| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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adopted a form of independent cities in this century which makes the state unsuitable for comparison. See figure 1.3.
The Southwestern states considered in the analysis are Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. These states were initially colonized by Spain, have relatively large counties, and have similar histories of local government structure. See figure 1.4.
We specifically chose to test our models on different samples, as we wished to construct simulation models for relatively homogenous groups. As a consequence, binary variables for regional specific variation were viewed at the outset to dampen the value of the estimation. Therefore, we rejected this approach.
Figure 1.4. Southwestern study region (counties and municipalities marked).
