The Personal Side of Street-Level Bureaucracy

Abstract

Despite much evidence that municipal services are delivered mostly without significant class bias, suspicions remain that municipal administrators discriminate against the disadvantaged, particularly in one-to-one citizen-administrator interactions. This research develops evidence on that possibility by examining how helpfully and courteously citizens feel they have been treated on a broad range of contacts with the municipal bureaucracy in Cincinnati, Ohio. The findings suggest some areas of possible racial discrimination in bureaucratic treatment of citizens but no discrimination by income. In addition, much of the apparent racial discrimination results from blacks bringing more difficult problems to the bureaucracy, not from bureaucrats giving less consideration to blacks. Municipal administrators appear mostly to be exercising neutral competence in their dealings with citizens, and not always in a manner working to the disadvantage of blacks.