national, state, and county welfare programs. In very small counties, the executive and legislative power may lie entirely with a sole commissioner, who is assisted by boards to supervise taxes and elections. Town or township governments Town or township governments are organized local governments authorized in the state constitutions and statutes of 20 Northeastern and Midwestern states, established as minor civil divisions to provide general government for a geographic subdivision of a county where there is no municipality. In New York, Wisconsin and New England, these county subdivisions are called towns. In many other states, the term town does not have any specific meaning; it is simply an informal term applied to populated places (both incorporated and unincorporated municipalities). Moreover, in some states, the term town is equivalent to how civil townships are used in other states. Like counties, the specific responsibilities to townships vary based on each state. Many states grant townships some governmental powers, making them civil townships, either independently or as a part of the county government. In others, survey townships are non-governmental. Towns in the six New England states and townships in New Jersey and Pennsylvania are included in this category by the Census Bureau, despite the fact that they are legally municipal corporations, since their structure has no necessary relation to concentration of population, which is typical of municipalities elsewhere in the United States. In particular, towns in New England have considerably more power than most townships elsewhere and often function as legally equivalent to cities, typically exercising the full range of powers that are divided between counties, townships, and cities in other states. Township functions are generally overseen by a governing board, whose name also varies from state to state. Municipal governments Municipal governments are organized local governments authorized in state constitutions and statutes, established to provide general government for a defined area, generally corresponding to a population center rather than one of a set of areas into which a county is divided. The category includes those governments designated as cities, boroughs (except in Alaska), towns (except in Minnesota and Wisconsin), and villages. This concept corresponds roughly to the "incorporated places" that are recognized in by the U.S. Census Bureau, although the Census Bureau excludes New England towns from their statistics for this category, and the count of municipal governments excludes places that are governmentally inactive. About 28 percent of Americans live in cities