Township/Borough - What's the Difference?

Apparently, there is a difference. According to Wikipedia, "a borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely. Often, a borough is a single town with its own local government. However, in some cities it is a subdivision of the city (e.g., London, New York City, and Montreal). In such cases, the borough will normally have either limited powers delegated to it by the city's local government, or no powers at all."

According to Wikipedia, "the word township is used to refer to different kinds of settlements in different countries. Township is generally associated with an urban area. Though all townships are generally given names and may be abbreviated "Twp.," their function differs greatly from state to state. While cities, towns, boroughs, or villages are common terms for municipalities; townships, counties, and parishes are sometimes not considered to be municipalities."

Well those definitions don't really clarify it, but I have an example that defines the differences.

1) We pay a Doylestown township and a Doylestown borough tax - and we don't even live in Doylestown. (This comes out of Bruce's pay check - probably because he works in Doylestown.) My guess is that we will have to pay a Lansdale township tax and a Lansdale borough tax at the end of the year because we live in Lansdale. Hip Hip Hooray! :)

2) Anyone who knows me knows that I like to read and can't live without a library card. I went a mile from our place (I have a Lansdale address) to the local library to obtain a library card today. When I showed the librarian my proof of address, she told me that I would have to pay a $35.00 yearly membership fee to use that library because I don't live in the borough. I live in the township; therefore, I can't use the borough library. I have to drive 25 minutes away to Norristown to obtain a library card at the county library. I can then use that library card at almost every library, except that one. Are you kidding me? Lansdale is Lansdale, but I guess not.

Bruce and I never thought we would say that traveling to the St. Louis temple was so convenient. Now we go to the D.C. temple - which is great because it's beautiful, very large, and has sessions that start every 30 minutes and the last one is 8:00 Saturday night. (This is compared to 45 minutes and the last session starting at 2:30 in the afternoon). It's still a 3 hour drive away, but a much different 3 hour drive. We could drive to St. Louis on a Saturday and see very few cars on the freeway. Additionally, more than one freeway led to the temple. Now we drive bumper to bumper in 3-4 lanes of traffic, getting stuck in a traffic jam every 30 minutes, and pay $20.00 in tolls. Outrageous!! One major freeway takes us to the temple from our direction. Last time we went, there was a fire on the freeway and they closed it down. How did we get home? I don't know. We waited forever, a miracle had our GPS tell us a different way to go, and what should have taken us 3 hours, took 5.5 hours. There's got to be an easier way.

We've also noticed that big companies have very poor customer service - especially Comcast. They don't really have a competitor, and enough people live here that they are going to get a lot of business as it is.

Add this to the price of milk, bread, gas, and every other necessary item and Pennsylvania is really starting to get on my nerves.