region. In South Australia, 60% of the area is unincorporated and communities located within can receive municipal services provided by a state agency, the Outback Communities Authority. Victoria has 10 small unincorporated areas, which are either small islands directly administered by the state or ski resorts administered by state-appointed management boards.
Western Australia is exceptional in two respects. Firstly, the only remote area, unincorporated is the Abrolhos Islands, uninhabited and controlled by the WA Department of Fisheries. Secondly, the other unincorporated areas are A-class reserves either in, or close to, the Perth metropolitan area, namely Rottnest Island and Kings Park. In Canada, depending on the province, an unincorporated settlement is one that does not have a municipal council that governs over the settlement, it is but not always, part of a larger municipal government. This can range from small hamlets to large urbanized areas that are similar in size to towns and cities. For example, the urban service areas of Fort McMurray and Sherwood Park, of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and Strathcona County would be the fifth and sixth largest cities in Alberta if they were incorporated. In British Columbia, unincorporated settlements lie outside municipal boundaries and are administered directly by regional/county-level governments similar to the American system.
Unincorporated settlements with a population of between 100 and 1,000 residents may have the status of designated place in Canadian census data. In some provinces, large tracts of undeveloped wilderness or rural country are unorganized areas that fall directly under the provincial jurisdiction; some unincorporated settlements in such unorganized areas may have some types of municipal services provided to them by a quasi-governmental agency such as a local services board in Ontario. In New Brunswick where a significant population live in a Local Service District and services may come directly from the province; the entire area of the Czech Republic is divided into municipalities, with the only exception being 4 military areas. These are parts of the regions and do not form self-governing municipalities, but are rather governed by military offices, which are subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. † Brdy Military Area was abandoned by the Army in 2015 and converted into Landscape park, with its area being incorporated either into existing municipalities or municipalities newly established from the existing settlements.
The other four Military Areas were reduced in size in 2015 too. The decisions on whether the settlements join existing municipalities or form new ones are decided in plebiscites. Since Germany has no administrative level comparable to the townships of other countries, the vast majority of the country, close to 99%, is organized in municipalities consisting of multiple settlements which are not considered to be unincorporated; because these settlements lack a council of their own, there is an Ortsvorsteher / Ortsvorsteherin appointed by the municipal council, except in the smallest villages. In 2000, the number of unincorporated areas in Germany, called gemeindefreie Gebiete or singular gemeindefreies Gebiet, was 295 with a total area of 4,890.33 km² and around 1.4% of its territory. However
Pisgah, Alabama
Pisgah is a town in Jackson County, United States, is included in the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. It incorporated in 1947; as of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 722, up from 706 in 2000. Pisgah is located atop Sand Mountain. Pisgah was first settled in the late 1830s. A post office was established in 1878, the community was named for Mount Pisgah, the mountain in the Bible from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. Pisgah is located at 34°41′6″N 85°50′48″W; the town is situated just off State Route northeast of Section and northwest of Henagar. It lies along the western edge with the Tennessee River below. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.8 square miles, all land. As of the census of 2000, there were 706 people, 294 households, 206 families residing in the town; the population density was 147.1 people per square mile. There were 323 housing units at an average density of 67.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 94.33% White, 0.14% Black or African American, 3.40% Native American, 2.12% from two or more races.
0.28% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 294 households out of which 32.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.8% were married couples living together, 12.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 29.6% were non-families. 28.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.0% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 2.95. In the town, the population was spread out with 25.4% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 28.9% from 25 to 44, 20.4% from 45 to 64, 16.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.4 males. The median income for a household in the town was $28,750, the median income for a family was $36,250. Males had a median income of $26,146 versus $17,917 for females; the per capita income for the town was $14,503. About 9.5% of families and 10.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.2% of those under age 18 and 15.0% of those age 65 or over.
Pisgah High School is a kindergarten through twelfth grade school and is part of the Jackson County school system. Enrollment is around 570 students; the current principal is Billy Duncan. Media related to Pisgah, Alabama at Wikimedia Commons
City
A city is a large human settlement. Cities have extensive systems for housing, sanitation, land use, communication, their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process. City-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability. Present-day cities form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling towards city centers for employment and edification. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are in different degree connected globally beyond these regions; the most populated city proper is Chongqing while the most populous metropolitan areas are the Greater Tokyo Area, the Shanghai area, Jabodetabek. The cities of Faiyum and Varanasi are among those laying claim to longest continual inhabitation.
A city is distinguished from other human settlements by its great size, but by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, can be used in a general sense to mean urban rather than rural territory. A variety of definitions, invoking population, population density, number of dwellings, economic function, infrastructure, are used in national censuses to classify populations as urban. Common population definitions for a city range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most U. S. states using a minimum between 5,000 inhabitants. However, some jurisdictions set no such minimums. In the United Kingdom, city status is awarded by the government and remains permanently, resulting in some small cities, such as Wells and St Davids. According to the "functional definition" a city is not distinguished by size alone, but by the role it plays within a larger political context.
Cities serve as administrative, commercial and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas. Examples of settlements called city which may not meet any of the traditional criteria to be named such include Broad Top City and City Dulas, Anglesey, a hamlet; the presence of a literate elite is sometimes included in the definition. A typical city has professional administrators and some form of taxation to support the government workers; the governments may be based on heredity, military power, work projects such as canal building, food distribution, land ownership, commerce, finance, or a combination of these. Societies that live in cities are called civilizations; the word city and the related civilization come, via Old French, from the Latin root civitas meaning citizenship or community member and coming to correspond with urbs, meaning city in a more physical sense. The Roman civitas was linked with the Greek "polis"—another common root appearing in English words such as metropolis. Urban geography deals both with their internal structure.
Town siting has varied through history according to natural, technological and military contexts. Access to water has long been a major factor in city placement and growth, despite exceptions enabled by the advent of rail transport in the nineteenth century, through the present most of the world's urban population lives near the coast or on a river. Urban areas as a rule cannot produce their own food and therefore must develop some relationship with a hinterland which sustains them. Only in special cases such as mining towns which play a vital role in long-distance trade, are cities disconnected from the countryside which feeds them. Thus, centrality within a productive region influences siting, as economic forces would in theory favor the creation of market places in optimal mutually reachable locations; the vast majority of cities have a central area containing buildings with special economic and religious significance. Archaeologists refer to this area by the Greek term temenos; these spaces reflect and amplify the city's centrality and importance to its wider sphere of influence.
Today cities have downtown, sometimes coincident with a central business district. Cities have public spaces where anyone can go; these include owned spaces open to the public as well as forms of public land such as public domain and the commons. Western philosophy since the time of the Greek agora has considered physical public space as the substrate of the symbolic public sphere. Public art adorns public spaces. Parks and other natural sites within cities provide residents with relief from the hardness and regularity of typical built environments. Urban structure follows one or more basic patterns: geomorphic, concentric and curvilinear. Physical environment constrains the form in which a city is built. If located on a mountainside, urban structure may rely on winding roads, it may be adapted to its means of subsistence. And it may be set up for optimal defense given the surrounding landscape. Beyond these "geomorphi
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