Self-Organizing Special Districts: A Tool for Community Change and Development

Abstract

Can self-organizing special districts created from the bottom up be a tool for community change and development? Focusing on community services districts in California, this study introduces the context in which communities opt out of a county service system to reshape their governing structure for better representation. The empirical part measures their effectiveness, using single-family home sale prices as an impact metric. Leveraging multi-level difference-in-difference hedonic regression methods, the analysis shows that district formation increases the prices annually up to 16 percent, compared to both the surrounding and distant county service areas, indicating their efficacy as a tool for community change and development.