Focusing on democratization, flexibilization, ethnic diversity and restructuring of transitional and emerging states, this volume analyzes the changes and challenges for administrative structures at the beginning of the 21st century, from a geographical perspective. A team of leading scholars from throughout the world provides a differentiated spatial overview of key problems currently faced in public administration. By offering a wide range of regional case studies from Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the book tests current theories and concepts of government and governance, space and place, and society and community. In doing so, it offers valuable insights and makes policy implications.

Challenges to Local Government offers a timely discussion of how local governments have implemented public policies during the last decade. Concentrating on Britain and the United States (but with essays on Scandinavia, France and Canada) the authors document, explain and analyze the implications of these policies for local autonomy, focusing especially upon local economic initiatives.

This report, produced by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, explores how systems approaches can be used in the public sector to solve complex or “wicked” problems.

Contemporary Issues in Australian Urban and Regional Planning looks at a wide range of planning issues in Australia from the city to the regional scale, covering key topics in sustainable development and planning including economic, social, environmental and governance perspectives. It also covers issues of climate change, population and urbanization trends, economic competitiveness and the Quadruple Bottom Line (QBL) Sustainability agenda. The book is organized around three key elements: Pressures and Principles of development and planning for sustainability Planning Practice and Processes focused on essential topics including cities, regions, rural areas, and social and environmental issues and Future Processes and Prospects for planning practice and education covering the fundamental issues of assessing sustainability, managing risk, effective participation and evolving approaches to planning education. Contemporary Issues in Australian Urban and Regional Planning is an invaluable resource for students and practitioners of planning and related fields and provides a critical perspective on current issues in evolving natural and socio-economic contexts in Australian planning.

A Brookings Institution Press and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy publication Since the demise of urban renewal in the early 1970s, the politics of large-scale public investment in and around major American cities has received little scholarly attention. In Mega-Projects, Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff analyze the unprecedented wave of large-scale (mega-) public investments that occurred in American cities during the 1950s and 1960s; the social upheavals they triggered, which derailed large numbers of projects during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the political impulses that have shaped a new generation of urban mega-projects in the decades since. They also appraise the most important consequences of policy shifts over this half-century and draw out common themes from the rich variety of programmatic and project developments that they chronicle. The authors integrate narratives of national as well as state and local policymaking, and of mobilization by (mainly local) project advocates, with a profound examination of how well leading theories of urban politics explain the observed realities. The specific cases they analyze include a wide mix of transportation and downtown revitalization projects, drawn from numerous regions—most notably Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, and Seattle. While their original research focuses on highway, airport, and rail transit programs and projects, they draw as well on the work of others to analyze the politics of public investment in urban renewal, downtown retailing, convention centers, and professional sports facilities. In comparing their findings with leading theories of urban and American politics, Altshuler and Luberoff arrive at some surprising findings about which perform best and also reveal some important gaps in the literature as a whole. In a concluding chapter, they examine the potential effects of new fiscal pressures, business mobilization to relax environmental constraints, and security concerns in the wake of September 11. And they make clear their own views about how best to achieve a balance between developmental, environmental, and democratic values in public investment decisionmaking. Integrating fifty years of urban development history with leading theories of urban and American politics, Mega-Projects provides significant new insights into urban and intergovernmental politics.

First published in 1970, Regional Problems and Policies in Italy and France examines the problem of regional imbalance in two important countries of Western Europe and emphasizes that policies aimed at promoting regional development must form an integral part of national economic policies. The book is divided into three parts—Part I: Regional Problems and Policies in Italy; part II: Regional Problems and Policies in France; and part III: Regional Policy: Three Issues. Part I and II analyze how regional policy in France and Italy has moved away from the public assistance type of intervention into new, broader approaches which require reorganization of traditional procedures, change in economic structures, introduction of new products and methods of production, movement of workers between areas and occupations, and shifts in geographical distribution of population and employment. Part III explores regional planning and growth centres or growth areas in the light of Fench and Italian experiences. It further analyses the regional effects of the EEC and gives a brief account of how British regional problems and policies would be affected by the membership of Community. This volume is an essential reading for students of Western European governmental policy and the European Economic Community.