CONFRONTED by differences in the size of the public sector between political units or within one political unit over time the public finance economist, traditionally, has focused upon the levels of urbanization and industrial development as the major explanatory factors. Often this position is corroborated by relating per capita expenditures to income or wealth as a measure of industrial development. Differences in social, physical, and economic environment, in individual needs, and in the institutional or political setting have not gone unnoticed. Rather, they have been relegated to a secondary position, and scarcely have been related to the levels of consumption of public services. The neglect of these factors may have been valid since they may have had little influence upon differences in the size of the public sector among countries or over great spans of time. This neglect may also have been necessary because of inadequate data and meager quantitative methods. However, the quantitative evidence gathered in this study suggests that when the analysis is limited to the variation in the consumption of public services in major localities in the United States, variables representing all these factors are significant; income is one of the less important.' Method of Analysis