Yule Heibel's Library tagged wsj_opinion →  View Popular, Search in Google

Cities/ metropolitan areas dominate the US economy: 12% of land mass, but 2/3s of population and 75% of gross domestic product. But municipal governments remain small and a crazy quilt:
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There are benefits associated with intense localism. Citizens feel a closer connection to their local officials (although does anyone really know the boundaries of their local library district?). And, in theory, individuals and firms can shop around for the government that most closely matches their preferred mix of efficiency, service and taxes.

Yet the drawbacks of fragmented governance far outweigh the benefits.

Fragmentation keeps government weak. With the landscape chopped into thousands of municipalities and special bodies, most local governments remain tiny, nearly amateur concerns, unequal to the widening challenges of global competition, suburbanization, revitalization and economic development.

Many states are bedeviled by what David Rusk, the former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., has called a crazy quilt of "little box governments and limited horizons." In geographical terms, little boxes ensure that in almost every region scores of archaic boundaries artificially divide areas that otherwise represent single, interrelated social, economic and environmental communities. Such divisions complicate efforts to carry out cross-boundary visioning, plan cooperatively or coordinate decision-making across large areas.
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wsj_opinion wsj.com bruce_katz municipal_government cities governance

Have had this article open in a browser tab for days now -- time to bookmark. Along with posts by CEOs for Cities, or Richard Florida, this article too points to the effect that gasoline prices are having on suburban housing, and on the "sudden" desirability of urban living. (Well, I say "sudden" because I've *NEVER* understood why anyone would want to live in suburbs instead of living in cities/ densely packed neighbourhoods where you just have to walk a block or two, or less, to find social activity...)

From the article, QUOTE:
"Expensive oil is going to transform the American culture as radically as cheap oil did," predicts David Mogavero, a Sacramento-based architect and smart-growth proponent.
(...)
Even though the area's housing market has been wracked by price drops of 25% in the last year and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, Mr. Friedman says he already has sold nine of 28 town houses near downtown that he recently completed, and three more are under contract, "which is not bad considering the dismal state of the Sacramento real-estate market."

Mr. Morris, the developer, says the housing downturn is hurting the places that have the "dumbest growth. Smart growth works when the rest of it doesn't."
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smartgrowth wsj_opinion urbanplanning cities suburbia gasoline cost_of_living

- profile/ overview of Michelle Rhee, the D.C. schools chancellor who's rocking the traditional bureaucratic boat of public schooling:
"She says she keeps hearing from worried city council members that some teachers and administrators are frightened of her. They are feeling pressure and that's a problem. Her answer? Get used to it. 'I'm going to hold people accountable and I'm going to hold their feet to the fire. If they're feeling pressure--good! I feel pressure every day because I have the education of 49,000 kids in my hands.'"
- I say go for it, and damn all the complaining from some sectors. Any time a bureaucracy serves primarily itself instead of its clients/ constituents, it needs a wake up kick in its nether regions, as well as a major dismantling. You can't decentralize centrally (Marshall McLuhan, paraphrased).

education michelle_rhee reform school washington_dc wsj_opinion