What are the dynamics of the town, how are taxes redistributed, do the citizens feel they are heard by the mayor and city council on matters that concern them.
William Faulkner wrote a trilogy on the dynamics of power on civics. The Long Hot Summer was the film version of The Hamlet. The son in this story reaches the boiling point and commits arson.
Also worth reading is Joseph Wambaugh's The New Centurians- the rise of a militarized police force in Los Angles under Chief Parker starting in the 1950s, the Watts Riots, the causes and aftermath of the Watts Riots and the phenomena of cultural and social masochism.