Abstract:

The relationship between residential stability and non-voting participation has been largely ignored in the study of context. Using individual-level reports on every 311 call for city services and a panel of individual-level, geocoded and personally identified, census data from a mid-sized northeastern U.S. city, we explore the relationship between the residential stability of neighborhoods and civic participation. We use individual census records to construct annual measures of residential churn, and its ethnic composition, at various levels of spatial aggregation. We then examine the correlation between churn and 311 calls in neighborhoods over time, as well as the causal effect of churn on a panel of individual 311 users observed over several years. We find that the composition of residential churn, rather than the quantity of new residents, has implications for local citizen engagement via 311.