Editing Consolidation Era Politics (section)

== The Fragmented County ==

Philadelphia County's governmental structure reflected its colonial origins and subsequent piecemeal development. The City of Philadelphia, incorporated in 1701, originally encompassed only the area between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, from Vine Street to Cedar (South) Street—roughly two square miles at the center of William Penn's original plan. As population spread beyond these boundaries, separate municipalities were incorporated to provide local governance: Northern Liberties, Southwark, Moyamensing, Kensington, Spring Garden, Penn District, and numerous smaller boroughs and townships. Each municipality had its own officials, collected its own taxes, and maintained its own services. The City of Philadelphia, despite its historic prestige, contained only a fraction of the county's population by mid-century.<ref name="weigley">{{cite book |last=Weigley |first=Russell F. |title=Philadelphia: A 300-Year History |year=1982 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York}}</ref>

The fragmentation created serious problems as the region urbanized. Fire companies from different municipalities were known to fight each other rather than cooperate at fire scenes, and arson became a tool of gang warfare. Police forces could not pursue criminals across jurisdictional lines, making border areas havens for criminal activity. Public health measures were impossible to coordinate when disease could spread freely from one municipality to another. The [[Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793]] and subsequent outbreaks had demonstrated the need for coordinated public health response, but the fragmented governmental structure made such coordination difficult. Economic development was similarly hampered by the lack of unified planning or regulation.<ref name="steinberg">{{cite book |last=Steinberg |first=Allen |title=The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880 |year=1989 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill}}</ref>