City Size and Political Participation in Local Government Reassessing the Contingent Effects of Residential Location Decisions Within Urban Regions

J. Eric Oliver's finding that city size influences the political participation of residents has been challenged by studies suggesting that differences in population density within cities and how the population is distributed across cities within regions may moderate any negative effects of city size. We analyze these propositions of contingent effects by examining self-reported participation activities from a random sample of residents from the state of Michigan in the summer of 2005. Our findings confirm the importance of the conditional effects of population density on the relationship between city size and political participation. The support provided by our analysis for the other contingent factors is more mixed.