Urban E-Government Initiatives and Environmental Decision Performance in Korea

Although e-government initiatives have been credited as enginesof government reform, empirical evidence is insufficient todetermine their effects on public sector performance. To explorethe impact of e-government on local governance, this articleexamines how e-government initiatives influence the perceivedperformance of environmental decision making in an urban contextand what organizational and contextual factors affect Web-aideddecision performance. Data were collected from the content analysisof city government Web sites and a nationwide survey of cityofficials in Korea. Findings from path analysis show that (1)information technology leadership of senior management and Website quality are key to decision intelligence, quality, andspeed and (2) e-government Web divide, a gap in the capabilityof city Web sites to support public service delivery and democraticinteraction, translates into disparities in environmental decisionperformance across cities. Additionally, environmental activismis a significant factor shaping the impact of e-government onenvironmental decision making. E-government initiatives contributeto local governance performance, but their impacts vary, dependingon Web site quality and the entrepreneurial leadership of publicmanagers.     

选举后的治理问题:困境及缓释之道——基于上海城市社区的调查分析

民主决策、民主管理和民主监督都是社区治理的重要内容。当前,上海城市社区建设总体情况良好,但依旧存在选举后的治理难题。要针对社区治理难题,提升社区治理绩效,必须构建民主合作型社区治理体制,还应健全社区内部治理、拓展社区外部环境、充分发挥政府的主导作用、优化公共服务体制等,重视理顺政社关系,合理架构社区内部的组织关系。     

Urban poverty,economic restructuring and poverty reduction policy in urban China: Evidence from Shanghai, 1978–2008

This article uses the city of Shanghai as a case study to analyze the changing institutional mechanisms for the new urban poverty stratum in China. Specifically, the article examines urban poverty in relation to economic restructuring and the transformation of the welfare provision system in three stages of market reforms. The article first examines the overall economic growth strategies at the national level, and then examines local government policy outcomes at the city level. The impacts of institutional changes on urban poverty and social inequality are subsequently. Finally, the article assesses the current poverty reduction policies and proposes a “social inclusion” framework to alleviate urban poverty in China.     

The role of urban indicators in city management: a proposal for Croatian cities

Cities are dynamic economic and social structures that play a dominant role in both national and international economies. They are centers of population, production, consumption, and development. Cities utilize all advantages of economy of scale, proximity, and concentration. On the other hand, they produce high environmental pressures and diminish thereby the quality of life for urban residents. Indicators (environmental, economic, and governance and management) are seen as a tool that would help policy-makers in formulating urban policy that would lead cities towards sustainability and provide assistance for monitoring their development and municipal performance. The aim of this paper is to consider the role that urban indicators can play in city management. We present basic features of urban indicators that will determine their usefulness in urban management. This paper provides the framework to include environmental and economic indicators, as well as governance and management indicators, in successful urban management.     

Politics and performance: the implications of emerging governance arrangements for urban management approaches and information systems

Challenges to traditional public sector approaches to urban government have had an impact on various aspects of governance and management, including political arrangements, decision making processes, ways of ensuring accountability, the allocation of roles and responsibilities between public sector agencies and other potential service providers and between different levels of government, and the mobilisation and allocation of financial resources for urban development. These are discussed, drawing in particular on recent research on urban poverty and governance in ten cities in the South. The changing approaches to urban government and management have been accompanied by attempts to define criteria by which urban governance arrangements and performance can be assessed, which are summarised and critically evaluated. Finally, the potential value of a particular set of tools (GIS) for emerging approaches to urban governance is assessed. Their potential for improving the information available to all governance actors is recognised. However, because of their cost and technological and managerial demands, as well as the limited effectiveness of spatial planning and inequalities in access to information, plans for their use must be financially, institutionally and politically realistic.     

影响高密度城市的城市更新因素——以香港为例

香港高密度城市发展模式闻名于世。这种模式的形成或是由于城市新的发展需要，或是由于城市更新，后者是目前香港政府为提高公众居住条件和建成环境质量所使用的主要手段。本文聚焦城市更新，旨在突出当前香港城市改造实践中的不足，并从文献中筛选出影响城市设计的主要考虑因素，阐析它们如何能够从各方面支持本地社区发展。笔者通过问卷调查及后期资料分析，搜集和评估了香港专业设计人士与市民的意见，提炼出提升城市更新项目可持续性的关键设计因素。但愿本文的结论能为香港的开发商、城市设计者以及政府官员在日后的可持续城市更新项目中带来启示。     

上海社会组织参与城市公共治理研究

推动社会组织参与治理是完善城市公共治理、提升治理绩效的重要一环.上海应提升对社会组织作用的认识水平,推动社会组织进一步填补城市公共治理漏洞:促进社会组织优化产品和服务,提升精细化水平,改善城市公共治理绩效;积极构建整合社会组织参与城市公共治理的格局体系,促进社会组织广泛参与;完善体制机制、丰富和拓宽参与渠道,提升参与便捷性和有效性;搭建协作平台,促进多主体协作联动,提升治理效率.     

