Analyzing Citizen Evaluations of Municipal Services: A Dimensional Approach

Abstract

In the past few years, "Government officials and academic analysts have increasingly come to focus on 'service delivery' as the central issue and problem of urban policy-making" (Yates, 1974: 213). Critical to this area of inquiry is the need to consider citizen perceptions and evaluations of municipal service performance' (Kirlin and Erie, 1972; Morgan, 1979) and to determine those factors that promote citizen satisfaction with services provided (Durand and Eckert, 1973). Accordingly, a growing number of studies has attempted to explain the nature and determinants of citizen assessments of services (for a representative sampling of this research, see Aberbach and Walker, 1970; Willbern and Williams, 1971; Schuman and Gruenberg, 1972; Klyman and Kruckenberg, 1974; Lovrich and Taylor, 1976; Durand, 1976; Williams, 1977). While these studies have been instrumental in developing an understanding of factors affecting citizen evaluations of various services, they are limited in three respects.