Localism

More power to the people

A country the size of Australia could be better served if it tried to delegate more tasks to lower tiers of government. Federalism is one way of achieving this, and many have cogently argued that it should be strengthened. Yet the very same arguments in favour of federalism also apply to local government. [...]

Santa Rudd is coming to town

For Australia’s mayors and shire presidents, Christmas came a bit earlier this year—on 18 November, to be precise. But Santa Claus did not come to town. Instead, the towns went to Santa, played by no other than the prime minister himself. Kevin Rudd clearly enjoyed his new role, handing out a total of $300 million in pre-Christmas giveaways at the inaugural meeting of the Australian Council of Local Government in Canberra. [...]

Cities Unlimited

A decade of regeneration policies has failed to stop the inequality of opportunity between towns and cities in the North and those in the South East increasing. In their third report in the series on regeneration in the UK, Cities Unlimited, Tim Leunig and James Swaffield recommend a series of radical proposals that would reverse the trend and inject a much needed momentum back into regeneration policy. The key recommendations from the report are to increase the size of London by allowing landowners the right to convert industrial land into residential land in areas of above average employment; expand Oxford and Cambridge dramatically, just as Liverpool and Manchester expanded in the 19th century and for the Government to roll up current regeneration funding streams and allocate the money direct to local authorities. [...]

Cities limited

British towns and cities in receipt of substantial urban policy funding designed to bring them up to the economic standard nationally are, in fact, declining when judged by a whole range of indices. That is the worrying conclusion of Cities Limited which calls into question the value of the plethora of urban regeneration schemes delivered by a myriad of different agencies. Spending on the 14 core urban regeneration schemes in the last decade totals £30bn of public money. [...]

Sonderfall London

Die Stadtregion London versucht kommunale Demokratie mit den Erfordernissen des Managements einer global vernetzten Metropole zu verbinden. Die gegenwärtige Lösung vermag nicht zu befriedigen. [...]