ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, we saw that minority communities are better served by consolidated rather than fragmented government. This conclusion, in combination with our findings in chapter 6 that institutions influence citizens' evaluations of public service and, therefore, their satisfaction with urban governance, provides us a strong basis for arguing that the fragmented or consolidated structure of local government influences urban political behavior as responses to dissatisfaction. For, as we saw in the test of the EVLN model in chapter 4, satisfaction—or rather, CURRENT DISSATISFACTION as represented in RELATIVE DISSATISFACTION—is our most consistent and stable predictor of EXIT, VOICE, LOYALTY, and NEGLECT behaviors. But do metropolitan institutions matter in any other way? We believe that they do, and that the character of that influence strikes to the heart of the nature of citizenship in the urban community.
