An alderman and a councilman do the same job. Both are elected local legislators who vote on ordinances, approve the city budget, and represent residents. The difference between an alderman and a councilman is the title, not the authority: each city’s charter picks the word, and whichever word it picks becomes the legal name for that seat.
Why Two Different Words for the Same Job
“Alderman” traces back to the Old English ealdormann, meaning “elder man” or “chief.” In Anglo-Saxon England, an ealdormann governed a shire with both civic and military authority. English colonists carried the title to America, and it stuck in many of the oldest municipal charters on the East Coast and in the Midwest. St. Louis still calls its 14-member legislative body the Board of Aldermen. Cities founded or rechartered more recently tend to use “council member” or “councilman” because that language was standard by the time their charters were drafted.
A charter functions as a city’s constitution. It names the governing body, sets the number of seats, and spells out what those officials are called. The Richardson, Texas, charter, for example, defines “councilmember” to mean its six elected legislators excluding the mayor. A charter in another city might say “alderman” for the identical role. Neither title carries more power or prestige than the other.
The Shift to Gender-Neutral Titles
Both “alderman” and “councilman” are gendered, and a growing number of cities have moved away from them. Chicago, the city most closely associated with the word “alderman,” officially switched to “alderperson” for its 50-member city council. Los Angeles updated its municipal code to replace gendered titles with office names and neutral pronouns wherever possible. Smaller cities have made similar changes during routine charter amendments.
“Council member,” two words and no gender, has become the default in most recently drafted or amended charters. Cities that still use the older titles typically do so because amending a charter requires a public vote, and the question hasn’t risen high enough on the local ballot to trigger one.
What the Person in the Seat Actually Does
Whatever the title, these officials share the same set of powers.
Lawmaking is the core one. Municipal legislators introduce and vote on ordinances, which carry the force of law within city limits. Passing an ordinance typically requires at least two readings at separate council meetings plus a public hearing before a final vote, though exact procedures depend on the charter.1National Civic League. Model City Charter That structure exists to keep a bare majority from ramming through a controversial law in a single session without public input.
Budget approval is arguably the most consequential power the body holds. The council or board reviews the mayor’s or city manager’s proposed budget, adjusts spending priorities, and sets property tax rates or fee schedules before adopting a final version. A department that doesn’t get funded effectively doesn’t exist, so this is where the real policy fights happen.
Municipal legislators also serve as a check on the executive side of city government. They can demand reports from departments, question agency heads in public hearings, and in many cities compel records through subpoena power. Those tools matter most when there are allegations of waste, corruption, or mismanagement.
The day-to-day work most residents notice has nothing to do with ordinances or budgets. Ward-based legislators spend enormous amounts of time on potholes, broken streetlights, trash pickup, noisy neighbors, and zoning disputes. Their offices track cases, push city agencies to respond, and follow up until the problem is resolved or the resident gets an explanation. Most claims of “my alderman doesn’t do anything” or “my council member is great” come from this work. The title is irrelevant; the responsiveness is everything.
What Actually Changes the Job
If the title doesn’t matter, two other things do: how the legislator is elected, and what form of government the city runs.
Ward vs. At-Large Elections
In a ward system, the city is divided into geographic districts and each one elects its own representative. In an at-large system, every legislator is elected by the entire city. Some cities use a hybrid, electing some members by ward and others citywide.
Ward-based representation creates legislators who are deeply accountable to a specific neighborhood. If your block has a drainage problem, your ward alderman or council member owns that issue in a way an at-large member never quite does. The tradeoff is parochialism: ward legislators sometimes fight hard for their district’s slice of the budget while ignoring citywide needs. At-large systems encourage broader thinking but can make it easier for well-funded candidates to dominate, since a citywide campaign costs more than a neighborhood one.
At-large systems also carry legal risk. The federal Voting Rights Act prohibits election structures that dilute the voting power of racial or language minority groups, and most litigation under Section 2 of the Act has targeted at-large elections.2U.S. Department of Justice. Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act If a city’s minority population is large enough to elect a representative of their choice in a single-member district but consistently cannot do so under an at-large system, a court can order the city to switch to ward-based elections.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 10301 – Denial or Abridgement of Right to Vote on Account of Race or Color This has happened to hundreds of municipalities since 1982 and is a major reason many cities that once elected all members at-large now use district maps.
Strong Mayor vs. Council-Manager
In a strong-mayor system, the mayor is an independently elected executive who controls city departments, appoints and fires agency heads, prepares the budget, and can veto legislation. The council acts as a counterweight: confirming or rejecting appointments, overriding vetoes when it has the votes, and using the budget process to constrain the executive. Big cities like New York, Houston, and San Diego use this model.
In a council-manager system, the elected council hires a professional city manager to run daily operations, prepare the budget, and manage city employees. The council sets policy direction and the manager executes it.4ICMA. Council-Manager Form of Government Resources The mayor in this structure is often a council member chosen by peers on a rotating basis, with limited independent authority. Roughly 54 percent of U.S. cities with populations over 10,000 use this form, making it the most common structure for mid-size municipalities.
You’ll sometimes hear that “alderman” belongs to mayor-council cities while “council member” belongs to council-manager cities. There’s a loose historical correlation, since the oldest mayor-council cities are the ones most likely to have kept the alderman title, but it’s not a rule. Plenty of council-manager cities have aldermen, and plenty of mayor-council cities have council members. The charter decides the title; the form of government decides the power dynamics.
Terms, Pay, and Who Can Run
Most municipal legislators serve either two-year or four-year terms, with four-year terms being the more common arrangement in roughly half of all cities. Adding two-year terms brings the combined share to about 80 percent of municipalities. Many cities stagger their elections so half the council is up for reelection at a time, which prevents a complete turnover of institutional knowledge in a single cycle.
Compensation varies with city size. In small towns, the position may pay a few thousand dollars a year or nothing at all, essentially treating the seat as volunteer civic service. In mid-size cities, salaries tend to fall in the $40,000 to $70,000 range. The largest cities pay substantially more; New York City council members earn well into six figures. Whether the position is called alderman or council member has no bearing on pay. What matters is the city’s population, budget, and what the charter or local ordinance sets.
Eligibility to run is straightforward in most places. You need to be a U.S. citizen, a registered voter, and a resident of the city, or of the specific ward for a district election, for some minimum period before election day. Residency requirements typically range from six months to a year. Most cities require candidates to file a nominating petition with a set number of voter signatures, sometimes paired with a modest filing fee. Age minimums are usually 18, though some charters set the bar at 21.