ARE THERE SENSIBLE WAYS TO ANALYZE AND USE SUBJECTIVE INDICATORS OF URBAN SERVICE QUALITY

The application of subjective social indicators to evaluating local governmental services poses problems of interpretation and analysis. For several reasons, higher levels of subjective performance do not necessarily imply that in any other sense service performance is higher. Therefore, it may be erroneous to interpret an indicator such as expressed citizen satisfaction with a service as a measure of the quality of service government actually provides. Comparisons of average satisfaction levels can be especially misleading, as several simple simulation examples illustrate. This paper discusses some of the techniques and assumptions necessary for dealing with these problems, and offers some recommendations for using subjective indicators in local policy analysis. © 1979 D. Reidel Publ. Co.