Do Isolated State Capital’s Like Tallahassee Impact Corruption?

Interesting nugget today in the Buzz blog. Something I have theorized for years appears to now have empirical evidence to back it up.

From Adam Smith in the St Pete Times today:

For those of you who haven’t yet finished the latest edition of The American Economic Review, Profs. Filipe R. Campante and Quoc-Anh Do make the case that isolated capitals – like Tallahassee – tend to be more corrupt than capitals not so isolated. Their summary:

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability. We then provide direct evidence that the spatial distribution of population relative to the capital affects different accountability mechanisms: newspapers cover state politics more when readers are closer to the capital, voters who live far from the capital are less knowledgeable and interested in state politics, and they turn out less in state elections. We also find that isolated capitals are associated with more money in state-level campaigns, and worse public good provision.

The full report is here.

I have long lamented the lack of citizen participation that the inaccessibility of Tallahassee seemingly provides in state Government. I love Tallahassee the city and actually write this from a Starbucks on North Monroe Street. But to me the location of the State Capital has had a corrosive impact on the openness of state government. But my personal positive feelings about Tallahassee is strong which makes me torn.

Personally, I am very comfortable with Tallahassee as the Capital. But that is a personal situation, and going to a town I feel very much at home in. For the state itself and its citizens though an accessible capital city in the I-4 corridor, particularly Orlando makes the most sense. But as most of our readers know the attempts to move the capital south to Orlando in the early 1970s, led by Senator Lee Weissenborn (D-Miami) was unsuccessful and led directly to the building of the new Capital.

But Florida’s politicians have through the years become more and more remote. As the state’s population south of Ocala has boomed, Tallahassee has lost most of its direct air links to the rest of the state and fares have skyrocketed into the capital. Having the capital or at least the State Legislature meeting in a place like Orlando, whose airfares are among the lowest in the nation would be a positive step for openness in this state.

A potential solution would be to have the Legislature meet in Orlando while the other functions of Government remained in Tallahassee. But even that is far from perfect and even less likely.

What are our reader’s thoughts on the Capitol being in Tallahassee instead of Orlando, Tampa, Lakeland or St Petersburg?

2 comments

David · August 7, 2014 - 5:13 pm ·

If the legislature met in Orlando while the agencies remained in tallahasee, it might work out okay. But I could never support a scenario that guts a city by moving 20% of it’s jobs (I think that figure is accurate) to a new town.

But frankly, the location of the town is the least of the state’s problems.

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Fla Dem · August 7, 2014 - 5:23 pm ·

Tallahassee is more like the rest of the state than Orlando which is a fantasy land or Tampa which is different than rest of the state.

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