Restructuring for growth in urban China: Transitional institutions,urban development,and spatial transformation

This research examines government policies and urban transformation in China through a study of Hangzhou City, which is undergoing dramatic growth and restructuring. As the southern center of the Yangtze River Delta, an emerging global city region of China, Hangzhou has been restlessly searching for strategies to promote economic growth and survive the competition with Shanghai. This paper analyzes Hangzhou’s development strategies, including globalization, tourism, industrial development, and urban development, in the context of shifting macro conditions and local responses. We hold that urban policies in China are situated in the broad economic restructuring and the gradual, experiential national reform and are therefore transitional. The paper suggests that China’s urban policies are state institution-directed, growth-oriented, and land-based, imposing unprecedented challenges to sustainability and livability. Land development and spatial restructuring are central to urban policies in China. Last, while Hangzhou’s development strategies and policies to some extent reflect policy convergence across cities in China, local/spatial contexts, including local settings, territorial rescaling and land conditions, are underlying the functioning of development/entrepreneurial states.     

Urbanization policy: Lessons from South America for South Africa?

South African cities are currently moving through a critical period in the history of their development. Rates of growth over the last few years have been unprecedented and many of the factors which shape urban development (legislation, institutional structures, government spending patterns and so on) are currently undergoing significant transformation. Factors such as these have given rise to a concern that South African cities may face collapse if emerging problems are not addressed, and there has been intensified interest in the arena of urban policy. A significant feature of many of these current policy initiatives is that they look to other parts of the world (and frequently to South American countries) for “lessons” in solving the problems of urban settlement. This paper examines the feasibility of adopting policy models from elsewhere io address local development problems, and focuses specifically on the question of a national urban settlement strategy for South Africa. The paper concludes that a high degree of local specificity exists, and the simplistic adoption of foreign policy models can have a negative impact on attempts here to meet growing urban needs.     

Imagined communities, contested watersheds: Challenges to integrated water resources management in agricultural areas

Integrated water resources management is one of the major bottom-up alternatives that emerged during the 1980s in North America as part of the trend towards more holistic and participatory styles of environmental governance. It aims to protect surface and groundwater resources by focusing on the integrated and collaborative management of land and water resources and interests on a watershed basis. In this paper, we draw on the policy network perspective on governance to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of watershed-based processes of collaboration and integration for water quality protection in agricultural areas. The policy network perspective focuses on the interaction of actors, institutions and ideas within and among policy sectors to capture the intricacies of the policy process in increasingly complex and fragmented societies. Empirically, this study is based on the analysis of agro-environmental strategies for water quality protection in the Province of Ontario over the last 15 years. The contamination of a rural municipal well in Ontario in 2000, with its tragic consequences, translated into an ongoing pluralistic debate and strong attempts to fundamentally change the provincial policy style for addressing drinking water threats, especially agricultural pollution. Based on our analysis, we suggest that meaningful scales for collaboration and integration of land and water resources and interests at the local level, from the point of view of Ontario's agricultural policy network, do not currently include the watershed. We conclude that, instead of forcing watershed-based governance structures, the exploration and examination of more creative and flexible ways of linking watershed imperatives to existing socially and politically meaningful scales in agricultural areas of Ontario and elsewhere is warranted.     

Participation in the city: where do women fit in?

Women's priorities have often been ignored in the design of human settlements, the location of housing, and the provision of urban services. New forms of urban partnership are needed to develop participatory processes which include women and men at all stages of urban development. Participation is most commonly associated with political participation or activity. The author gives an overview of the "gendered city", then looks at how men and women benefit and contribute to urban life, through examples of opportunities for making a living and for using urban resources and services. She then moves away from participation as entitlement to consider participation as empowerment, looking at some problems faced by women in public office and grassroots organizations. The paper concludes in arguing that a gender perspective will not inform urban policy and planning processes automatically. Sections discuss gender and poverty in the city, making a living in the city, urban planning as a gender issue, getting around the city, access to resources and services, violence in the city, women's participation in urban governance, women's representation in public office, community organization and advocacy, men and gender issues, and forging linkages through participation.     

Resisting motorization in Guangzhou

Private motorization has accompanied unprecedented urbanization in China, as a matter of public policy. Planning at the provincial and city levels has supported the rapid build-up of the private car fleet in major cities through the development of regional and urban highway networks, higher capacity local streets and much higher standards for car parking in new developments. By contrast, urban planning until 1994 concentrated on the building of community and the support for a non-motorized lifestyle. Guangzhou experienced particularly rapid city-building during this period because it was at the centre of the market reforms launched in 1978. The communities that were built form a broad ring around the historic core of the city, constituting one of the most significant obstacles to government ambitions to maintain the recent growth rates in car ownership. Guangyuan and Jiangnanxi are examples of such middle-class, home-owning communities where daily life remains almost exclusively non-motorized. Self-organized groups in the community are increasingly vocal and active in their demands to enhance local environmental quality and restrict local motorization. Local municipal authorities, although increasingly active and autonomous, try to strike a balance between government objectives and local demands. The application of motorization illustrates the growing gap between high-level policy and grassroots urban planning in Guangzhou.     

