One degree, many audiences

One attribute of the MPA, as a degree, is that it is one degree with many audiences.¹ In my own program, this includes many pre-career students, or those students right out of their undergraduate training, in more or less a cohort-model. They come in as a group in the fall, take two years to complete their studies (while also engaging in a 1/2 time internship, a unique attribute of the NIU MPA), and graduate into bigger and better things.²

The second audience is mid-career folks (we define that as 2+ years of experience, but this is typically 2-5 years in MPA programs), but these are really several audiences in somewhat different circumstances. The first are folks in the profession at a middle-ish manager level–program directors, senior management analysts, etc, but importantly, closer to the beginning of their career than the end–that don’t have an MPA. They’re often specialized in the sense that they’re embedded in an operational department (i.e., not in the central administrative office) doing a specific task. They know their operational field (and usually have an undergraduate degree in that area), but often come to us to gain more general management training. This audience has been the mid-career bread and butter for MPA programs since the beginning.

The second group of mid-career folks are much more senior, often department heads that could have advanced degrees in their specialty (engineering, accounting/finance, etc) but don’t have an MPA. Many of these folks see the MPA as a route to being the city/town/village manager, perhaps that job description even requires an MPA. These students are not devoid of management skills, clearly they have some because they’re doing the job. What they seek is a broader perspective than their relatively narrow, department view. They know they don’t know enough about the other functions of their government and are trying to get a better handle on all the things a city manager is responsible for.

A third group that the MPA typically doesn’t capture but I think is important to include here are current city managers. They might want an educational refresher, but already have an MPA (or other advanced degree) and have no practical need for an entire degree.

Just reading through these incredibly diverse audiences, it’s clear that one monolithic degree program will struggle to serve all the varied student needs. Most MPA programs, more or less reinforced by the accrediting body NASPAA, are designed to most effectively service the pre-career and very early mid-career student. That leaves the other mid-career student archetypes in a bit of a bind.

MPA program design interlude

To understand why the MPA doesn’t really work for all the potential audiences, it’s helpful to understand how the MPA is designed. NASPAA, the MPA accrediting body, gives some flexibility in program design but not much, so this largely applies to all MPA programs.

1. There is a core of classes, typically 4-6, that are required for all students. Using NASPAA’s language, these classes are designed to deliver the universal competencies or learning outcomes that all MPA students should have. The important aspect is that all students have to take these classes, so they are largely designed for students with the least prior knowledge (the definition of least prior knowledge varies by program).
2. Some number of specializations, collections of electives around a theme, that vary by the student’s program of study. Some smaller programs have a single specialization, while others might have several. These allow for customization.

The core classes are largely the problematic ones for those students other than pre-career or early mid-career. They’re often pitched at too low of a level for senior managers, leading to a feeling that they’re taking classes that aren’t very relevant to them.

Where does this leave us?

We have several current or potential audiences who want or need local government management training. And we have a degree program that only effectively serves those audiences closest to the beginning of their careers. This requires modifying the existing degree or coming up with a new one. These are things I’ll discuss in part II.

City-State Ideological Incongruence and Municipal Preemption

Barber and Dynes, American Journal of Political Science

A growing concern among municipal officials across the United States is that their policymaking capacity is under attack by state legislatures who are increasingly likely to preempt those municipalities. However, determining the extent to which municipalities are preempted is challenging. We overcome this by surveying a large sample of municipal officials from across the United States. We find that officials from municipalities that are more ideologically distant from their state overall are more likely to report being preempted by their state government. Moreover, this pattern is driven by more liberal municipalities in both Republican and Democratic states reporting higher rates of preemption. Additionally, municipalities under unified state governments are more likely to report preemption, especially those under unified Republican control. These findings have important implications for the quality of representation in our federalist system and indicate that preemption is not just an issue between Republican states and liberal urban cities.

Barber and Dynes is one of those “long in the tooth” papers, having been published online in 2021. It provides useful insight into a common claim about preemption (ideological distance between state and local officials). The only real downside is the reliance on self-reported preemption–local official’s recall may not be perfect. Still, I found the paper hugely useful in my own work on preemption.

American Local Government Elections Database

de Benedictis-Kessner, Lee, Velez, and Warshaw, Scientific Data

The study of urban and local politics in the United States has long been hindered by a lack of centralized sources of election data. We introduce a new database of about 78,000 candidates in 57,000 electoral contests that encompasses races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities and counties in the U.S. over the last three decades. This is the most comprehensive publicly-available source of information on local elections across the country. We provide partisan and demographic information about candidates in these races as well as electoral outcomes. This new database will facilitate a myriad of new research on representation and elections in local governments.

