This article empirically examines the formation of municipalities in the USA. It traces change in unincorporated areas over decades to determine how basic dimensions of population heterogeneity affect the probability of municipal incorporation. The article also examines how state legislation on local government autonomy affect the probability of municipal incorporation. To guide the research, this article follows theory on local government boundary change and the Tiebout hypothesis – literatures interested in the role of municipal fragmentation in tax-and-service differentials within metropolitan areas. Main findings are that income heterogeneity raises the probability of municipal incorporation and state restrictions on local government autonomy lower that probability. I present a boundaries-normalised data set that can be useful for research extensions.
This article examines levels of policing services, focusing on an assessment of resources and their measurement for municipalities. Two measures of policing levels assess the reliability of the findings across alternative measurements. Social and institutional characteristics are explored to evaluate alternative explanations in policing efforts. The article presents four decades of census data for municipalities in metropolitan areas. The central finding is that unequal levels of policing are prevalent across American municipalities. An additional finding is that social and institutional contexts affect policing, based on a pooled time‐series analysis of municipal governments. Although its main contribution is to local public economies research, the research also integrates the social and institutional literatures to identify factors in the allocation of resources to policing.
This article examines referendums for open space conservation, focusing on an assessment of their likelihood in cities. It presents data on conservation referendums, over 15 years, based on the Trust for Public Land’s LandVote® database. Economic and institutional factors of influence are explored across cities, testing whether those factors explain differences in the likelihood of referendums and their passage. One finding is that the frequency of conservation referendums varies dramatically across American cities. Additional findings, from a pooled time-series analysis, are that economic and institutional contexts of cities affect the likelihood of conservation referendums. The likelihood of referendums and their passage is further tested across alternative models to evaluate the robustness of the findings. While its central contribution is to research on local referendums, the article connects to the political market framework to identify factors influencing the likelihood of open space referendums.
This article examines the assignment of functional responsibilities to municipalities, contributing conceptualization and measurement for the analysis of breadth of those responsibilities across the American states. It also investigates determinants of functional breadth: alternative explanations are explored in an analysis of municipalities in metropolitan areas. Using data from the 2012 Census of Governments, two measures of functional breadth are reported, thus evaluating the reliability of the findings across alternative measurements of breadth. The main findings are that a diverse scope of functional responsibilities is prevalent across American municipalities and that the institutional environment of municipalities influences those diverse functional responsibilities. Additional findings are that certain factors differentially affect the scope of service responsibilities, according to a quantile analysis of the dependent variable’s distribution. Although its primary contribution is to the literature on functional responsibilities of governments, the article also proposes a political market approach to identify factors influencing functional responsibilities.
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