The goal of the project is examination of several possible policy consequences of the relationship between city population characteristics, individual socio-economic characteristics and the policy preferences of urban residents. The policy preferences of prime concern include a ) those dealing with the pattern of delivery and level of provision of municipal services provided by city government, and b) those dealing with the level and form of local taxation employed to generate government revenue. The findings may be of interest to urban planners and local officials who seek 1) to attract new residents or stabilize desirable residence patterns, 2) to predict changes in patterns of municipal demand associated with changes in the population composition of cities and neighborhoods, or 3) to pursue decentralized strategies in the provision of packages of services designed to meet the particularized needs of sub-units of local government jurisdictions. Assessment of preferences is based on secondary analysis of a wide range of survey data. Preference measures will be supplemented with published data descriptive of the city and neighborhood of residence of surveyed individuals. The model that guides our research is based on the assumption that policy preferences may be predicted in part by two sets of variables. The first set includes the socio-economic background characteristics of individuals. These variables interact with a second group of demographic variables that are descriptive of the population composition of the local government unit and of the immediate neighborhood in which the individual resides. Bibliographic references: Terry Nichols Clark, "Can You Cut a Budget Pie?" Policy and Politics, 3 (December 1974), pp. 3-33.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter