The Divorce between city and county
On August 22, 1876, the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County separated. At the time, St. Louis had 310,000 residents and didn't want to waste money on the county residents (approximately 27,000 people). Therefore, they created a boundary at Grand Boulevard and passed a home rule law that allows cities with populations over 100,000 people to write their own charter. Later in 1945, home rule charters were allowed for any city that has at least 5,000 residents of 4.5 million dollars in property tax. This has resulted in 91 municipalities, political fragmentation, and waste of resources. (Levitt, Amy. "The Great Divorce: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the City/County Split" Riverfronttimes, 2010.