DATA! It’s hard not to get excited about the release of a huge new dataset on local elections. We have shocking little information on local elections, despite their importance to daily life, and this dataset is a huge step forward. I’m excited to see what comes of it.

Specialized Local Government and Water Conservation Policy in the United States

Switzer and Deng, Urban Affairs Review

Special districts are an increasingly important part of the local government equation in the United States, representing over forty percent of local governments. The spread of these governments is controversial, however, as some argue that they will have a negative impact on service delivery, due to a perceived lack of political accountability. Others argue that their focus on single policy issues allow them to more efficiently respond to the citizens they serve. Despite the controversy, only a few studies have quantitatively investigated the differences in service delivery between special district and general purpose governments. Building on Mullin’s earlier work, in this research note we investigate the relationship between specialized local government and water utility rates. We find little direct difference between special districts and general-purpose governments, with some minimal support for a conditional relationship between special districts and scarcity.

Of course, there will be a special districts paper on this list. This is a good one examining if there are difference between special district and general purpose governments in water conservation policy. Spoiler: there are not.

Decree or democracy? State takeovers and local government financial outcomes

Singla, Spreen, and Shumberger, Public Administration Review

Many states possess the authority to intervene in local fiscal emergencies, in some cases curtailing decision-making powers of local officials through the appointment of an emergency financial manager. Previous research has recognized that these managers can push through unpopular reforms that may improve financial health but come at the expense of local control and democratic accountability. We assess the financial outcomes after eight recent state takeovers relative to a matched counterfactual comprised of similarly distressed general purpose local governments. The staggered difference-in-differences analysis shows emergency managers improve budgetary solvency and increase fiscal reserves. These enhancements are achieved through significant reduction of general fund expenditures. Several long-term indicators show deterioration in financial health after state intervention reflecting a significant decline in long-term assets. Overall, municipalities subjected to a state takeover did not realize significant long-run improvements in financial health indicators relative to counterfactual governments.

State takeovers of municipalities have long fascinated me (my brilliant and hugely accomplished former RA from Rutgers, Ashley Nickels has written extensively on it). While the costs to democracy are well documented, the potential fiscal payoffs, i.e. the reason for doing the takeover in the first place, are less explored. Akheil, Luke, and Jason find short-term imporvements that do not appear to last. So, state takeovers “work” but not in a way that leads to any lasting financial improvements. Taken with the costs to local democracy, it’s increasingly difficult to endorse these programs.

Local public finance dynamics and hurricane shocks

Jerch, Kahn, and Lin, Journal of Urban Economics

Since 1980, over 2,000 local governments in US Atlantic states have been hit by a hurricane. We study local government fiscal dynamics in the aftermath of hurricanes. These shocks reduce tax revenues, public expenditures, and debt financing in the decade following a hurricane. Hurricanes create collateral fiscal damage for local governments by increasing the cost of debt at critical moments after a strike. Municipalities with a 1 standard deviation-above-average racial minority composition suffer expenditure losses more than 2 times larger and debt default risk 8 times larger than the average municipalities in the decade following a hurricane strike.

As climate change increases the frequency and severity of hurricanes on the southern U.S. coast, understanding the fiscal impacts of these storms on the ability of local governments to fiscally sustain themselves becomes more important. Therefore, Jerch, Kahn, and Lin is a timely addition to the literature. Hurricanes have a fiscal cost, and that cost is greater in communities with larger minority populations. Perhaps (sadly) not a surprising finding; however, it points to which municipalities need greater fiscal support in the wake of a hurricane.

Suburbs, Inc.: Exploring Municipal Incorporation as a Mechanism of Racial and Economic Exclusion in Suburban Communities

Wyndham-Douds, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences

This article provides suburban scholars with a starting point for considering how municipal incorporation contributes to suburban inequality. I conduct an exploratory empirical analysis of incorporation in 2010 and find that incorporated suburbs are less racially diverse, Whiter, and have smaller shares of Black, Latinx, and Native American residents than unincorporated suburbs, suggesting that incorporation and its related municipal powers enable greater racial exclusion than strategies available to unincorporated suburbs. However, incorporated suburbs vary, and racial exclusion is most apparent in suburbs incorporated during and after the postwar suburban boom. Further, recently incorporated suburbs are more economically exclusive than unincorporated suburbs. I end by calling for greater integration of incorporation into suburban inequality research.

