The Effect of Public Goods Quality on Neighborhood Investment and Political Participation

Abstract

Much previous research in urban politics and political behavior has examined the causes of political participation and urban development. For political participation, the primary focus of the research has been on the effect of socio-economic status, resources, and election characteristics. Other participation research has focused on context and its impact on political opinions and participation. But rarely has the context research focused on policy context - that is the ways in which people experience public policies in neighborhoods. Something similar has occurred in the urban development literature where the focus has been on big city-wide policies and industrial recruitment. This paper examines how hyper-local public goods experiences impact both local participation (in the form of local election turnout) and neighborhood investment (in the form of residential construction projects). Data from New York City’s 311 service complaint program and elementary school evaluations are used to measure neighborhood conditions down to the Census-tract level. Spatial regression models reveal that the quality of the public goods provision in a neighborhood has the anticipated positive externalities on political participation and neighborhood investment.

Keywords: urban politics, public goods, economic development, participate, voting, spatial