A municipality is usually an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. The term municipality can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French "municipalité" and Latin "municipalis".

The term "municipality" is a generic term, and can describe any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York.

The territory of a municipality may encompass

The power of a municipality range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state. Municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax and corporate income tax, but may also receive substantial funding from the state.

In various countries, a municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have democratically elected representation. Municipalities are sometimes referred to as "communes" (for example, French commune, Spanish comuna, Italian comune, Romanian comună, Swedish kommun and Norwegian/Danish kommune). The term derives from the medieval commune.^{[citation needed]}

PHASE 2 (aka Lonny Wood) is one of the most influential and well known New York City aerosol artists. Mostly active in the 1970s, Phase 2 is generally credited with originating the "bubble letter" style of aerosol writing, also known as "softies". He was also influential in the early hip-hop scene.

Phase 2 is from The Bronx, and attended DeWitt Clinton High School along with a number of other early graffiti artists. Many famous graffiti writers of the early 1970s would meet at a doughnut shop across from the school called the Coffee Shop before heading down to the subway station at 149th Street and Grand Concourse to watch tagged trains on the IRT line pass by. Phase 2 was mentored in graffiti by his friend and neighbor Thomas Lee aka Lee 163d!, one of the pioneers of graf writing in The Bronx.

He began writing in late 1971 under the name Phase 2, a moniker which had a rather mundane provenance. As Phase 2 would later recall, "the previous year we'd given this party. We were getting ready to give another one and I said, 'We'll call this one Phase Two.' I don't know why, but I was stuck on the name. It had meaning for me. I started writing 'Phase 2.'"