OK, so there is no Mayor or President of Hudson Bend. But, one day Hudson Bend may become something other than a “census designated place” (aka CDP) and may have something of a more bonified “downtown”.
Sure, we might go on forever as a quiet little CDP, but out of curiosity, if you had to choose, what type of structure would you like to see Hudson Bend become? Would you prefer a city, a town or village? Something else?
Here is some information for your perusal.
“In the United States, whether the community is called a city, town, or village depends on what form of government it uses as provided by that state’s statutes.
A city uses a mayor-council form of government where the mayor is elected from the entire community (also called at-large) and the council is elected from different districts within the city.
The population size does not matter as long as the different districts contain roughly the same population. This form of government is just more effective when there are more people to represent, but I have seen it used for communities of 5,000, 10,000, 100,000, and, of course, over 1,000,000 people.
Villages and towns operate very similarly. They both use a president-council form of government where both the village/town president and the council are elected at-large and elected separately -which means the president is not elected to the council and then the council elects/appoints president like a prime minister.
The main difference between a town and a village is how they were initially founded according to the state statute.
Villages are usually how you think a community is created. A cluster of homes along a river, railroad, or at a crossroad and more and more homes and businesses follow suit to the point where they need to create a formal municipality.
Towns typically start out as a different form of government in the United States called a township. A township provides the community services the county cannot and when a municipality is not around. As the township grows in population, the more and more services it starts to provide to the point where it is doing the same thing as a regular municipality, so it becomes one… as a town.
I should point out each state has its own rules and regulations so this is not true throughout the entire United States. These are just the general rules of thumb.” (source Louis Guliot – https://www.quora.com/Why-are-small-towns-in-America-called-towns-and-not-villages?share=1)
Becoming Incorporated
If a village grows enough that it could supply the administration and services an incorporated town requires, the people of the village may decide they want to become incorporated. Usually, a petition is circulated and if there is enough interest, the idea is put to a town vote. If the majority votes to incorporate, it’s best to hire a lawyer with expertise in this area. Many times a lawyer would have been consulted at the beginning of the idea process so voters know what incorporation would entail in time and money. Some states have laws specifying what percentage of the population of a village needs to circulate the petition, or how many people must live in the village before they can consider incorporating.