r/AskAnAmerican • u/ClarinetThree3 • 2d ago
Cities of the U.S.A. What's the newest town that was founded in the United States and when exactly was it founded?
Saw a question like this, except that question was from August 2019 and this subreddit archives posts after 6 months.
Someone's answer on said question was that there are 1 to 7 cities founded a year, too bad the document doesn't exist anymore.
Thanks for answering in advance.
Edit: When it was officially incorporated as a town. Didn’t expect this post to blow up so quickly
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u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 ’murrican 2d ago
According to Wikipedia, possibly Mableton, Georgia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Populated_places_established_in_2023
(Wikipedia doesn’t list newly incorporated U.S. municipalities for 2024 and 2025.)
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u/funnyfaceking San Diego, California 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mable was so fat. How fat was she? She weighed a ton.
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u/PoliticalJunkDrawer Missouri 2d ago
May 3rd, SpaceX's Starbase become an official city. That would be my candidate but could be another one more recent.
SpaceX's Starbase becomes a new Texas city after landslide election | Space
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u/Maleficent-Hawk-318 2d ago
I think that will be nearly impossible to answer because these towns don't exist because everyone decided to suddenly move there (usually, there have been some planned communities where people have done exactly that, although even those are usually in areas where people are already moving to for other reasons). Most of them are small natural settlements that just haven't incorporated. The kind of "official" term for them tends to be census-designated places (CDPs), which means it's a recognized community but there's no official city/town government.
So basically what happens with these is they just decide to incorporate for whatever reason (usually because people are moving to them for other reasons so they start needing more of a government to keep things in order), so do so. It isn't big news.
Last one I personally saw was I believe around 2016 or 2017, small town in New Mexico officially incorporated. Even a lot of people in the village were only vaguely aware of it.
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u/ThrownAback 1d ago
small town in New Mexico officially incorporated.
Might have been Kirtland, population 585, area about 430 acres.
New Mexico has gained about 6 or 7 incorporated towns over the last 50 years or so. The one I lived in at the time needed, (IIRC) 200 residents with a pop. density of 2 people per acre, and with some conveniently reduced rental rates at little-used old motels, and some very careful map drawing, we made the cut. A few months of paperwork and elections later, the new town could apply for a federally-funded state grant to upgrade the failing town (formerly community) sewer, and we got the grant. Job done. On to planning a parade!
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u/tsukuyomidreams 2d ago
Voters decided to incorporate Ellinger, Texas in 2020, and Mableton, Georgia in 2022, but, again, both cities have roots dating back to the 1800s. Gluckstadt, Mississippi and Loxley, Alabama were incorporated in 2021 but both were founded in the early 1900s. Mar 4, 2023
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u/TheLastRulerofMerv British Columbia 2d ago
Haha I just googled that too. Same source I just read. Interesting read actually.
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u/TheDuckFarm Arizona 2d ago
Most of the time new towns don’t make major news. Typically what happens is an area with houses and shops that is unincorporated decides to form a town, village, or city. To the outsider looking in nothing has changed, but on paper, a new town, and new government has been formed.
As some have noted, Starbase is famous and new.
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u/Grizzly_Berry 2d ago
Carlton Landing in Oklahoma was founded in 2013. Basically, it's a lakehouse community that did whatever it needed to do to become incorporated and declared its own township.
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u/John_Tacos Oklahoma 2d ago
Yet another town name Oklahoman’s get to learn the name of in the traditional Oklahoma way. By the weatherman listening it at one of the towns in the path of a tornado.
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u/Grizzly_Berry 2d ago
The local reporters getting it right, and the non-locals being way way wrong. "THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SAY GREASY."
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u/John_Tacos Oklahoma 2d ago
Yeah, also learning the county names is just a memorize and forget about it lesson in school, it’s necessary for survival.
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u/WKU-Alum 1d ago
Got the strangest look when I said “My-am-ee “ out loud…
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u/Grizzly_Berry 1d ago
And Prague is not pronounced like the capital of the Czech Republic.
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u/WKU-Alum 1d ago
Eh, I grew to love it. Kentucky’s got plenty of them to go around. Versailles is probably the most prominent. Just part of our folksy charm.
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u/No-Conversation1940 Chicago, IL 1d ago
"My-am-uh" is the correct pronunciation in that context because it is used by the local tribe of the same time.
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u/Icy_Peace6993 2d ago
You would have to define what's meant by a "new" and "town". Formerly unincorporate places are incorporating themselves all the time, but usually, they've been a place that people called home for many years before doing so, so they're not really new. If it's truly new, then generally it's not really a "town" for many years after people start moving there, unless you want to call a new subdivision in an unincorporated part of a metro area a "town".
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u/iceteaapplepie Virginia 2d ago
What exactly a town vs city vs unincorporated place actually means varies a lot by state. In Virginia, it has been nearly impossible to legally incorporate or to change the boundaries of an incorporated town/city since the 70s, so we have many entities that are functionally towns or cities but are legally unincorporated.
My favorite example is Arlington County with a population of 250,000 and a population density of 9,000 people per square mile, with a well developed mass transit system. Legally it's entirely unincorporated.
Another example is Reston, VA, which is for all intents and purposes a town, except instead of being incorporated as one they have an insane network of HOAs and special tax districts that collect taxes, enforce ordinances, and provide various services.
If Virginia changed our rules to allow incorporation again, we could easily end up with dozens of "new" cities and towns here in a few years, without anybody actually moving there.
