What academic research can—and cannot—tell us about reducing Elmhurst’s City Council from 14 aldermen to 7.
BOTTOM LINE:
Research does not prove that seven aldermen will govern better than fourteen. It does show that larger councils can bring costs of their own: fragmented decision-making, constituency-based bargaining, greater committee dependence, and less-clear accountability. Seven-member municipal councils are also quite ordinary. Moving to one alderman per ward is therefore a plausible reform, not an exotic experiment.
The question
Elmhurst elects two aldermen from each of seven wards. The proposal would retain every ward but elect one alderman from each. Would that weaken representation—or make the Council easier to follow and responsibility easier to assign?
What the research suggests
1. Representation includes accountability—not just head count. Jessica Trounstine’s review of local-government research describes representation in terms of authorization, responsiveness, and accountability. With two aldermen sharing a ward, residents have two officeholders to call, but responsibility for outcomes can also be less clear. One alderman per ward creates a simpler electoral connection: residents can follow that alderman’s record and judge it at the next election.
2. Larger councils tend to create more committee structure. John Pelissero and Timothy Krebs studied 160 U.S. cities and found that committee use was strongly related to governmental structure, particularly council size. A substantial share of city legislative business was assigned to committees. In Elmhurst, much detailed work is already done by committees of only three or four aldermen. A larger council can therefore add layers of process without ensuring that every ward participates in the detailed work on every issue.
3. More representatives do not automatically mean better government. Reza Baqir’s study of U.S. city governments found that greater political districting was associated with a larger scale of government spending. His explanation is the “common-pool” problem: each representative can seek benefits for a particular constituency while the costs are spread across the city. The study does not prove that every larger council overspends; it shows that adding legislators can create governing costs as well as benefits.
Seven is not an unusual size
A 2025 survey of municipal electoral institutions in Canada found that the most common municipal council size was seven, used by more than 2,000 municipalities; outside the largest cities, nearly all councils were nine members or fewer. Different countries organize local government differently, so this does not prove that seven is ideal for Elmhurst. It does show that a seven-member council is well within the mainstream of municipal governance.
What the research does not say
There is no accepted formula saying a city of Elmhurst’s population should have exactly seven, nine, or fourteen legislators. Nor does research establish that smaller councils always provide better governance. Jean-Philippe Meloche and Patrick Kilfoil found no significant relationship between council size and total municipal expenditures in their study of Quebec municipalities. They suggested that democratic quality and decision-making efficiency may be more important grounds for debating council size.
That caution sharpens the Elmhurst question. The case for seven rests on whether a smaller council can make government more understandable, responsibility more visible, and deliberation less fragmented while preserving representation for every ward.
A reasonable conclusion for Elmhurst
The research does not promise that seven aldermen will be better. It does tell us that bigger is not necessarily better. Larger councils can produce problems that sound familiar in Elmhurst: fragmented responsibility, committee dependence, and constituency-by-constituency politics. At the same time, councils of seven are commonplace elsewhere. If Elmhurst residents believe those larger-council problems are present here, moving to one alderman per ward is a reasonable structural reform worth considering.
Selected research
1. Reza Baqir, “Districting and Government Overspending,” Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 6 (2002): 1318–1354. Link
2. John P. Pelissero & Timothy B. Krebs, “City Council Legislative Committees and Policy-making in Large United States Cities,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 2 (1997): 499–518. Link
3. Jessica Trounstine, “Representation and Accountability in Cities,” Annual Review of Political Science 13 (2010): 407–423. Link
4. Jean-Philippe Meloche & Patrick Kilfoil, “A sizeable effect? Municipal council size and the cost of local government in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration 60, no. 2 (2017): 241–267. Link
5. William Dillabough, “Municipal Politicians and Local Electoral Institutions in Canada: An Overview,” Canadian Public Administration (2025). Link
Reading this research carefully
These studies examine different cities, institutional arrangements, and outcomes. None is a direct experiment comparing a 14-member Elmhurst council with a 7-member Elmhurst council. They are most useful for identifying tradeoffs: larger councils may broaden the number of elected voices, but they can also increase coordination costs and diffuse responsibility. The referendum asks Elmhurst voters to decide how they want to apply those tradeoffs in Elmhurst.