The government proposes to give local authorities more freedom and powers to meet the needs of their citizens and communities. Local authorities will be encouraged to develop neighbourhood charters setting out local standards and priorities; to manage services at the level of the neighbourhood; to work more closely with neighbourhood policing teams. Local people will receive more information about services and standards, and will be able to question and get a response from local councilors through a new service, Community Call for Action. Executive power will be invested in the leader of the council, and there will be three choices of leadership model: a directly elected mayor, a directly elected executive of councillors, or a leader elected by fellow councillors with a four year mandate. New training opportunities will be provided for councillors. The making of byelaws will be fully devolved to local authorities. The authorities will be encouraged to bring together local partners to help improve services, and to develop a delivery plan - the Local Area Agreement - setting out a single set of priorities for local partners, for the Sustainable Community Strategy that they are already required to prepare. The performance framework for local government will be simplified: there will be about 35 priorities for each area, with a set of some 200 outcome based indicators replacing the many hundreds of indicators currently required by central government. Ambitious efficiency gains will be required as part of the 2007 comprehensive spending review. The second volume shows how these proposals will apply to major local public service areas and cross-cutting issues: community safety; health and well-being; vulnerable people; children and families; climate change; and economic development, housing and planning.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Discover insider secrets of how America’s transportation system is designed, funded, and built – and how to make it work for your community In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn Jr. delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America’s transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities. You’ll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people who use them. You’ll also find case studies and examples of design improvements that have revitalized communities and improved safety. This important book shows you: The values of the transportation professions, how they are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from those of the public. How the standard approach to transportation ensures the maximum amount of traffic congestion possible is created each day, and how to fight that congestion on a budget. Bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns on transportation projects, all while improving quality of life for residents. Perfect for anyone interested in why transportation systems work – and fail to work – the way they do, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is a fascinating insider’s peek behind the scenes of America’s transportation systems.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

The COVID-19 virus outbreak has rocked the world and it is widely accepted that there can be no return to the pre-pandemic society of 2019. However, many suggestions for the future of society and the planet are aimed at national governments, international bodies and society in general. Drawing on a decade of research by an internationally renowned expert, this book focuses on how cities and communities can lead the way in developing recovery strategies that promote social, economic and environmental justice. It offers new thinking tools for civic leaders and activists as well as practical suggestions on how we can co-create a more inclusive post COVID-19 future for us all.

Since the Global Financial Crisis, we have been approaching a crossroad in modern human history. The top 1 percent of people own more than half of the world’s wealth, while hundreds of millions suffer in extreme poverty. Governments quarrel over the politics of environmental policy, even as climate change poses an existential threat to life on the planet. And communities “hollowed out” by the forces of globalization still struggle to stand on their feet. How can we even begin to contemplate solutions to such immense and persistent problems? In Powering Prosperity: A Citizen’s Guide to Shaping the 21st Century, Dr. Indranil Ghosh brings together his decades of experience as a sustainable economic development investor, an entrepreneur, and an MIT-trained scientist, to provide a new framework for understanding the world’s challenges and the choices societies must make to address them. Central to Dr. Ghosh’s roadmap for positive change is a more inclusive form of governance, a collaborative model of long-term investment between public and private capital, and the empowerment of local communities to unleash their innovative and entrepreneurial energy.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.