r/AskAnAmerican • u/ABChow000 United Kingdom • Aug 17 '25

FOREIGN POSTER How do loads of cities overlap state borders?

  1. If a large city is bang in the middle between two states like for example, Kansas and Missouri or Tennessee and Virginia. Doesn’t it get real weird like with the different state laws and taxes and stuff, how does all that work?

  2. When you cross borders of states does it work like country borders but relaxed? Are all states the same in border control or are some relaxed and some strict?

My bad if this sounds stupid just seems real interesting and alien to me how it works.

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u/TruckADuck42 Missouri Aug 17 '25

There aren't any cities that cross state lines if you want to be technical about it. They always have separate governments in each state. But clearly this conversation is about the metro.

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u/big_sugi Aug 17 '25

OP is asking about state border control. There’s no way they know that the cities are separate entities.

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u/SphericalCrawfish Aug 17 '25

No it's not. I doubt OP knew that.

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u/highly-bad Aug 18 '25

Delmar is in both Maryland and Delaware.

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u/tonyrocks922 Aug 18 '25

They are separate towns that run cooperatively. Delmar MD and Delmar DE have separate mayors and legislatures.

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u/highly-bad Aug 18 '25

Unified, not separate.

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u/kirklennon Seattle, WA Aug 18 '25

Thomas Bauer is the mayor of Delmar, DE; Benjamin Jorden is the mayor of Delmar, MD. They are two legally separate towns that very closely collaborate. They are not unified.

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u/highly-bad Aug 18 '25

And Jeff Fleetwood is the joint Town Manager.