ABSTRACT
There is an implied geography to most aspects of urban management. This geography is manifest both explicitly and implicitly: most obviously, the consequences of decisions made in an urban managerial setting are not aspatial - for example, differential tax burdens, the location of noxious facilities and targeted development strategies all involve locational decisions; at a more abstract level, the decision making process itself is also set within a spatial context There are over 19,000 different municipal governments in the United States alone, each of which potentially carries its own variant of a management structure, and its own system of representation. The nature of this structure will inevitably influence policy formation and administration. Therefore, since different forms of urban government allow for varying degrees of geographical representation, the form of the municipal electoral process is likely to influence the development and administration of local public policies.
