dc.contributor.advisor | McKinney, Hannah J., 1955- (see also Hiles, Hannah J., 1955- and Apps, Hannah J., 1955-) | |
dc.contributor.advisor | Erickcek, George A. | |
dc.contributor.author | McVittie, Scott A., Jr | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2012-05-23T14:25:11Z | |
dc.date.available | 2012-05-23T14:25:11Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2007 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10920/26276 | |
dc.description | v, 59 p. | en_US |
dc.description.abstract | This paper is an examination of the life cycles of local governmental units and the
role of urban sprawl within the cycle. The study area for the project is a 14 county area
in Southwest and Southcentral Michigan, including a deeper case study of the Kalamazoo
area. As seen in the background section, much has been written - both good and bad -
about urban sprawl as well as the problems that central cities face, but little has been
done to systematically determine how sprawl affects local governmental units and where
the blame should lie for central cities' problems. This paper is in response to that void
and will examine the interaction between urban sprawl and local governments.
The first analysis of the paper is a regression that models the tax rate of a
governmental unit as a function of its percent change in population over the previous four
years, percent change in density over the previous four years, and the difference in the
commercial to commercial plus residential SEV ratio over the previous four years, as
well as city, central city, and charter township dummy variables. It is expected that
population will have a positive relationship to the tax rate, while density and the ratio will
have negative relationships. Additionally, the dummy variables are all expected to have
positive relationships. The justification for these expectations is that as population
increases more services must be provided, as density increases economies of scale are
realized and tax rates decrease, since commercial properties have fewer costs associated
with them as the proportion of commercially developed land relative to commercially and
residentially developed land increases the tax rate will decrease, and the nature of the
dummy variables indicate a higher tax rate. After running a regression analysis, all
variables are significant and related as expected with an R2 value of. 7662, making it a
relatively good fit to the data. These results show a system of local finance that provides
incentives for sprawl while the tendencies of urban sprawl such as lower densities in
central cities and commercial development taking place in the suburban areas are
undermining the fiscal situations of central cities.
The second analysis is a case study of the City of Kalamazoo, the City of Portage,
Oshtemo Township, and Texas Township. The first topic examined is the growth rates of
their total expenditures. Nominally they all show growth; however, when viewed in
terms of real dollars the growth rates are much lower or stagnant. The critical piece of
this analysis is the introduction of a theoretical growth path of the expenditures of local
governmental units experiencing growth that follows the pattern of urban sprawl. This
theoretical model is supported with evidence collected from the four municipalities of the
case study.
The results of the analyses of this paper show a clear incentive for urban sprawl in
the structure of local financing system as well as clear indications that the central cities
are often not to blame for the problems they face. Furthermore, the case study advances
and supports a theoretical growth path for local expenditures. The hope of the paper is
that these analyses will show that sprawl is damaging to central cities and actually causes
many of the problems they face while providing insight into the evolution of local
governmental units under the pattern of urban sprawl type growth. | en_US |
dc.description.sponsorship | W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Kalamazoo, Michigan. | |
dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
dc.relation.ispartof | Kalamazoo College Economics and Business Senior Individualized Projects Collection | |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | Senior Individualized Projects. Economics and Business.; | |
dc.rights | U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder. | |
dc.title | Blaming the Victim: An Examination of the Life Cycles of Local Governmental Units and Their Relation to Urban Sprawl | en_US |
dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
KCollege.Access.Contact | If you are not a current Kalamazoo College student, faculty, or staff member, email dspace@kzoo.edu to request access to this thesis. | |