| Abstract: | Considerable scholarship documents a causal link between metropolitan growth and the resultant number and arrangement of local governments in metropolitan areas. Only scant research explores the reverse phenomena, that patterns of local government structure influence metropolitan population growth. Yet ample social science theory and case study evidence suggest support for such a causal link. This study examines empirically the influence of levels and changes in political structure on metropolitan population growth for 129 large US metropolitan areas between 1962 and 1982. The analysis extends previous research in two ways: first, by replacing aggregate measures of political fragmentation with a more sophisticated set of variables that capture different aspects of the multifaceted concept of political structure; and second, by examining the dynamic association between change in political structure and metropolitan growth. The results reveal mixed support for theories linking political structure to metropolitan growth. Of methodological importance is the finding that different dimensions of political structure interact differentially with metropolitan growth, suggesting that traditional aggregate measures of political structure obscure more than they reveal. |
