Do Advanced Information Technologies Produce Equitable Government Responses in Coproduction: An Examination of 311 Systems in 15 U.S. Cities

Abstract

This article seeks to answer the following primary research question: Do governments respond differently to citizen service requests depending on where those requests originate in the city? This study is particularly salient in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in response to police violence or the gross neglect of infrastructure in Flint, MI. Although numerous studies have been able to demonstrate bias in policing, few (if any) have looked at biases that may be present in other types of general government services. Empirical evidence has supported the claims by some that some cities were responding slower to service requests made in poor and minority neighborhoods than they were in the richer, whiter neighborhoods, but these earlier works were from an era before 311. The article seeks to fill this gap in the modern coproduction literature to evaluate whether advanced information technologies enable equitable responses by governments. The results of our 15-city study of 311 systems (nonemergency service requests made by city residents) demonstrate no systematic differences in how the cities respond that would indicate a bias against minorities and poorer residents. Unsurprisingly, the effects are not consistent across all of our sample cities. Although some cities have statistically significant differences showing slower responses for these neighborhoods and others show quicker, the practical differences are so small as to be of little concern during our study period (2007–2016).