New rural territories: Regulating the differentiated rural spaces

Taking the differentiating countryside as a major feature of rural spatial change, this paper explores some of the key development spheres which are influencing the process of differentiation with reference to the British case. Combinations of local and non-local networks, supply chains and regulatory systems incorporate different rural spaces. Four particular development spheres: mass food markets, quality food markets, agriculturally related changes and rural restructuring implicate, in their different combinations, the different rural spaces. This analytical framework raises some important concerns for the governance of differentiating rural space in its regional context. In particular, it suggests that notions of integration and holism of rural spaces will be difficult to achieve; and that governance and regulation becomes highly variable according to the relative significance of local/non-local networks. In conclusion, the implications of the analysis are examined in relation to the growing rural development policy discourse. This suggests the need for more regionally and spatially orientated policy which is more customized to the internal and external conditions different regional-rural spaces experience.     

城市可持续治理中的公民参与制度研究——西方的经验与启示

当前西方城市发展的主流思想是强调公民参与和以可持续治理为中心。在公民参与城市治理的制度建设方面,西方国家已经形成了较为系统全面的体系。反观国内,公民参与缺乏系统全面的制度保障,公民参与城市治理的机会太少,参与的有效性大打折扣,城市发展规划和城市管理的一些政策主要还是依靠领导＂拍脑袋＂做出,很少考虑到民众的利益诉求。为此,有必要吸收借鉴西方公民参与城市治理方面制度建设的先进经验来提升当前我国城市治理中公民参与的有效性和科学性,继而推进我国城市的健康持续发展。     

上海户籍迁入人口的变化与政策导向

随着社会经济的发展和本地户籍人口老龄化速度的上升,上海加大了人口迁入的力度,户籍迁入人口规模逐渐扩大。但是,迁入人口的类型主要是求学类迁入和投靠类迁入,户籍制度在导入人才和就业类迁入方面的作用并不大。上海的户籍准入尚未在整体上建立起公开与公平的机制,人口迁移管理体制和政策有待统筹协调。根据全国城乡协调发展和上海自身可持续发展的形势要求,上海必将加大人口迁入的力度,为此,上海必须进一步完善户籍人口迁入导向政策。     

The Aid Paradigm for Poverty Reduction: Does It Make Sense?

Thinking on economic policy for development has undergone many shifts in response to the perceived weak results of earlier adjustment reforms. A new donor consensus has emerged based around the central themes of economic growth, good governance and social development. This article examines the logic behind this new aid paradigm, revealing a nuanced story with country circumstances playing a critical role and particular interventions varying in impact. For example, growth does not always lead to gains for the poor that match the national average; public expenditure needs to be targeted to achieve social development, but effective targeting is difficult; governance reform may be critical but there is no simple governance blueprint, and the corruption‐growth association need not always be negative.     

Rural public transportation and the mobility of older persons: paradigms for policy

Federal policy regarding public transportation in rural areas is examined through a comprehensive literature review. Then, three alternative approaches to future policy are suggested. The current fragmented panoply of rural transit programs that serve a minority of the rural population is the result of cycles of federal regulation and deregulation and chronic underfunding of rural transit compared to urban areas. The public purposes of transit, distinctions of need and demand, and funding comparisons with automobile usage are some contexts which set the framework for the social, and economic, and sustainability paradigms. Specific recommendations within each paradigm are suggested.     

Racial inequality and the implementation of emergency management laws in economically distressed urban areas

This study examines the use of emergency management laws as a policy response to fiscal emergencies in urban areas. Focusing on one Midwestern Rust Belt state, we use a mixed methods approach – integrating chronology of legislative history, analysis of Census data, and an ethnographic case study – to examine the dynamics of emergency management laws from a social justice perspective. Analysis of Census data showed that emergency management policies disproportionately affected African Americans and poor families. Analysis indicated that in one state, 51% of African American residents and 16.6% of Hispanic or Latinos residents had lived in cities that were under the governance of an emergency manager at some time during 2008–2013, whereas only 2.4% of the White population similarly had lived in cities under emergency management. An ethnographic case study highlights the mechanisms by which an emergency manager hindered the ability of residents in one urban neighborhood, expected to host a large public works project, to obtain a Community Benefits Agreement intended to provide assistance to residents, most of whom were poor families with young children. We conclude with a discussion of how emergency management laws may impact social service practice and policy practice in urban communities, framed from a social justice perspective. We argue that these are not race neutral policies, given clear evidence of race and ethnic disparities in their implementation.     

Issues of the Elderly and Conflict Resolution

Public policy affecting the elderly, like public policy in general, is made in a fragmented, often chaotic, process. The result is usually unsatisfactory. A newly developed approach to creating public policy has recently been applied to issues affecting the elderly. The use of a mediator to produce a negotiated consensus among relevant parties is explored in this essay with the characteristic problems of the traditional approaches to policymaking being analyzed and the basic features of the mediated process being set forth. A case example involving the creation of policy affecting admission to nursing homes is described. Finally, the essay discusses practical problems likely to be encountered by those wishing to involve a mediator in a major public policy dispute.