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Municipalization
 
 
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Municipalization is the transfer of corporation
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
s or other asset
Asset

In business and accounting, assets are everything of value that is owned by a person or company. It is a claim on the property your income of a borrower....
s to municipal ownership. The transfer may be from private ownership (usually by purchase) or from other levels of government. It is the opposite of privatization
Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector to the private sector . In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement....
 and is different from nationalization
Nationalization

Nationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government or state....
.

e have been two main waves of municipalization in developed countries. The first took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when municipalities in many developed countries acquired local private providers of a range of public services
Public services

Public services is a term usually used to mean Service s provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services....
.






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Municipalization is the transfer of corporation
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
s or other asset
Asset

In business and accounting, assets are everything of value that is owned by a person or company. It is a claim on the property your income of a borrower....
s to municipal ownership. The transfer may be from private ownership (usually by purchase) or from other levels of government. It is the opposite of privatization
Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector to the private sector . In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement....
 and is different from nationalization
Nationalization

Nationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government or state....
.

Services

There have been two main waves of municipalization in developed countries. The first took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when municipalities in many developed countries acquired local private providers of a range of public services
Public services

Public services is a term usually used to mean Service s provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services....
. The driving reason in most cases was the failure of private providers to sufficiently expand service provision outside wealthy parts of urban areas.

The second wave took place in the early 1990s, when after the end of the communist state
Communist state

Communist state is a term used by many political scientists to describe a form of government in which the state operates under a single-party state and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof....
s in eastern Europe state-owned companies in many public service sectors were broken up and transferred to municipal control. This was typical in sectors such as water
Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
, waste management
Waste management

File:Kathmandu-M?llabfuhr.jpgWaste management is the waste collection, transport, waste treatment, recycling or disposal, and monitoring of waste materials....
 and public transport
Public transport

Public transport comprises passenger transportation services which are available for use by the general public, as opposed to modes for private use such as automobiles or vehicles for hire....
, although not in electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
 and natural gas
Natural gas

Natural gas is a gas consisting primarily of methane. It is found associated with fossil fuels, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, and landfills....
.

Such regional companies either remained under municipal control, or were privatized
Privatization

Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector to the private sector . In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement....
. Privatization was done variously: by selling them to investors, by giving a concession
Concession (contract)

A concession is a business operated under a contract or license associated with a degree of exclusivity in business within a certain geographical area....
 or a management
Management

Management in business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leadership or directing, and Control an organization or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal....
 contract. Examples include the water sector in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic

The Czech Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east....
, over half of which has been privatized.

Governments

In the U.S., municipalization often refers to incorporation of an entire county
County

A county is a land area of Local government government within a larger state. A county may have city and towns within its area....
 into its municipalities, leaving no unincorporated area
Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of Real property that is not a part of any municipality. To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city or town with its own government....
s. This generally ends de facto
De facto

De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning the fact" or in practice but not necessarily ordained by law. It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or technique that are found in the common experience as created or developed without or contrary to a regulation....
 the county's own home rule, which in most states allows it to act as the municipal service provider in those unincorporated areas. The county is left offering only those services mandate
Mandate

Mandate can refer to:*Mandate , same as power of attorney in common law*Mandate , an obligation handed down by an inter-governmental body*Mandate , an official or authoritative command; an order or injunction...
d of it by the state constitution
Constitution

A constitution is a system for government — often codified as a written document — that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity....
, which are generally only extensions of state government
Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
 like court
Court

A court is a body, often a government institution, with the authority to adjudication legal disputes and dispense private law, criminal justice, or administrative law justice in accordance with rules of law....
s and sheriff departments
Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
. As with utilities, the county's assets usually end up being distributed among the cities, though this is less likely if the process is gradual rather than all at once.

One example of municipalization is the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, or SMUD
SMUD

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District provides electricity to Sacramento County, California and a small portion of Placer County, California....
, of Sacramento
Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the Capital of the United States U.S. state of California, and the county seat of Sacramento County, California. Located along the Sacramento River and just south of the American River's confluence in California's expansive California Central Valley, it is the seventh-largest city in California.....
, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
. In another, larger example, Fulton County, Georgia
Fulton County, Georgia

Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia . Its county seat is Atlanta, Georgia, the state capital and principal city of the Atlanta metropolitan area....
, which includes the city of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the Capital and most populous city in Georgia , as well as the 33rd largest city in the United States of America with a population of 519,145....
, is currently undergoing full municipalization. For a more complete discussion of this process in the Fulton County context, see the "Politics" section
Fulton County, Georgia

Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia . Its county seat is Atlanta, Georgia, the state capital and principal city of the Atlanta metropolitan area....
 of the Fulton County article.