Public goods and the politics of segregation: An analysis and cross-national comparison

Despite the persistent inequality of advanced industrial society, tradition al class politics has receded as an influence on policy. One reason: stems from the divergent ways consumption and property interests linked to reside nce qualify the support of privileged citizens for policies to provide publ ic goods. My analysis of these spatial influences focuses on localized prov ision of ur ban environmental amenities in nine midsized urban service cent ers scattered across France, Germany, and the United States. I first separa te out analytically distinct hypotheses about effects from neighborhood dom inance, residential exclusion, decentralized settlement and jurisdictional opportunities on political and market interests among this group. Cross-nat ional testing then validates these hypotheses across the variety of nationa l stares, public policies, political economies, and political cultures in t he sample.