This article demonstrates that political culture is an important factor for human service delivery systems. Information from two metropolitan areas with different political cultures is used to test expectations regarding the design andfunctioning of these systems. Thefindings indicate that in a moralistic (as opposed to a traditionalistic-individualistic) political culture, state and local governments spend more for human services, provide more funding to nonprofit organizations, and compensate forfederal human service program budget reductions. In a traditionalistic-individualistic culture, on the other hand, the private sector is relatively more important for the funding of nonprofits and for their adjustment to federal budget cuts. This has implications for the level and range of human services available to the citizens of a community andfor the changes that can be expected in communities over time.
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