Service demand expands to absorb any resource increase in street-level bureaucracies

Evidence

A distinct characteristic of the work setting of street-level bureaucrats is that the demand for services tends to increase to meet the supply. If additional services are made available, demand will increase to consume them. If more resources are made available, pressures for additional services utilizing those resources will be forthcoming. The analogy to the development of traffic patterns on the Long Island Expressway is compelling. In the name of relieving congestion during rush hours on this infamous highway, traffic engineers added additional lanes. But every additional lane, while marginally decreasing driving time to New York City, induced more people to use the road. This additional traffic restored the traffic jam that the new lanes had been designed to correct. Utilization increased to meet the supply of road space until commuting time reached the previous level. A new equilibrium was restored with the same degree of congestion during rush hours, although with a higher volume of traffic. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 277

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the well-known ‘supply creates its own demand’/Say’s law family and to induced-demand research in healthcare economics; also relevant to user’s interest in how administrative expansion feeds routinization. — connects to: Street-level bureaucrats face demand that always expands to meet service supply. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 603; Street-level agencies expand services or clients rather than refuse demand, ensuring chronic understaffing — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 326; Street-level bureaucracies can never be adequately resourced — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 276
• SEED: Possible essay: why efficiency gains in public services reliably get eaten by induced demand, and what that implies for resourcing as a lever of reform.

Broader Connections

• Street-level bureaucrats face demand that always expands to meet service supply. #corroborates (1.00) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 603
• Street-level agencies expand services or clients rather than refuse demand, ensuring chronic understaffing #expands (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 326
• Street-level bureaucracies can never be adequately resourced #corroborates (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 276