Abstract

Public-service activities are funded, located and administered by governments. The map shows the difference between the actual employment in all public-service activities and the expected level, based on the city's population. Unlike the various commercial sectors, the consumption of public-sector services is not closely related to income levels, so the expected levels of employment depend mainly on population size. Cities with more public-sector jobs than expected are specialized; those with negative values are deficient. In general, smaller cities are more likely to have high or low levels of public-sector specialization, since large cities tend to provide the full range of service activities and therefore have less specialization in services.