city state, noun phrase

Forms:
Also citistate.
Origin:
EnglishShow more Special sense of general English city-state a state consisting of an autonomous city.
historical
Any of several autonomous Black cities, proposed as part of the apartheid policy, to be created near major White metropolitan areas but linked politically to ethnic ‘homelands’. See also homeland sense 1.
1978 [see grey].
1979 Survey of Race Rel. 1978 (S.A.I.R.R.) 320Each ‘city state’ would cater for an ethnic group related to the group occupying the adjacent homeland. The new cities would be incorporated as far as possible into the homelands by the moving of boundaries. Where cities fell outside homelands they would nevertheless be regarded as part of the land area of the contiguous homeland and the population would exercise rights within the homeland.
1986 Sowetan 13 Aug. 1Black leaders would have to emerge from self-governing and autonomous black citistates just as they had done in the self-governing states, Mr Botha said.
1987 P. Van Niekerk in New Statesman (U.K.) 20 Feb. 14A rambling and largely incoherent speech in which Botha once again resurrected the discredited concept of ‘city states’ as his way of accommodating black political rights.
1987 E. Prov. Herald 18 May 2President P W Botha’s proposed ‘city states’ for blacks were rejected by the Kwazulu Chief Minister, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, as a move by the Government to make blacks sell their birthright and forgo their rightful place in South Africa..by agreeing to seek political rights in a city state in which they were allowed to run their own affairs.
Any of several autonomous Black cities, proposed as part of the apartheid policy, to be created near major White metropolitan areas but linked politically to ethnic ‘homelands’.
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19791987

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City of Saints, noun phrasen. phr.civic, nounn.
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