Governing the Tap
Governing the Tap

Author: Megan Mullin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2009-08-21

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 0262258390

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An analysis of the political consequences of special district governance in drinking water management that offers new insights into the influence of political structures on local policymaking. More than ever, Americans rely on independent special districts to provide public services. The special district—which can be as small as a low-budget mosquito abatement district or as vast as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—has become the most common form of local governance in the United States. In Governing the Tap, Megan Mullin examines the consequences of specialization and the fragmentation of policymaking authority through the lens of local drinking-water policy. Directly comparing specific conservation, land use, and contracting policies enacted by different forms of local government, Mullin investigates the capacity of special districts to engage in responsive and collaborative decision making that promotes sustainable use of water resources. She concludes that the effect of specialization is conditional on the structure of institutions and the severity of the policy problem, with specialization offering the most benefit on policy problems that are least severe. Mullin presents a political theory of specialized governance that is relevant to any of the variety of functions special districts perform. Governing the Tap offers not only the first study of how the new decentralized politics of water is taking shape in American communities, but also new and important findings about the influence of institutional structures on local policymaking.

Profession of City Planning, the
Profession of City Planning, the

Author: Lloyd Rodwin

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1412846692

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In thirty-four provocative and insightful chapters, the nation's leading planners present a definitive assessment of fifty years of city planning and establish a benchmark for the profession for the next fifty years. The book appraises what planners do and how well they do it, how and why their current activities differ from past practices, and how much and in what ways planners have or have not enhanced the quality of urban life and contributed to the intellectual capital of the field. How have the goals, values, and practices of planners changed? What do planners say about their roles and the problems they confront? What is the relevance of their skills, from design capabilities and environmental savvy to intermediate and long-term perspectives and the pragmatics of implementation? The contributors seeking to answer these questions include Anthony Downs, Nathan Glazer, Philip B. Herr, Judith E. Innes, Terry S. Szold, Lawrence J. Vale, and Sam Bass Warner, Jr. The Profession of City Planning contrasts with the main changes in the US over the second half of the twentieth century in city planning. Sector images of the practice and effects of planning on housing, transportation, and the environment, as well as the development of economic tools are also discussed.