ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the data that compiled through personal and telephone interviews, newspaper reports, government documents, and journal articles. It draws on nine focused, face-to-face personal interviews and seven telephone interviews conducted during the months of July 1995 and March 1996 in Orange Country, California. The personal interviews were conducted on site at the offices of city and county officials. The telephone interviews were conducted from an apartment in Newport Beach, California. In order to obtain a well-rounded sense of the impacts of the bankruptcy on different sectors of the citizenry within the county, interviewees represent the interests of both the public and private sectors. As the county’s economic structure has changed, several high-ranking county officials have come to believe that the government’s present organizational structure is antiquated and should be restructured. There are several preventive measures that could have helped avoid a large-scale municipal bankruptcy.
