Urban Planning and the Entrepreneurial State: The View from Victoria, Australia

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Winter ◽  
T Brooke

It is argued that the state in Victoria, Australia, has pursued five key trends in urban planning throughout the 1980s: Privatisation, liberalisation, subsidisation, commercialisation, and elitism. These trends are a response to conditions wrought by global economic restructuring, the dominance of economic fundamentalism as a political discourse in Australia, the institutional structure of federal–State government financial relations, and a resultant perception of fiscal crisis. These developments in urban planning have resulted in financial costs and a loss of democratic accountability to the Victorian community.

Author(s):  
Jesús Pacheco-Martínez ◽  
Martín Hernández-Marín ◽  
Mario E. Zermeño-de-León ◽  
Norma González-Cervantes ◽  
José A. Ortiz-Lozano ◽  
...  

Abstract. Land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal has been developing in the Aguascalientes Valley since the 1980's. Even though the affected area is close to 900 km2, and the sinking velocity is up to 10 cm yr−1 in some zones, the main concern for valley inhabitants and local government is the occurrence of subsidence-related cracks and failures, which are developed in the surface terrain and damage buildings and infrastructure. In order to face this problem, the state government of Aguascalientes set up in 1994 an interinstitutional committee which is integrated by four working groups: (1) technical studies, (2) equilibrium of the aquifer, (3) normativity and cartography, and (4) attention to damaged infrastructure. Each working group integrates several public and private agencies whose activities are influenced by the in-progress subsidence process. Federal, state and municipal water management agencies, as well as government bureaus of urban planning and public works are included in the committee. Also, the state university and some professional state associations such as civil engineers and earth sciences engineers are actively involved in the committee, along with the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics, which is the federal agency addressed to produce official cartography in Mexico. Some agencies participate not only in one working group but in those that fall in their interest, therefore, many agencies are contributing to several working groups objectives. In this work, we present a summarize of the work developed for the committee since its creation, and about its evolution and current organization. It is presented an analysis and discussion of the changes that the committee has experienced in their objectives and applied methods to address the evolution of the fissuring problem, and how their results have helped to prevent and to mitigate the land subsidence effects. Also, the mechanisms implemented to inform to the general public about the subsidence process and its effects; besides of the expected challenges that the committee will enfaces in the near and far future. This work intends to share the experiences of the committee hoping to be useful to other government agencies and earth scientists dealing with the land subsidence problem.


GeoTextos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvio Bandeira de Mello e Silva ◽  
Barbara-Christine Nentwig Silva ◽  
Maina Pirajá Silva

O trabalho tem como objetivo analisar como evoluiu recentemente uma tradicional metrópole brasileira, Salvador, e sua região metropolitana, tomadas como exemplo em função de sua particular relevância histórica e geográfica no contexto nacional. A pesquisa estuda os desafios enfrentados por Salvador e sua região, como decorrência dos desequilíbrios e dos graves problemas urbanos e metropolitanos, que são resultados, principalmente, dos frágeis instrumentos de planejamento urbano que deveriam estar integrados em um planejamento metropolitano, que hoje é inexistente. Os atuais conflitos políticos e judiciais entre o Governo do Estado e a Prefeitura de Salvador, agora colocados diante do Estatuto da Metrópole, são igualmente analisados. Por conseguinte, o trabalho aponta as perspectivas para enfrentar esses desafios, o que deve ser feito de forma integrada, com todos os municípios formando uma só unidade territorial de governança sociopolítica, econômica e administrativa, com capacidade de enfrentar seus problemas e planejar seu futuro. Abstract SALVADOR AND ITS METROPOLITAN REGION: RECENT CHANGES, CONFLICTS AND INSTITUCIONALS PERSPECTIVES This paper has as objective the analysis of the recent evolution of a traditional Brazilian metropolis, Salvador and its metropolitan region, taken as an example considering its particular historical and geographical relevance. The research studies the challenges faced by Salvador and its region mainly as a result of the week instruments of urban planning that should be integrated in a metropolitan planning not existing until now. The current political and judicial conflicts between the State Government of Bahia and the Municipality of Salvador are also analyzed, together with the recent law of Estatuto da Metrópole (Law of Metropolis). As a result, the study shows the perspectives to face the challenges, which must be done in an integrated manner with all municipalities forming a single territorial unity of sociopolitical, economical and administrative governance capable of facing their problems and plan their future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2020) (2) ◽  
pp. 359-394
Author(s):  
Jurij Perovšek

For Slovenes in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes the year 1919 represented the final step to a new political beginning. With the end of the united all-Slovene liberal party organisation and the formation of separate liberal parties, the political party life faced a new era. Similar development was showing also in the Marxist camp. The Catholic camp was united. For the first time, Slovenes from all political camps took part in the state government politics and parliament work. They faced the diminishing of the independence, which was gained in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and the mutual fight for its preservation or abolition. This was the beginning of national-political separations in the later Yugoslav state. The year 1919 was characterized also by the establishment of the Slovene university and early occurrences of social discontent. A declaration about the new historical phenomenon – Bolshevism, had to be made. While the region of Prekmurje was integrated to the new state, the questions of the Western border and the situation with Carinthia were not resolved. For the Slovene history, the year 1919 presents a multi-transitional year.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.


