Urban Politics
Urban Politics

Author: Bernard H. Ross

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 2011-08-10

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0765630966

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This popular text mixes the best classic theory and research on urban politics with the most recent developments in urban and metropolitan affairs. Its very balanced and realistic approach helps students to understand the nature of urban politics and the difficulty of finding effective solutions in a suburban and global age. The eighth edition provides a comprehensive review and analysis of urban policy under the Obama administration and brand new coverage of sustainable urban development. A new chapter on globalization and its impact on cities brings the history of urban development up to date, and a focus on the politics of local economic development underscores how questions of economic development have come to dominate the local arena. The book traces the changing style of community participation, including the emergence of CDCs, BIDs, and other new-style service organizations. It analyzes the impacts of the New Regionalism, the New Urbanism, and much more at an approachable level. The eighth edition is significantly shorter and more affordable than previous editions, and the entire text has been thoroughly rewritten to engage students. Boxed case studies of prominent recent and current urban development efforts provide material for class discussion, and concluding material demonstrates the tradeoff between more ideal and more pragmatic urban politics. Source material provides Internet addresses for further research.

Cities Transformed
Cities Transformed

Author: Mark R. Montgomery

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-31

Total Pages: 553

ISBN-13: 1134031661

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Over the next 20 years, most low-income countries will, for the first time, become more urban than rural. Understanding demographic trends in the cities of the developing world is critical to those countries - their societies, economies, and environments. The benefits from urbanization cannot be overlooked, but the speed and sheer scale of this transformation presents many challenges. In this uniquely thorough and authoritative volume, 16 of the world's leading scholars on urban population and development have worked together to produce the most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the changes taking place in cities and their implications and impacts. They focus on population dynamics, social and economic differentiation, fertility and reproductive health, mortality and morbidity, labor force, and urban governance. As many national governments decentralize and devolve their functions, the nature of urban management and governance is undergoing fundamental transformation, with programs in poverty alleviation, health, education, and public services increasingly being deposited in the hands of untested municipal and regional governments. Cities Transformed identifies a new class of policy maker emerging to take up the growing responsibilities. Drawing from a wide variety of data sources, many of them previously inaccessible, this essential text will become the benchmark for all involved in city-level research, policy, planning, and investment decisions. The National Research Council is a private, non-profit institution based in Washington, DC, providing services to the US government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The editors are members of the Council's Panel on Urban Population Dynamics.

Reforming the City
Reforming the City

Author: Ariane Liazos

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-12-17

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0231549377

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Most American cities are now administered by appointed city managers and governed by councils chosen in nonpartisan, at-large elections. In the early twentieth century, many urban reformers claimed these structures would make city government more responsive to the popular will. But on the whole, the effects of these reforms have been to make citizens less likely to vote in local elections and local governments less representative of their constituents. How and why did this happen? Ariane Liazos examines the urban reform movement that swept through the country in the early twentieth century and its unintended consequences. Reformers hoped to make cities simultaneously more efficient and more democratic, broadening the scope of what local government should do for residents while also reconsidering how citizens should participate in their governance. However, they increasingly focused on efficiency, appealing to business groups and compromising to avoid controversial and divisive topics, including the voting rights of African Americans and women. Liazos weaves together wide-ranging nationwide analysis with in-depth case studies. She offers nuanced accounts of reform in five cities; details the activities of the National Municipal League, made up of prominent national reformers and political scientists; and analyzes quantitative data on changes in the structures of government in over three hundred cities. Reforming the City is an important study for American history and political development, with powerful insights into the relationships between scholarship and reform and between the structures of city government and urban democracy.

The Government Next Door
The Government Next Door

Author: Luigi Tomba

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0801455200

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Chinese residential communities are places of intense governing and an arena of active political engagement between state and society. In The Government Next Door, Luigi Tomba investigates how the goals of a government consolidated in a distant authority materialize in citizens' everyday lives. Chinese neighborhoods reveal much about the changing nature of governing practices in the country. Government action is driven by the need to preserve social and political stability, but such priorities must adapt to the progressive privatization of urban residential space and an increasingly complex set of societal forces. Tomba’s vivid ethnographic accounts of neighborhood life and politics in Beijing, Shenyang, and Chengdu depict how such local "translation" of government priorities takes place. Tomba reveals how different clusters of residential space are governed more or less intensely depending on the residents’ social status; how disgruntled communities with high unemployment are still managed with the pastoral strategies typical of the socialist tradition, while high-income neighbors are allowed greater autonomy in exchange for a greater concern for social order. Conflicts are contained by the gated structures of the neighborhoods to prevent systemic challenges to the government, and middle-class lifestyles have become exemplars of a new, responsible form of citizenship. At times of conflict and in daily interactions, the penetration of the state discourse about social stability becomes clear.