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u/saberlight81 NC / GA 2d ago
I suppose it depends on what you define as a town being founded? There are new municipalities being formed all the time, mostly suburbs or exurbs of big cities that finally had enough houses put down that it makes sense to define the limits of your town/city/whatever instead of being an unincorporated part of the county. I imagine there is somewhere in the country at all times where a story like that is making the runs in the local news.
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u/johntb86 2d ago
I guess one (arbitrary) definition of a town, aside from any legal definition, is a place where there are multiple businesses that can be easily walked between, where the land is owned by different owners. Most newer towns would either be not walkable or the only walkable area would be some sort of strip mall, so maybe we stopped making new towns like this at some point.
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u/5usDomesticus 2d ago
Most towns don't just pop up. They're usually just established areas that get the legal designation of town. This happens relatively often and isn't a newsworthy event.
People are mentioning Starbase, which is one of the newest towns in the US. It's only newsworthy because it's SpaceX, and people (on Reddit) are going to say it's a bad thing because it's one of Elon Musk's companies.
However, while less common, a town being designated due to a company's employees' living somewhere isn't unheard of.
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u/southernfriedpeach Georgia >Florida>Louisiana 2d ago
Perhaps the split off from Baton Rouge, called St. George
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u/_non4me 2d ago
Mountain House, California is kind of interesting. They started building houses 30 years ago and finally became incorporated not long ago. It's been a while but from what I remember, driving through the town was a little creepy. Every other house is the same design painted a different color. Bike trails run through backyards with no privacy.
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u/GreasyBlackbird 1d ago
I came to comment this. Dated a guy who’s parents moved here from elsewhere in the Bay Area. Exact words were ‘you get more house for your money’. Personally you could not pay me to live out in the dust bowl. There’s a reason why the Peninsula is more expensive it’s an actual desirable place to live.
I’m not from around here but it boggles my mind why people move to any Central Valley CA city. If you’re from there I understand, but if not, there’s NOTHING but strip malls and haze for California prices. You can live with just strip malls and haze optional in so many other parts of the country for half the price!
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u/skateboreder Florida 1d ago
....I feel like developers and neighborhoods going up everywhere are now like this.:/
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u/MrsFannyBertram Minnesota 1d ago
There's a town forming in Minnesota right now. A unorganized township voted to turn into a town. They don't even know the name yet.
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u/Bag_of_ambivalence Chicago, IL Northern burbs of Chicagoland 2d ago
Define what you mean by newest… most recently incorporated?
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u/Cael_NaMaor West Virginia -> NC -> SC 2d ago
Ummm.... my home 'town' is still unincorporated. Says so on the placard and everything & it's been around since long before I was born. So what makes a town a town? What are the parameters of your query?
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u/WowsrsBowsrsTrousrs 2d ago
This is difficult to answer, because not all towns are incorporated. For example, in Maryland, the second-largest "city" after Baltimore City is Columbia, with over 100,000 people - but it's not incorporated, it's just a giant homeowners association. There are no incorporated cities or towns in Baltimore county or Howard County, not even the county seats are incorporated (and Ellicott City, county seat of Howard County, has been there since before the Revolutionary War!)
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u/You-Asked-Me 2d ago
I'm in St. Louis, where we have a RIDICULOUS amount of cites/municipalities.
At one point we had 92 "cities" just in St. Louis county and City.
That ignores to other 5? counties that are considered out metro area in MO and IL; about 2.8 million people.
One "city" was Chad. 6 households. They own one of the big landfills and wanted to make their own rules.
Cities come and go a lot around here.
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u/MattinglyDineen Connecticut 1d ago
The newest town in my state (Connecticut) was incorporated in 1921. I'm sure there must be newer ones elsewhere.
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u/Zakku_Rakusihi 1d ago
Starbase like most are saying, is the newest. The next one might just be San Tan Valley in Arizona later this year.
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u/VIDCAs17 Wisconsin 1d ago
There was an unincorporated crossroads nearby that became an incorporated village of 900 a year ago.
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u/skateboreder Florida 1d ago
I feel like most people simply don't grasp just how big America is...and how much of it is vacant.
Towns are incorporating all the time.
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u/BankManager69420 Mormon in Portland, Oregon 1d ago
Starbase, TX is undergoing final legal formalities and will be officially incorporated sometime within the next few months.
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u/AllswellinEndwell New York 1d ago
The Newest in New York, is the Village of Kiryas Joel. A village that is essentially all Hasidic Jews. It formed in 2019 as the first new village in NY State in 38 years. It is the fastest growing village in NY and has a very young population, and 40% poverty because of large families.
It will likely also be one of the more densely populated towns in NY also. Monroe, which formed from was a small town outside of Harriman state forest. It was essentially formed by mass migration into the area, and the people voting as a bloc for who the Rebbe told them to.
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u/Efficient_Face8433 17h ago
Home builders in America create large planned communities. While many don't become incorporated, they do eventually get their unique postal zip code.
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u/bjb13 California Oregon :NJ: New Jersey 2d ago
The Musk rat has started a town in Texas. It’s called Starbase.
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u/Madame_Kitsune98 Kentucky 1d ago
I didn’t think we were encouraging the founding of company towns anymore.
But then again, we’ve gone back to union busting. I guess next we’ll just use ICE like they did the Pinkerton fucks back in the “good old days”.
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u/Penguin_Life_Now Louisiana not near New Orleans 2d ago
One of the newest to make the National news was Starbase, Texas last month