“…The urban literature on competition dates back to decades‐old conceptualizations of local governments as “growth machines” and whether consolidated‐versus‐decentralized system of government achieved greater economies of scale or better captured negative externalities (Bickers, Salucci, & Stein, ; Hawkins, ). A more recent stream of research is built on public markets for goods (Peterson, ; Tiebout, ), and treats local governments as competitors seeking to grow their tax bases and add revenue‐generating economic development projects in an environment where services are delivered not just by rival municipalities but special districts and modernizing counties (Hendrick, Jimenez, & Lal, ; Jimenez & Hendrick, ; McDonald, ), often with negative ramifications for income disparity and segregation (Howell‐Moroney, ). Fragmentation has been described as a mechanism to improve service delivery when citizens are able to easily compare tax rates and service‐delivery effectiveness and efficiencies across numerous nearby jurisdictions and lobby their own government officials to improve their performance (Schneider, ).…”