Douglas Muzzio

Explaining the Race Gap in Satisfaction with Urban Services

Although racial differences in satisfaction with urban services have been observed for decades, perhaps the most consistent finding in the literature on citizen satisfaction and urban service delivery, little systematic effort has been directed at explaining this gap. Using two years of survey data from New York City, the authors find that socioeconomic status (SES) and neighborhood of residence explain only a small part of the gap in satisfaction across a range of urban services. Residents’ trust of government appears to account for a fairly large proportion of the race gap. Still, significant differences in satisfaction remain between Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics for a number of services even after controlling for SES, neighborhood, and trust.

Factors Related to Self‐Sufficiency in a Distressed Public Housing Community

This article examines factors related to family economic self-sufficiency in a distressed and geographically isolated public housing community. Using data from a survey of over 400 households living in a public housing development in New York City that has received HOPE VI funding, the analysis focuses both on self-reported reasons for joblessness and on a logistic regression model of the characteristics and resources that distinguish self-sufficient households from those on welfare. We find that the presence of children, work experience, and especially car ownership are the most significant factors related to family economic self-sufficiency, even controlling for income and other potentially confounding effects. These results are discussed in the context of welfare reform and the renewed emphasis in federal housing policy on strategies to promote family economic self-sufficiency in the public housing program.

Pleasantville? The Suburb and Its Representation in American Movies

The authors study the representation of the U.S. suburb projected by movies and trace the development of these suburban images from the early movies of a century ago through the 1990s, noting how films have influenced and reflected public discourse on suburbs. Suburbs have evolved, becoming more varied and complex, more self-sufficient and more interdependent, the dominant mode of U.S. residential living, and the most widely embraced path to the “good life.” Yet postwar intellectuals have long dismissed the bourgeois utopia as inauthentic consumption centers and conformity factories. Moviemakers have taken these critiques to heart, initially with friendly satires and later with aggressive, often vicious attacks.The authors study the representation of the U.S. suburb projected by movies and trace the development of these suburban images from the early movies of a century ago through the 1990s, noting how films have influenced and reflected public discourse on suburbs. Suburbs have evolved, becoming more varied and complex, more self-sufficient and more interdependent, the dominant mode of U.S. residential living, and the most widely embraced path to the “good life.” Yet postwar intellectuals have long dismissed the bourgeois utopia as inauthentic consumption centers and conformity factories. Moviemakers have taken these critiques to heart, initially with friendly satires and later with aggressive, often vicious attacks.

Mapping Candidate Systems Via Approval Voting

HE REFORMS in the presidential selection system since 1968 have resulted in primary-centered, candidate-oriented campaigns. One -JL significant consequence of this shift has been the proliferation of candidates in the pre-primary and early primary seasons. Political scientists and other students of American elections have become increasingly concerned with the possibility that large fields of primary contenders can result in the selecton of a party designee who can capitalize on the intensity of a cohesive minority during the primary season but who may be unrepresentative of the party or an electorate as a whole. ~ I

APPROVAL VOTING Some Recent Empirical Evidence

Approval voting has been offered by a number of formal theorists, notably Steven Brams and Peter Fishburn (1983), as a solution to problems occasioned by multicandidate elections. The formal development of approval voting has spurred a number of empirical studies. This note adds to the empirical literature on approval voting by presenting recent evidence in the form of CPS data on the 1980 elections and exit poll data on the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial primaries. The New Jersey exit poll was the first survey designed specifically to tap the potential consequences of approval voting. These data reveal that plurality voting obscured the acceptability of Reagan and Carter to their respective party identifiers. They also confirm John Andersons victimization by the “wasted vote” syndrome, and the fact that the victors of the New Jersey gubernatorial primaries were Condorcet candidates. Additional data on public receptivity to approval voting are also presented.

The Equal Rights Amendment, Public Opinion, & American Constitutionalism

The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, given the fact that national surveys of public opinion regularly showed majorities in support of it, has raised questions about the responsiveness of American political institutions to the popular will. This article analyzes national survey data from 1976 through 1982 and concludes that, although a nationally distributed majority initially favored ratification, popular support for the ERA was unstable and, indeed, declined over time. And when the quality of opinion-the levels of intensity and knowledge-and the quality of political experience are considered, the opponents of ERA, especially in the rejecting states, matched the strength of supporters in the early years and increased their strength over time. The outcome, the authors argue, is less an indictment of American political institutions than it is a testimony to a constitutional system, designed to check passion in the interests of moderation, that worked as the Framers intended.