The Intracity Distribution of Services: A Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

Significant differences in the distribution of public resources among neighborhoods within the same municipality have been repeatedly reported in the literature. Previous researchers have generally concluded that these differences in the distribution of governmental benefits represent “unpatterned inequality” produced by idiosyncratic events and bureaucratic decision rules. This study of the distribution of municipal expenditures for public services in New York City comes to a very different conclusion. Municipal expenditures for social services (health, welfare, and education) increase with the dependency of district populations, which suggests a compensatory model of distribution. At the same time, municipal expenditures for property-related services (fire, sanitation) increase with tax revenues, which suggests a contributory model of distribution for these services. City expenditures for police services, however, are determined by both tax contributions and degree of dependence. These findings indicate that differences in the allocation of public resources in New York City are patterned by clearly recognizable distributional criteria.