scholarly journals Water governance in decentralising urban Indonesia

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (14) ◽  
pp. 2917-2934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paramita Rahayu ◽  
Johan Woltjer ◽  
Tommy Firman

Under new democratic regimes in the countries of the Global South, governance innovation is often found at the regional level. This article, using the concept of institutional capacity, shows that powerful efforts affecting regional water resource coordination emerge locally. The article analyses fresh water cooperation in the urban region of Cirebon, Indonesia. It is shown that the city and its surrounding regions in decentralising Indonesia show signs of increasing institutional capacity between local actors. An informal approach and discretionary local decision-making, influenced by the logic of appropriateness and tolerance, are influential. At the same time, these capacities are compromised by significant inequality and a unilateral control of water resources, and they are being challenged by a strong authoritarian political culture inherited from a history of centralised government. The article points to the need to establish greater opportunities for water governance at the regional level to transcend inter-local rivalry, and thus improve decentralised institutional capacity further.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Carla Garcia-Lozano ◽  
Anna Peliova ◽  
Josep Sitjar

Abstract. The positive effect of urban greenery on the city’s microclimate is well known, as is its ability to reduce the ambient temperature in urban areas. Our results show how the areas with the lowest surface temperature clearly coincide with the vegetated areas in the city of Barcelona. This phenomenon demonstrates the importance of increasing the urban greenery in large compact cities, such as the city of Barcelona, in order to regulate the local temperature and mitigate the effects of global warming on a large scale. The web map presented here can be used as a tool for decision makers to identify the warmest areas in the city of Barcelona and to increase greenery in an efficient manner.


Author(s):  
Werner Pleschberger

The Directly Elected Mayor (DEM) model is a prominent manifestation of global efforts to innovate and strengthen local democracy. According to the established reformist claim, a DEM generates an array of advantages for local democracy (e.g., personalization, visibility of power, an increase in accountability, more inclusion, even direct involvement of citizens in local decision making). The DEM model seems to overcome the democratic deficits of the Indirectly Elected Mayor (IEM) model; this is the core assumption of the “difference hypothesis”. The aim of the empirical part of the study is to allow the analysis of the democratic orientation and styles of actions of the IEMs in the city of Vienna from 1973 until 2013. They all asked to the citizenry to express their opinion in consultative referenda. The longitudinal study shows the clear preference of the mayors for representative democracy and the majority principle to decide local issues. The analysis provides evidence that indirectly supports the reformist claim promoting the DEM model in local democracy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-42

Between 1914 and 1921, the population inhabiting the region of Bessarabia witnessed, although from behind the frontline, the world conflagration, which was followed by major political changes that detached the region from the Russian Empire, then created the conditions for a short independence period, to finally attach the province to “Greater Romania” in 1918. The history of the city of Chișinău during this tumultuous time period is discussed – for the first time – with a specific focus on its dynamics as a place in which two political systems, defined by the imperial and the national model, confronted each other while also coexisting in different settings. The authors are especially interested in the trajectories of individuals, communities, and institutions linked to the city. They reconstruct the way local actors acknowledged political changes, but also how they exercised agency and imposed their own agendas, frequently based on local, group, or personal needs. The case of Chișinău is relevant for the understanding of the major impact of political transition(s) on the local level. It shows that there were various local actors, all of them being part and parcel of this transition, within which they had their own story to tell. Whereas for some political or social groups 1918 meant a new beginning, for others it was the time of political vacuum, from which certain dividends could be extracted.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-67
Author(s):  
Pieter Troch

This article contributes to research on reconfiguration of social and private in socialist cities. It presents the case study of Mitrovica, a smaller and peripheral city in Socialist Yugoslavia, to compensate for the focus on big capital cities and socialist new towns in the literature. The article explores local decision-making processes leading to the upgrading of informal private housing and the parallel downgrading of social-sector housing between the 1960s and 1980s. It demonstrates the open-ended nature of socialist urban development as the processual outcome of negotiations between local actors involved in urban planning and housing strategies of individual residents within the structural framework of central-level housing policies and under-urbanization. The article argues that the individualizing discourse of urban modernity was integral to post-Second World War socialist urban development.


Author(s):  
T. K. J. McDermott ◽  
S. Surminski

Urban areas already suffer substantial losses in both economic and human terms from climate-related disasters. These losses are anticipated to grow substantially, in part as a result of the impacts of climate change. In this paper, we investigate the process of translating climate risk data into action for the city level. We apply a commonly used decision-framework as our backdrop and explore where in this process climate risk assessment and normative political judgements intersect. We use the case of flood risk management in Cork city in Ireland to investigate what is needed for translating risk assessment into action at the local city level. Evidence presented is based on focus group discussions at two stakeholder workshops, and a series of individual meetings and phone-discussions with stakeholders involved in local decision-making related to flood risk management and adaptation to climate change, in Ireland. Respondents were chosen on the basis of their expertise or involvement in the decision-making processes locally and nationally. Representatives of groups affected by flood risk and flood risk management and climate adaptation efforts were also included. The Cork example highlights that, despite ever more accurate data and an increasing range of theoretical approaches available to local decision-makers, it is the normative interpretation of this information that determines what action is taken. The use of risk assessments for decision-making is a process that requires normative decisions, such as setting ‘acceptable risk levels' and identifying ‘adequate’ protection levels, which will not succeed without broader buy-in and stakeholder participation. Identifying and embracing those normative views up-front could strengthen the urban adaptation process—this may, in fact, turn out to be the biggest advantage of climate risk assessment: it offers an opportunity to create a shared understanding of the problem and enables an informed evaluation and discussion of remedial action. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy’.


Author(s):  
Ildiko Gabriella Kovács

This paper describes a Children’s Right to the City initiative of a Canadian provincial non-profit organization. The program and its underlying Participatory Planning Pedagogy (PPP) and curriculum follow a student-led and rights-based approach that builds upon global Child Friendly Cities scholarship. The goal of the program is two-fold: First, to uphold children’s participation rights in local decision-making by ensuring that young people’s perspectives are sought out and included in community planning initiatives, and second, to provide meaningful sustainability and citizenship education through participatory planning, and real-world local problem solving that promotes social change. Working in close collaboration with planning teams of the local municipality, the program is implemented within local public elementary schools. This paper will outline the PPP curriculum’s implementation in practice, present the underlying theories informing this work, and discuss benefits, challenges, and future potential of this children’s rights initiative.


Author(s):  
Joanna Zuzanna Popławska

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the process of revitalization of markets and shopping streets of Polish cities after 1999 in order to answer the question on how revitalization affected the socio-economic development of Polish cities. Transformation of consumption space is analyzed on the example of two cities: Białystok and Kielce. As a result of revitalization, residents began to spend their free time in the modernized space. However, in the short term, the construction works lasting several years that reduced traffic in the city centers impacted negatively on businesses, often contributing to their collapse or significant deterioration of profitability. Transformation of urban consumption space have increased interest of city dwellers in local decision making process, and thus influenced the growth in social commitment and desire to participate in governing.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Gregorovius ◽  
Annie Hamilton

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Gregorovius ◽  
Annie Hamilton

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 216-222
Author(s):  
Beatrice De Cardi

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document