Local Governance Structure and Sustainability

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Fitzgerald, Keith

Keywords

Sustainability, Local Government, Reform Governments

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the effects of local government structure on the pursuit of sustainability initiatives by Florida municipalities. Preliminary research has shown a link between descriptive representation and policy outcomes. A substantial amount of research has fortified claims linking moves to district representation to significant improvements in the representation of racial and language minorities. Research on sustainability initiatives indicates that cities with a smaller percentage of minorities are more likely to pursue sustainability policies. My hypothesis follows that cities who elect their representatives at large would have systems of representation biased against minorities, in other words the polity would be more substantively representative of non-minorities and thus more likely to pursue sustainability policies. Using the Student's t-test I compared 40 sample cities' electoral structures with the Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously Index (TSCSI) developed by Portney as an indicator of cities' pursuit of sustainability policies test my hypothesis. I could not find a difference in the mean TSCSI scores between cities with district and nondistrict electoral structures.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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