Citizen E-Participation in Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Creativity
Citizen E-Participation in Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Creativity

Author: Silva, Carlos Nunes

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2013-06-30

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1466641703

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The relationship between citizens and city governments is gradually transforming due to the utilization of advanced information and communication technologies in order to inform, consult, and engage citizens. Citizen E-Participation in Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing and Collaborative Creativity explores the nature of the new challenges confronting citizens and local governments in the field of urban governance. This comprehensive reference source explores the role that Web 2.0 technologies play in promoting citizen participation and empowerment in the city government and is intended for scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners in the field of urban studies, urban planning, political science, public administration, and more.

Global Trends of Smart Cities
Global Trends of Smart Cities

Author: Tooran Alizadeh

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2021-03-31

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0128198877

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Global Trends of Smart Cities provides integrated analysis of 135 cities that participated in the IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge in 2010–2017. It establishes evidence-based benchmarking of city geographies, city sizes, governance structures, and local planning contexts in smart cities. This book uses a combination of descriptive statistical analysis and real-world case study narratives to evaluate the ways in which each individual urban variable or their combination matter in the diversity of smart city approaches around the globe. It is acknowledged that the Smarter Cities Challenge offers a particular set of smart initiatives and is not representative of all smart cities around the world. Nevertheless, the global presence of the Challenge across five continents and its involvement with 135 cities of all size and socioeconomic status provides a solid foundation to conduct comparative research on smart cities. Considering limited comparative research available in the smart city debate, this book makes significant contribution in understanding the state of smart city development in urban governments worldwide. - Offers an integrated assessment of smart cities using a combination of statistical analysis and real-world case study narrations - Compares smart city interventions from the 135 cities that participated in the Smarter Cities Challenge with detailed case study narrations included for 17 cities - Demonstrates the ways in which geography, size, governance, and local planning context—each individually and in combination with each other—influence smart city development around the globe - Develops an urban research perspective to the smart city discourse otherwise dominated by digital and IT specialists, engineers, and business experts - Identifies the North–South divide as the most influential factor explaining how smart urbanism is framed worldwide and argues that the future of smart city development depends on how "smart" approaches the ongoing and increasing level of inequity and inequality not only within our cities but also at the transregional and transnational levels

Smart Cities and Smart Governance
Smart Cities and Smart Governance

Author: Elsa Estevez

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 3030610330

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This edited volume discusses smart cities and smart governance within the framework of the 22nd century sustainable city. Written by members of the Smart Cities Smart Government Research Practice Consortium (SCSGRPC), an international multidisciplinary consortium of researchers and practitioners devoted to studying smart governance, this book provides a foundation for global efforts to envision and prepare for the next generation city by advancing understanding of the nature of and need for novel policies, new administrative practices, and enabling technologies required to advance urban governance, governments, and infrastructure. The chapters focus on practical models and approaches, theoretical frameworks, policy models, emerging issues, questions and research problems, as well as including case studies from different parts of the world. A valuable addition to the body of knowledge on smartness in urban government, this book will be of use to researchers in the fields of public administration, political science, information science, and information systems, as well as policy makers and government officials working on implementing smart technology in their cities.

Managing the Sustainable City
Managing the Sustainable City

Author: Genie N. L. Stowers

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1317509889

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We hear the term “sustainability” everywhere today. In the context of city management, the term often refers to environmental concerns, both locally and globally. Managing the Sustainable City examines not only how cities can prepare to weather the local effects of climate change, but also how urban centers can sustain themselves through other modern management challenges, including budgeting and finance, human resource management, public safety, and infrastructure. This clearly written and engaging new textbook provides a comprehensive overview of urban administration today, exploring the unique demographics of cities, local government political structures, intergovernmental relations, and the full range of service delivery areas for which cities are ever more responsible. Throughout the book, two important components of city management today—the use of technology and measuring performance for accountability—are highlighted, along with NASPAA accreditation standards and competencies. Particular attention is paid to incorporating Urban Administration standards to provide students using the text will have a thorough understanding of: The ethics of local government management The roles and relationships among local and elected/appointed government officials, as well as what makes local institutions different from other institutions Strategies for engaging citizens in local governance The complexities of intergovernmental and network relationships to develop skills in collaborative governance How to manage local government financial resources as well as human resources Public service values such as accountability, transparency, efficiency, effectiveness, ethical behavior, and equity and emphasized throughout the text, and discussion questions, exercises, and "career pathways" highlighting successful public servants in a variety of city management roles are included in each chapter. Managing the Sustainable City is an ideal textbook for students of public administration, public policy, and public affairs interested in learning how cities can be sustainable—in their management, their policies, and their interactions with their citizens—as well as in preparing for and managing the impacts of climate change.

Does Local Government Matter?
Does Local Government Matter?

Author: Elaine B. Sharp

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0816677085

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Asks and answers hard questions about the consequences of local government programs for democracy