![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
Abstract
Research conducted for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) identified six processes associated with high levels of local government management capacity. They were: 1) people of competence fill both elected and key administrative positions, and there is substantial continuity among the latter; 2) fiscal management practices are used as policy tools that permit capital and operational planning and control; 3) public officials recognize the legitimacy of concern for equity in public policy and administration; 4) open decision-making processes facilitate exchange of views between citizens and officials; 5) public services are delivered effectively and efficiently; and, 6) information management systems are utilized that permit decision-making information to flow freely between policy and administrative sectors and within the administrative sector.
More significant in sustaining management capacity than the form of government, size of the jurisdiction, or region of the country, these processes are subject to enhancement by capacity-building efforts by practitioners and by those engaged in training of local personnel.
Notes
1 Research conducted under Research Grant H-2925-RG to the Academy for Contemporary Problems by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Neither the Academy nor HUD are responsible lor the accuracy of statements on interpretations in this study.
2 Field research was conducted by the author and by James G. Coke, Senior Fellow of the Academy for Contemporary Problems, and John J. Gargan, Fellow of the Academy for Contemporary Problems.
3 Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970); Douglas Yates, The Ungovernable City (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1977).
4 Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); and James Q. Wilson, City Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press and MIT Press. 1963).
5 For examples of how meager resources can be developed into potent leadership tools, see Jeffrey L. Pressman, “Preconditions of Mayoral Leadership,” American Political Science Review 66 (June 1972), 511–524;
and James H. Svara and James W. Bohmbach, “The Mayoralty and Leadership in Council-Manager Government,”Popular Government 41 (Winter 1976), pp. 1–6.6 Charles H. Levine. Managing Fiscal Stress: The Crisis in the Public Sector (Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House, 1980); Donald H. Haider, “Fiscal Scarcity: A New Urban Perspective,” in The New Urban Politics, ed. Louis H. Masotti and Robert L. Lineberry (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing, 1976); and George E. Peterson, “Finance,” in The Urban Predicament, ed. William Gorham and Nathan Glazer (Washington. D.C.: The Urban Institute, 1976).
7 “5,100 Dismissed in Wayne County Fiscal Dispute,”Public Administration Times, November 1, 1979.
8 For a more extensive discussion, see Rackham S. Fukuhara. “Improving Effectiveness: Responsive Public Services,” in Tried and Tested: Case Studies in Municipal Innovation, ed. Fred S. Knight and Michael D. Rancer, Management Information Service Special Service Report No.3 (Washington, DC.: International City Management Association, 1978), pp.1–7.
9 Brown v. Hoard of Education of Topeka 345 US 972 (1952).
10 Hawkins v. Shaw 437 F. 2d. 1286 (5th Cir. 1971).
11 Robert L. Lineberry, Equality and Urban Policy; The Distribution of Municipal Public Services, (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1977), p.48.
12 For a more extensive analysis of these questions, see Lineberry, Equality and Urban Policy.
13 Thomas Grubiseh, “Fairfax Praised for Affirmative Action Program,”Washington Post, April 24, 1979.
14 Douglas Yates, The Ungovernable City, p.63.
15 Frederick O’R. Hayes, Productivity in Local Government (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath & Co., 1977), p.257.
16 General Accounting Office. State and Local Government Productivity Improvement: What is the Federal Role? (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 1978), p. 1.
17 General Accounting Ollice, State and Government Productivity, p.17.
18 See Brian Stipak, “Citizen Satisfaction with Urban Services: Potential Misuse as a Performance Indicator,” Public Administration Review 39 (1979), pp. 46–52.
19 Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), State Regulation of Local Accounting, Auditing and Financial Reporting, Information Bulletin No. 79–7 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), p.3.
20 ACIR, State Regulation of Local Accounting, Auditing and Financial Reporting, Information Bulletin No. 79–7 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), p.3.
21 Personal conversation with Patrick Henry, former Community Development Director, Cleveland, Ohio, July 17, 1980.
22 David M. Lawrence, Local Government Finance in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1977), p.212.