Scott Minkoff

The Proximate Polity Spatial Context and Political Risk in Local Developmental Goods Provision

The author develops a theory for understanding local developmental goods expenditures in metropolitan areas. The basis of the theory is that local officials seek to minimize the economic and political risks of policy failure by anticipating how their policy choices are likely to influence the movement of people and firms into and out of jurisdictions. The theory is tested on a data set of 1,500 cities that make up 15 randomly selected metropolitan areas using spatial-lag and spatial mixed models. Statistically significant spatial autocorrelation and spatially lagged explanatory variables support the theory and lead to inferences about which populations matter most to local politicians.

NYC 311 A Tract-Level Analysis of Citizen–Government Contacting in New York City

311 is a telephone and web service that allows residents of many cities to report nonemergency concerns and problems with city services to their local government. This article explores the Census-tract-level variation in 311 contacting volume within New York City. Drawing on previous research on citizen–government interaction, service delivery, and civic engagement, the article focuses on how contacting propensity and condition both explain spatial variations in contacting volume. These explanations are tested using indicators that describe the people who live and work in the space, the housing in the space, the economic development of the space, and the space’s representation in city government. 311 contacting is divided into three categories (government-provided goods, graffiti, and noise) that are separately analyzed using regression models that account for spatial and serial dependence. The article also discusses the theoretical and methodological challenges of using 311 data to understand the distribution of problems within a city.

From Competition to Cooperation: A Dyadic Approach to Interlocal Developmental Agreements

This paper explores the conditions under which local governments are likely to engage in formalized intergovernmental developmental cooperation. The author theorizes that policy competition, informational and divisional transaction costs, and resources condition the likelihood of institutional collective action. Data from a variety of sources—including a unique author-conducted survey of local officials in Colorado—are used to test hypotheses in a dyadic model of local cooperation. Results indicate that agreements are more likely in competitive policymaking environments and when jurisdictions have more informational resources.

Living With Inequality: Neighborhood Income Diversity and Perceptions of the Income Gap

This article explores whether the places where people live—and specifically the diversity of incomes where people live—influence views about income inequality. Using a unique survey of New York City that contains geographic identifiers and questions about attitudes toward inequality, coupled with a rich array of Census data, we assess the degree to which the income diversity within spatially customized neighborhood boundaries influences beliefs about inequality. We find consistent evidence that attitudes about inequality are influenced by the places where people live—those who are exposed to more income diversity near their homes perceive larger gaps between the rich and everybody else, and are more likely to believe that the gap should be smaller. Moreover, this effect appears to be especially pronounced among those with lower educational attainment and at either end of the income spectrum.

Political Engagement in a Public Goods Context: The Effect of Neighborhood Conditions and Schools on Local Election Turnout

Much previous research has examined the causes of political participation — primarily focusing on socio-economic status, resources, and election characteristics — in both national and local elections. A more recent line of research has focused on political context and its impact on political opinions and participation. This contextual research however has primarily focused on social context and not policy context. In this paper, I examine whether the quality of city-provided public goods in a community impacts political engagement in the form of turnout. I do this by estimating tract-level turnout for the 2009 New York City elections. The quality of the city services is measured down to the Census tract using data from New York City’s 311 service complaint program and elementary school evaluations. Results offer robust support for the author’s theory that inferior public goods provision leads to political disengagement.