Cite as: 513 U. S. 30 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
III
When indicators of immunity point in different directions, the Eleventh Amendment's twin reasons for being remain our prime guide. See supra, at 39-40. We have already pointed out that federal courts are not alien to a bistate entity Congress participated in creating. Nor is it disrespectful to one State to call upon the Compact Clause entity to answer complaints in federal court. See supra, at 41-43. Seeing no genuine threat to the dignity of New York or New Jersey in allowing Hess and Walsh to pursue FELA claims against PATH in federal court, we ask, as Lake Country instructed, whether there is here "good reason to believe" the States and Congress designed the Port Authority to enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity. 440 U. S., at 401.
PATH urges that we find good reason to classify the Port Authority as a state agency for Eleventh Amendment purposes based on the control New York and New Jersey wield over the Authority. The States appoint and can remove the commissioners, the Governors can veto Port Authority actions, and the States' legislatures can determine the projects the Port Authority undertakes. See supra, at 36-37. But ultimate control of every state-created entity resides with the State, for the State may destroy or reshape any unit it creates. "[P]olitical subdivisions exist solely at the whim and behest of their State," Feeney, 495 U. S., at 313 (Brennan, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), yet cities and counties do not enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity. See, e. g., Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 280 (1977); Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U. S. 529, 530 (1890). Moreover, no one State alone can control the course of a Compact Clause entity. See supra, at 42, and n. 11. Gauging actual control, particularly when an entity has multiple creator-controllers, can be a "perilous inquiry," "an uncertain and unreliable exercise." See Note, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 1243, 1284 (1992); see also id., at 1302, and n. 264 (describing "degree to which the state controls the
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