The Condition of Community Streets and Parks: A Comparison of Resident and Nonresident Evaluations

Abstract

Practitioners and scholars are concerned that citizen surveys about community services are heavily influenced by respondents' opinions on other issues and by their sociodemographic backgrounds. We search for these biases by examining the extent to which citizen assessments of streets and parks in Iowa communities match the assessments of a nonresident. The citizens' ratings correlate significantly with the nonresident's ratings, indicating that citizen evaluations are not entirely the product of other influences. However, further analysis reveals some bias. In particular, streets are rated higher in wealthy towns, towns high in political efficacy, and towns where residents rate government services good overall. Parks are rated higher in towns where people come together to solve problems and in towns where people rate government services good overall. Even with these biases, our research indicates that citizen evaluations convey reasonably accurate information about the condition of community streets and parks. . Tom W. Rice is a professor of political science at the University of Iowa. His recent research has focused on social capital, the transmission of culture, and community politics.

Los límites de la lealtad ideológica en la evaluación ciudadana del "performance" administrativo local

“…En la literatura administrativa de las dos últimas décadas, encontramos cada vez más autores que consideran al dato procedente de las encuestas al ciudadano como la única fuente válida para evaluar el desempeño de la acción administrativa 1 (Kelly y Swindell, 2002;Kelly, 2005;Licari et al, 2005;Van Ryzin, 2006Roch y Poister, 2006;James y John, 2007;Van Ryzin et al, 2008;Shingler et al, 2008;James, 2009;Morgeson III y Mithas, 2009;Chen et al, 2010;Bruning, 2010;Mizrahi et al, 2010;Carreras y González, 2011;Carreras y Carreras, 2011).…”

“…Investigaciones recientes parecen haber debilitado sensiblemente la primera hipótesis (Kelly y Swindell, 2002;Shingler et al, 2008;Licari et al, 2005; Van 2. «La principal decisión que debe afrontar el gobierno es la elección o el ajuste de políticas públicas, con el propósito de provocar satisfacción en el ciudadano, obtener votos y, en último caso, ganar las elecciones» (Dalehite, 2008: 893) 3.…”

“…Ambos colectivos, desde sus posiciones respectivas, coinciden en reconocer los aspectos con peor y mejor calidad. Este resultado es congruente con las investigaciones que han demostrado la validez del juicio subjetivo del ciudadano para evaluar la acción administrativa local (Licari et al, 2005;Van Ryzin et al, 2008).…”

“…¿Cómo se relacionan funcionalmente las medidas internas del acto administrativo, con las valoraciones de los actos de servicio desde el punto de vista del ciudadano? La evidencia de correlación en las últimas investigaciones (Licari et al, 2005;Van Ryzin et al, 2008) es, a todas luces, insuficiente para organizar una distribución eficiente de los recursos hacia la mejora.…”

Inter-Municipal Cooperation and Satisfaction with Services: Evidence from the Norwegian Citizen Study

“…At least two studies find a strong correlation between the two in studies of the citizen ratings of street maintenance, park conditions (Licari et al, 2005), and street cleanliness (Van Ryzin et al, 2008). In other words, there is some evidence that citizens are able to judge the performance of some public services quite "accurately."…”