DO COUNTY GOVERNMENTS REINFORCE CITY SUBURBAN INEQUALITIES - A STUDY OF CITY AND SUBURBAN SERVICE ALLOCATIONS

Objective. Social scientists are interested in the sociospatial distri bution of advantages and disadvantages by urban local governments, but they have not studied this phenomenon at the county level. Metropolit an counties that overlap central cities have been suspected of allocat ing their services so as to advantage more affluent suburban residents in comparison with city people. The present study examines this issue . Methods. The authors collected measures of benefit of county service s allocated to city and suburban residents, and also data on trends in the city's and the suburbs' share of property taxes contributed to th e county. Results. Most of the benefits of all services studied go to city residents, and most of the property tax revenue that supports the services come from the suburbs. Conclusions. Evidence that service be nefits go primarily to the city, which contributes less than half the property taxes, indicates that, far from being biased agains the city, the county's service distribution is disparity-reducing or redistribu tive. The implications are note-worthy for public choice perspectives on metropolitan governance and for claims about suburbanites burdening city residents.