PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FUNDING FOR LOCAL PUBLIC PARK AND RECREATION SERVICES: ATTITUDES, IDEOLOGIES, AND VALUES
Open Access
- Author:
- Pitas, Nicholas A
- Graduate Program:
- Recreation and Parks
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 21, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Andrew Mowen, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Andrew Mowen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Alan Graefe, Committee Member
B. Derrick Taff, Committee Member
Rama Radhakrishna, Outside Member
Benjamin Hickerson, Special Member - Keywords:
- Parks and recreation
Values
Ideology
Attitudes
Privatization - Abstract:
- The purpose of this dissertation was to better understand the factors that drive acceptance of or opposition to traditional and alternative funding strategies for local public park and recreation services. Traditionally such services are financed primarily through tax-based allocations. Recently however, the public funding model for these services has become increasingly inadequate and inconsistent. Following a “golden era” spanning the late 20th and early 21st centuries, support for local public parks and recreation fell dramatically. Overall funding for parks and recreation fell, funding decreased relative to other public services, and full-time jobs were lost at a hitherto unprecedented rate. As a result, alternative funding strategies have garnered increased attention as a potential method of retaining service quality and delivery. Privatization, any activity that reduces the public’s role in the financing and delivery of public services, is one such alternative strategy, and the focus of this dissertation. Although privatization may indeed mean selling public lands and facilities to the highest bidder, it is more likely to be a matter of degree. Individual practices such as corporate sponsorship, outsourcing, and increased reliance on volunteers are all examples of specific privatization practices. Just how “public” and how “private” any agency actually is may be a matter of debate, but implementing these practices is part of an incremental process moving an agency along a spectrum from fully public to fully private. Understanding constituent support for or opposition to these practices, as well as the factors that shape those attitudes, is of critical concern to practitioners who wish to explore privatization as a funding mechanism while maintaining public support and goodwill. Chapter One serves as an introduction to the concept of privatization, as well as an overview of the current public funding situation. Chapter Five provides key findings, implications for practitioners within parks and recreation, and potential future research directions. The body of this dissertation consists of three individual studies, which comprise the second, third, and fourth chapters. The first study (Chapter Two) provides an overview of attitudes towards privatization as a whole, towards individual privatization practices, and the factors that shape those attitudes. Attitudinal structure, as well as the level of ambivalence felt by respondents are also assessed. Within group differences are then presented, allowing for an understanding of how members of certain groups perceive the suite of privatization activities. Study two (Chapter Three) consists of a contingent valuation analysis, which calculates the relative percentage of tax-funding respondents would allocate to parks and recreation and nine competitive local public services. The role of values and attitudes in explaining net allocations to parks and recreation is then explored using a model based on the cognitive hierarchy of human behavior. The final study (Chapter Four) explores the role of values, ideology, and attitudes in shaping support for the implementation of privatization practices. A model based on the cognitive hierarchy of human behavior is presented and tested.