Compared to other states, Virginia’s local government arrangements have a number of unique features including the following:
Almost all of its cities, counties, and larger towns use some variation of the council-manager form of local government structure;
The lack of “elected” local executives in cities, counties, and large towns;
A reluctance to extend taxing authority to special-purpose governments;
The involvement of courts in city and town status, inter-local agreements, and shifts in local boundaries;
A statewide pattern of city-county separation;
A relatively small number of units of local government; and
No independent school divisions.
Virginia is the only state in which all cities are not part of counties and vice-versa.
One consequence of city-county separation is that when cities extend their boundaries through annexation, they acquire territory at the expense of a neighboring county. Since 1984 there has been a statewide moratorium on annexation and the formation of new cities. In enacting this moratorium, the General Assembly established new state revenue-sharing guidelines with cities.
In this video Mr. Greg Kelly, town manager for Abingdon, Virginia, provides a brief review of the evolution and development of local government structures in Virginia.