Public services delivery in America's medium-sized cities: The relationship between changes in minority populations and changes in service mix, delivery methods, and expenditures

In the United States, municipal governments provide a wide array of public services that affect the lives of their residents. At the local level, public administration is largely matching the everyday delivery of public services to a diverse citizenry with equally diverse preferences. This research study examined an aspect of the issue by seeking to determine whether minority population proportions affect the mix of public services, provisioning arrangements, and expenditures.;Three hypothesized relationships were expressed in a model linking four minority population percentages to different levels of public services. To estimate the effects of minority population percentages on public service levels, data sets were constructed from responses to International County/City Management Association surveys on local service arrangements and information contained principally in county and city data books and city government finances data. Forced and stepwise regression analyses were used to measure the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The model did not perform satisfactorily in establishing linkages between minority population percentages and various levels of public services. However, the study found significant bivariate relationships between cities' black population percentages and the expenditures per capita for two major service categories. Although this research did not establish a nexus between minority population percentages and the way local governments provision public services, it provided an exploratory framework for further investigation.