• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.389-410
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• 1995

Large metropolitan areas in the US are distinguished by highly fragmented fiscally independent suburban municipalities and special districts. The suburban fragmentation implies the congregation of similar socio-economic groups escaped from central cities and the disparity of geographical resources among local government jurisdictions. This study examines St.Louis County suburbs as a case study for the implictions of suburban governmental fragmentation and the fiscal disparities across local governmental boundaries by analyzing their relationship with public service provision using police and public school services as examples. The distribution of fiscal resources across political boundaries, the processes which created them, and public service inequalities reproduced from the disparity of fiscal resources reveal the causes and consequences of suburban governmental fragmentation. The central part of suburban fragmentation is the segregation of public goods consumption reproduced from the disparity of local fiscal resources, and it acts as a basic geographical segregating force in the suburban spatial organization.