Abstract
This thesis examines the effect of regional socioeconomic diversity and secondarily the effect of political conservatism on the success or failure of attempts to create consolidated regional governments. Existing literature suggests that socioeconomic
diversity is not an important factor in regional consolidation. However, these arguments have not been adequately tested. This thesis evaluates new evidence that socioeconomic diversity may be important.
This thesis uses information in existing literature and a list of city-county consolidations from the National Association of Counties to generate a sample of regional consolidation attempts between 1967 and 2006. I collected demographic and socioeconomic data from the 1950-2000 US Censuses for the socioeconomic diversity variables. I also used selected County-level presidential election data between the 1960's and 2000's for the political conservatism variable. The dependent variable, the outcome of a regional consolidation measure, is measured by "pass" or "fail."
After conducting a Qualitative Comparative Analysis and interpreting its results, this thesis finds some evidence that socioeconomic diversity and political conservatism may be important factors in regional consolidation. More research is necessary to answer the question definitely. Finally, this thesis suggests what type of future research is most desirable.