Will information technology help reinvent government? It might, but only if it is correctly managed. This book provides a new model for management of information age reform, based on international case-studies drawn from the US, UK, mainland Europe, and developing countries. It offers practical guidance and analytical insights and will be of value to practitioners, students, educators and researchers in both public administration and information systems.

* Melds theoretical models with practical experience * Written by world-renowned experts on public administration * Guides future policy debates on helping to build effective and efficient states How does a government seeking to participate in and benefit from an integrated and interdependent world become more professional, technologically proficient, deregulated, and accountable? Reinventing Government for the Twenty-First Century tells you how. The authors identify the forces of globalization and the structural changes needed to increase state capacity and enhance global-scale participation. Professionals directly involved in assisting governments show public leaders and administrators how to improve the quality of their performance in government.

Recent US economic history is rife with examples of cities and regions that have experienced significant decline. Many of those localities began to slide after decades, even generations, of feeling immune to economic disaster. Boeing and Kodak, the steel industry in Pittsburg, and the automotive industry in Detroit all expected to make it golden into the distant future. Tapping into the available body of knowledge as well as- through nearly 70 interviews—the experiences of those who lived and worked in those times in cities around the United States—to identify the most effective strategies, Reinventing Local and Regional Economies delineates the dos and don’ts to observe in order to sustain economic vitality in any community. Written by Dr. Gerald Gordon, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Authority in Fairfax County, Virginia, the book explores lessons learned and examines the messages communities must be mindful of in order to ensure future economic stability. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Gordon identifies a set of foundational lessons that, while they are not guarantees of success, certainly portend failure if ignored by local planners. Each chapter explores a different prerequisite and then applies it to several case studies of the reinvention of local and regional economies. Each of these basic components of economic growth will then be examined against the backgrounds of the many communities studied, thus permitting comparisons and contrasts to be drawn. A comparative analysis of results from one community to another across a wide range of case studies, this book puts into clear context the observations about what works not only in one locale but in communities with common features facing common issues and getting similar results. Using case studies and real world examples of successes and failures, Dr. Gordon provides the tools to develop a proactive strategy that positions your community for surviving and thriving regardless of external stresses and adverse economic conditions that may be out of your control.

"A landmark in the debate on the future of public policy."—The Washington Post.

This book contributes to efforts in furthering the democratization and development processes in the Philippines by examining the decentralization efforts in Metro Manila. It explores existing as well as proposed development models for governance with focus on the effective and efficient delivery of social services, bringing forth growth with equity through development efforts, and addressing national-local concerns to promote political and socio-economic stability in the country. In doing so, the book examines the strong and weak governance points in the National Capital Region of the Philippines, and identifies areas for reform.

Look out for David Owen's next book, Where the Water Goes. A challenging, controversial, and highly readable look at our lives, our world, and our future. Most Americans think of crowded cities as ecological nightmares, as wastelands of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams. Yet residents of compact urban centers, Owen shows, individually consume less oil, electricity, and water than other Americans. They live in smaller spaces, discard less trash, and, most important of all, spend far less time in automobiles. Residents of Manhattan—the most densely populated place in North America—rank first in public-transit use and last in percapita greenhouse-gas production, and they consume gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn’t matched since the mid-1920s, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. They are also among the only people in the United States for whom walking is still an important means of daily transportation. These achievements are not accidents. Spreading people thinly across the countryside may make them feel green, but it doesn’t reduce the damage they do to the environment. In fact, it increases the damage, while also making the problems they cause harder to see and to address. Owen contends that the environmental problem we face, at the current stage of our assault on the world’s nonrenewable resources, is not how to make teeming cities more like the pristine countryside. The problem is how to make other settled places more like Manhattan, whose residents presently come closer than any other Americans to meeting environmental goals that all of us, eventually, will have to come to terms with.