Differences between citizen and resident roles in local council politics

¶ … acting as a "citizen" and acting as a "resident" in local council meeting politics

The portrait painted by Harvard Professor Robert D. Putnam is that American vibrancy is dead; in Bowling Alone and other essays, he argues that civic participation in civil society has declined over the past decades. He notes that social and civic engagement are inextricably tied, and that together, the decrease in trust and participation marks the descent of the national "social capital," or its capacity to solve problems collectively. One visit to a city council meeting reveals quite a different tone. While the town may not pour into its halls in chairs and pews, the vitality and sense of keen involvement are unmistakable. Newspeople, cameramen, city council members, and townspeople clamor for attention. Despite the excitement, the people are split into two distinct groups: those influenced by policies and those making them. In many city council meetings, this boundary is limned by conversation on the differing roles of resident and citizen in local politics.

The unique collectivity of individual governance protected by the United States Constitution draws an interesting line between "citizen" and "resident." While a citizen who enjoys both the freedom of all rights and responsibilities here available, a resident is one whose enjoyment of and relation to American governance is necessarily limited. A resident who is not also a citizen may not vote in any federal elections. However, sometimes the plurality of citizen and resident cross over; usually, though, they are two distinct groups with separate levels of influence and importance in local politics.

Both citizens and residence comprise the constituency represented by city councils in local politicking. Citizens have full-fledged voting abilities and rights to all jobs; and whether the problem be unsatisfactory police performance, a pothole on Main Street, or sub-par delivery of services, citizens have a clear channel for making their problems voiced and discontents heard: voting. This direct involvement with the city council, in addition to the ability to serve on a city council, is not matched by a resident, who can be easily compared to the role a business plays in an area; instead of bringing in jobs, however, they bring in property tax.

Residents should be segregated into two groups for the perspective of influence and policy making at the local level. First, there are residents who are also citizens, and second, there are those who are not. Citizen residents have a very different operable role at the local level; for example, while one couple may not be citizens of Falmouth County, MA's Martha's Vineyard, they may indeed be residents there, owning and spending much time on vacation property. While the couple has alternative residence in Boston, where they are also registered to vote, the matters discussed at the Martha's Vineyard local city council meetings have clear ramifications on their lives. As residents, they have a right to voice their opinion and suggest that, perhaps, the council's rezoning of their lot from residential to commercial is not something with which they would be content. Nevertheless, in Falmouth County, without being registered citizens of the county, they are unable to vote their city council leaders out in local elections.

Being a resident of Birmingham, Alabama, however, would offer a different range of options. In Birmingham, most residents are immigrants, and are not yet citizens of the United States. Their role as resident is the only way to exert any control over the local and state politics that affect them, being summarily excised from any role in nation-wide elections. Residents who are not also citizens are categorized as either permanent residents or as conditional residents, with very little difference but demographic and reputation between them. In Birmingham, where transient workers are shuttled through the state to work on agricultural plants with Georgia-Pacific or local farmers, many of these residents are conditional, EB-5 Employment Creation Immigrants. Here, they have full right to enjoy the services provided for them by the city and state - including health care, education, public transportation, police protection - and maintain that benefit by voting in local elections only.

Yet, while residents participate in these elections, they are surrounded by stigma that handicaps their influence and policy-making ability. Since their ability to participate in local politics is different throughout all fifty states and even inside of those, they lack a clear channel for asserting their voices. Many are presumed to only be residents because they are workers or not vested in long-term interest of the area, and some citizens are hesitant to allow more control over local activities to those who may not be there to oversee them in twenty years; this bias, even if unduly, focuses the residents' interest on immediacy.