This article examines collaboration and homeland security preparedness in city governments in the United States. This is done through a survey of city managers in cities serving populations of 100,000 residents or greater. Based on a survey of the perceptions of city managers on homeland security preparedness from across the United States, these officials believe that there is high level of collaboration in their cities. The survey responses from city managers indicate that there is the most collaboration occurring in city government and the least with organizations statewide. City managers believe that they have a high capacity to coordinate and control homeland security preparedness; but they believe that there is a low probability of their city actually being a future terrorist target. The most prominent factors that explained homeland security preparedness were a city having a favorable economic and political climate. In a regression model, current homeland security preparedness is explained by the median family income of a city, the gender of the city manager, and the city manager having a graduate degree.
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