2014 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
Scott Pittman

The story of anti-communism in California schools is a tale well and often told. But few scholars have appreciated the important role played by private surveillance networks. This article examines how privately funded and run investigations shaped the state government’s pursuit of leftist educators. The previously-secret papers of Major General Ralph H. Van Deman, which were opened to researchers at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., only a few years ago, show that the general operated a private spy network out of San Diego and fed information to military, federal, and state government agencies. Moreover, he taught the state government’s chief anti-communist bureaucrat, Richard E. Combs, how to recruit informants and monitor and control subversives. The case of the suspicious death of one University of California, Los Angeles student – a student that the anti-communists claimed had been “scared to death” by the Reds – shows the extent of the collaboration between Combs and Van Deman. It further illustrates how they conspired to promote fear of communism, influence hiring and firing of University of California faculty, and punish those educators who did not support their project. Although it was rarely successful, Combs’ and Van Deman’s coordinated campaign reveals a story of public-private anticommunist collaboration in California that has been largely forgotten. Because Van Deman’s files are now finally open to researchers, Californians can gain a much more complete understanding of their state bureaucracy’s role in the Red Scare purges of California educators.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Sarmistha R. Majumdar

Fracking has helped to usher in an era of energy abundance in the United States. This advanced drilling procedure has helped the nation to attain the status of the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world, but some of its negative externalities, such as human-induced seismicity, can no longer be ignored. The occurrence of earthquakes in communities located at proximity to disposal wells with no prior history of seismicity has shocked residents and have caused damages to properties. It has evoked individuals’ resentment against the practice of injection of fracking’s wastewater under pressure into underground disposal wells. Though the oil and gas companies have denied the existence of a link between such a practice and earthquakes and the local and state governments have delayed their responses to the unforeseen seismic events, the issue has gained in prominence among researchers, affected community residents, and the media. This case study has offered a glimpse into the varied responses of stakeholders to human-induced seismicity in a small city in the state of Texas. It is evident from this case study that although individuals’ complaints and protests from a small community may not be successful in bringing about statewide changes in regulatory policies on disposal of fracking’s wastewater, they can add to the public pressure on the state government to do something to address the problem in a state that supports fracking.


Commonwealth ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie Sweet-Cushman ◽  
Ashley Harden

For many families across Pennsylvania, child care is an ever-present concern. Since the 1970s, when Richard Nixon vetoed a national childcare program, child care has received little time in the policy spotlight. Instead, funding for child care in the United States now comes from a mixture of federal, state, and local programs that do not help all families. This article explores childcare options available to families in the state of Pennsylvania and highlights gaps in the current system. Specifically, we examine the state of child care available to families in the Commonwealth in terms of quality, accessibility, flexibility, and affordability. We also incorporate survey data from a nonrepresentative sample of registered Pennsylvania voters conducted by the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics. As these results support the need for improvements in the current childcare system, we discuss recommendations for the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
O. D. Safonova

Recognizing the existence of a crisis of civil identity, Russian state proclaims patriotic values an integral part of Russian state policy in documents of strategic importance. The need to educate citizenship and patriotism has ceased to be only a theoretical problem, and has found its embodiment in a large number of federal and regional programs. In comparison with the previous decades, the role and importance of civic identity and civic competence in modern Russia are becoming much more important. The civil competence of the student is formed by education-pedagogically organized purposeful process of development of the student as a person, a citizen, the development and adoption of values, moral attitudes and moral norms of societies. National security strategy of the Russian Federation (2015) relates to Russia's traditional spiritual and moral values: the priority of the spiritual over the material, protecting human life, rights and freedoms of the individual, family, creative work, service to the Fatherland, the norms of morality, humanity, mercy, justice, mutual aid, collectivism, historical unity of the peoples of Russia, the continuity of the history of our country. The formation of the civil identity of the young Russian personality forms with the help of Federal state educational standards of primary General, basic General and secondary General education, so the state policy in overcoming the crisis of civil identity devotes a large number of documents and programs to the field of education. The article attempts to trace how through normative and legal acts the state consistently tries to overcome the crisis of civil identity, identified by the scientific and expert community. Following the authors of state programs and the expert community studying the problems of identity crisis, it is noted in the article that the formation of civil identity is one of the most important conditions for the successful development of the country.


Punjab has emerged as an important rice-producing state in the country. The state with 1.53 percent of the geographical area of the country produces more than 11 percent of total rice production in the country. The production of rice in Punjab increased more than 10 times due to an increase in area and yield. The growth of a rice crop at such a high rate over 20 years in Punjab is indeed a rare phenomenon in the history of agricultural development in the world. Due to extensive cultivation of rice in Punjab, the state has been over-exploiting the groundwater, more than its recharge. Most of the tube-well dominated districts of the state, witnessed the fall in water table more than 20 to 30 cm per year. To dispose of the paddy straw, the farmers of Punjab generally opt for burning it. This practice of burning of paddy straw besides nutrient loss is posing a serious problem for the public health and transportation system. Rice has now become a problematic crop for Punjab state due to its ill effects on its natural resources, that is, the water and soil environmental degradation. The Punjab Agricultural University experts and other committees estimated that the total groundwater recharge from all sources can sustain/support only 16-17 lakh ha of paddy in Punjab. The area under the crop increased to 29 lakh ha which was unsustainable in the long run. The area under rice in Punjab should be stabilized at 16-17 lakh ha and the remaining paddy area should be shifted to other crops like pulses, oilseeds, maize, fruits, and vegetables, etc. requiringless water, to achieve proper water balance. Thus diversification of some area from paddy is in the interest of Punjab farmers, State government and the Central government for long term food security on a sustainable basis.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document