In my opinion, municipal incorporation is understudied. There are data reasons for this; however, it is an important topic. This piece examines how incorporation is used to exclude minorities from suburban communities. Again, perhaps an unsurprising finding, but one that is important to document. This particular paper spurred me to push forward my own data collection on municipal incorporation. I hope to get that paper finished in 2024.

And that’s it! Imperfect, incomplete, but the handful of paper I found interesting or useful published in 2023.

The tilting function

Original function created by Stefan Jünger.

# Function to tilt sf
rotate_sf <- function(data, x_add = 0, y_add = 0) {
  
  shear_matrix <- function (x) { 
    matrix(c(2, 1.2, 0, 1), 2, 2) 
  }
  
  rotate_matrix <- function(x) { 
    matrix(c(cos(x), sin(x), -sin(x), cos(x)), 2, 2) 
  }
  
  data %>% 
    dplyr::mutate(
      geometry = 
        .$geometry * shear_matrix() * rotate_matrix(pi / 20) + c(x_add, y_add)
    )
}

The function essentially tilts the map layer and rotates it off-axis. Then we can arrange each layer on top of one another. See Stefan’s post for more technical details on what the function is doing mathematically. Importantly, the x_add = 0, y_add = 0 options allow us to offset map layers in the x or y directions. I use this extensively in creating the map below.

Concluding thoughts

Local governments in the U.S. are arranged in a complex manner, and showing that complexity is difficult. I present one method of reducing the difficulty of visualization while keeping significant information about the complexity of local government boundaries. Both the number of layers and the relationship between the layers are important.

On a more personal note, creating a map like this has been a bucket list item for a long time. I even considered hiring a graphic designer to make such a map. I am beyond happy that this is easily achievable in R, and that’s largely thanks to Stefan.

What next for the Reedy Creek Improvement District?

The RCID is dissolving in 2023. What now? The answer to this question is unclear. The legislation inserts a single paragraph into the Florida statutes and does little to explain how the dissolution will occur or what happens during the process. Undoubtedly, the law will be subject to litigation; however, the RCID, like all special districts in Florida, is subject to the The Uniform Special Districts Accountability Act, which outlines how independent special districts dissolve. This law specifies the debt and assets of a dissolving special district be transferred to a local general-purpose government, who assumes responsibility for paying off the debts and/or continuing to provide services. This likely means Orange (and possibly Osceola) County will have some responsibility for the transferred debt and assets.

Importantly, the tax levy that supports the RCID is also eliminated upon dissolution. Currently, the RCID taxes itself about double the average property rate of Orange County, FL. If Orange County assumes the debt, assets, and service delivery requirements of the RCID, it must do so with its own (lower) property tax levy. This could mean taxpayers county-wide will foot the bill in the form of future tax increases, or it might not.

Little about the process is known. Many of the actors in the process of dissolution have yet to be assigned their roles. The uncertainty of the process is the issue. If an implementation plan accompanied the dissolution, the responsible parties could react and plan for what happens on June 1, 2023. Right now, we’re left with many questions and few answers.

The influence of local governments on growth

How might the structure of local governments influence economic growth? There are two competing schools of thought. The “polycentrists” explain that more local governments can be a means to economic growth. Many local governments in an area create a competitive environment, where each government competes to provide public services most efficiently at the lowest cost. For overlapping local governments, the geographic differences in local government size offer the opportunity to match efficient production of services more closely, i.e., take advantage of economies of scale, and allow component local governments to make decisions on the level of service provision appropriate in their area.

On the opposing side, the “government reformists” suggest that fewer local governments can be a means to economic growth. Efficiency forms the core of the argument; however, mechanisms are different. Rather than focusing on competition-induced efficiency, the government reformists focus on potential administrative efficiencies of having fewer local governments. Eliminating duplication of services, overcoming coordination issues, and directly realizing economics of geographic scale are all possible mechanisms to drive growth.

In general, academic research falls more often on the polycentrists side. More local governments can be associated with higher growth or not, and city-county consolidations, a recommended government reform, is generally not related to economic growth.

What does all this mean?

Policymakers in the US sometimes claim that the structure of local governments is helping or hindering economic growth in their areas. Some areas are highly fragmented, and it is easy to claim this is a significant impediment (or enhancement) to growth. My results suggest a more tepid response. The structure of local governments can be important, but it is often region-specific and easily overshadowed by the underlying economic characteristics of metropolitan areas.

If a policymaker wants to develop a strategy to enhance economic growth, there are better options than to propose a radical alteration to the existing local government structure. There is more bang for the buck in improving local educational opportunities or working to reduce unemployment.

This article is based on the paper, “Political Fragmentation & Economic Growth in US Metropolitan Areas” in the Journal of Urban Affairs.