The governance of local communities : global perspectives and challenges / Thom Reilly, editor.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Riding roughshod over people : reading politics, economy and civil society in metropolization : a case study in Rome / Giulio Moini and Barbara Pizzo -- Challenges in public-private partnerships : the case of the Chapultepec cultural corridor in Mexico City / Jessica De Alba-Ulloa and Juan Arellanes-Arellanes -- Citizen initiative review : engaging citizens in local government / Erica McFadden and Thomas F. Reilly -- Communication in Spanish local bodies : working for politicians rather than citizens / Pablo Vázquez-Sande and Andrea Valencia-Bermúdez -- An inquiry for local open government data policy : is proactive models of open government data portal possible in Turkey? / Naci Karkin and Nilay Yavuz -- E-government development and challenges of freeing public sector information / Proscovia Svärd -- Key measurements for local infrastructure sustainability : case study of communities in Thailand / Preenithi Aksorn and Chotchai Charoenngam -- The spatiality of citizenship and governance : the case of water and sanitation in Durban, South Africa / Sagie Narsiah -- To consolidate or not to consolidate : an analysis of the enabling legislation that facilitates city-county consolidation / Pamela M. Schaal, Charles D. Taylor and Dagney Faulk -- Tsunami, civil society and sharia law in Aceh, indonesia : intersection of disaster, decentralization and gender relations / Siti Kusujiarti -- Russian local self-government : the evolution towards its end / Kristina Gushchina and Pavel Kononenko -- The size of local government in a three-tier federal government system with special reference to New South Wales, Australia / Peter Abelson -- Mobilizing local resources for financing sustainable urbanization : the missing link in sustainable development finance / Charlotte Lafitte and Nathalie Le Denmat.

The quality of local governance matters more than ever before. To many citizens, their local government is the most tangible form of government, and it is also the layer of government with which they have most contact in their everyday life. The power of the local administration is that it represents ordinary citizens. People eat, drink, work, play and socialize with others in towns and cities. To be fully effective, local government management and service delivery capacity needs to be strong, and resources need to be adequate. Civil society and businesses are essential actors in ensuring local governments have the capacity to meet the needs of its citizens. There are a host of challenges that confront local government in the 21st century: delivering quality services; lack of finance and local fiscal autonomy; engaging citizens and communities in meaningful and authentic ways; forming effective partnerships which incentivize local actors to find solutions to the many complex and intractable issues facing communities; generating inclusive and sustainable development; implementing strategies for disaster risk reduction; managing transparent communications; and, rapidly evolving technologies and socio-economic demographics. The Governance of Local Communities: Global Perspectives and Challenges is about the role that ideas, institutions, and actors play in structuring how people govern local communities and, more specifically, the types of adaptations necessary in local government roles and responsibilities, structures, and processes to effectively respond to a changing local government environment. Global changes require that we rethink local governance. A wide net of international experts on local governance was assembled for this volume to stimulate frank conversations around the many contemporary challenges facing local government.

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