1. Jurisdictional Fragmentation and Housing Outcomes
Bryan Grady, Research Analyst
Office of Affordable Housing Research and Strategic Planning
Ohio Housing Finance Agency

2. Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone and should not be construed as official policy positions or conclusions of the State of Ohio or the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
This material is derived from my dissertation research at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and was supported by a fellowship from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy.
Portions of this research were developed in partnership with Judd Schechtman, also a Rutgers doctoral candidate.

3. Fragmentation in Ohio Government Type Count Counties 88 Municipalities
937
Townships
1,308
School Districts
668
Special Districts
841
GRAND TOTAL
3,843
Columbus is the only major city in Ohio with “elasticity” (Rusk 2013), meaning that the central city has expanded spatially along with its region
Others are “boxed in,” with aging, inferior housing stock and numerous legacy costs; real estate market becomes very polarized (Orfield 1997)
To give you some comparison:
California: 4,425 Florida: 1,650
Source: 2012 US Census of Governments

4. Okay, so what?
Having numerous municipalities in a region means every community can pursue its own land use and zoning policy
Affluent areas can pick the most fiscally desirable land uses (e.g. high-end homes for empty nesters) and offload the rest
Affordable housing, esp. for families, becomes concentrated in the poorest communities, amplifying existing inequalities
More inclusive cities can plan comprehensively, spreading the fiscal impacts across a larger, more representative population

5. What are the implications?
Diversion of funds from redistributive social programs toward intraregional economic development incentives (Basolo 2000)
Inefficient provision of housing choice vouchers, i.e. Section 8, within a metropolitan area (Katz and Turner 2001)
More severe policies toward vice crimes (Sharp 2004) and minor civil violations (Balko 2014)
Ultimately, if unchecked, “anti-government” (Weiher 1991)

6. Methodology
OLS regression models specified to estimate residential segregation and sprawl with respect to fragmentation
Segregation represented by dissimilarity indices for Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanics at the Census tract level, computed by Univ. of Michigan Population Studies Center
Sprawl measured by Ewing et al. (2014): development density, land use mix, activity centering, and street accessibility
Fragmentation evaluated in terms of number of governments per capita and Metropolitan Power Diffusion Index (Miller 2012)

7. MPDI Map Source: http://diversitydata.org/Data/Maps/Show.aspx?ind=154
Notes: Only the 100 largest MSAs are shown. Figures are from 2002.

8. Key results
Fragmentation found to be strongly correlated with segregation of African-American households, but not Asians or Hispanics; disparities may be due to historical factors, settlement patterns
Residential density, positively correlated with MPDI in isolation, is negatively correlated if control variables are added to model; this aligns with existing literature (e.g. Levine 2005) on the prevalence and impact of local exclusionary zoning policies

9. References
Balko, Radley. “How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty.” Washington Post, September 3, county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/.
Basolo, Victoria. “City Spending on Economic Development versus Affordable Housing: Does Inter- City Competition or Local Politics Drive Decisions?” Journal of Urban Affairs 22:3 (2000),
Ewing, Reid et al. (2014).
Katz, Bruce and Margery Austin Turner. “Who Should Run the Housing Voucher Program? A Reform Proposal.” Housing Policy Debate 12:2 (2001),
Levine, Jonathan. Zoned Out. Resources for the Future Press: Washington, 2005.
Miller, David et al. (2012). Diffusion Index/tabid/1321/Default.aspx.
Orfield, Myron. Metropolitics. Brookings Institution Press: Washington, 1997.
Rusk, David. Cities without Suburbs. Wilson Center Press: Washington, 2013.
Sharp, Elaine. “Metropolitan Structure and the Sex Business.” From Metropolitan Governance: Conflict, Competition & Cooperation by Richard Feiock (ed.), Chapter 8. Georgetown Press: Washington, 2004.
Weiher, Gregory. Fractured Metropolis: Political Fragmentation and Metropolitan Segregation. SUNY Press: Albany, 1991.