This article presents new evidence on the effect of technology on alienation from work that is pertinent to Blauner's inverted U-curve hypothesis. One data set permits comparative analysis at the organizational level and addresses a gap in the literature on worker alienation because most research uses individual level data grouped by industrial categories. This organizational level approach is applied to individual level data on retrained union printers to analyze the impact of automation on the work of skilled craftsmen. Humanization of work in postindustrial society is examined. The relationship between technological advance and alienation is more negatively linear than curvilinear.

No abstract

No abstract

Citizen evaluations of two alternative forms of decentralizing city government- administrative and political-are analyzed from the perspective of the respondents' ethnicity, the socioeconomic composition of their neighborhoods, and their ap praisal of the delivery of essential city services. Data were collected in 1974 from a sample of 1,288 residents in selected Community Planning Districts m New York City. While the literature suggests that blacks are particularly receptive to decentral izing city government, the data reported here show that whites are more likely than blacks to endorse both administrative and political decentralization. The strongest commitment to decentralization comes from residents most dissatisfied with current service delivery and from a small but politically active segment of the public. Citizen feedback can serve as an integral component in the evaluation of service effectiveness and as an important mechanism m the search for alternative social change strategies directed to improving the quality of urban life.

No abstract