scholarly journals Community cityscape: modes of engagement and co-construction of the streetscape

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Buchstaller
Keyword(s):  
Public Involvement ◽  
City Council ◽  
Special Interest Groups ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Street Naming ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Modes Of Engagement ◽  
The City

Abstract This contribution explores the bottom-up processes via which a community – or indeed special interest groups within a community – can influence the semiotic choices in the street-scape around them. I start by discussing the question to which extent the decision-making processes about street naming in different locales are transparent and open to public involvement. I also explore the instruments used by city councils and other administrative agencies to invite or indeed stifle public debate about street names, such as citizens surveys, op-eds in local newspapers and discussion fora as opposed to closed-off systems and exclusionary strategies. The paper moves on to consider grassroots movements opposing top-down decisions, including the mobilization of guerilla activity resulting in semi-spontaneous re-naming of street names and polls/lists of names and letters sent to the city council by concerned citizens. Finally, I consider politically motivated acts of vandalism resulting in semiotic erasure as well as resistance to official naming via inertia. The article closes with a brief discussion of the increasing commercialization of the linguistic streetscape, exploring the impact of market forces which claim authorship of the city text.

Power in the metropolis: the impact of economic and demographic growth on the Antwerp City Council (1400–1550)

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-609
Author(s):  
Janna Everaert
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
City Council ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
City Councils ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gateway Cities ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Commercial Expansion

AbstractCurrent historiography endorses a narrative that the political elite of pre-industrial gateway cities became more ‘open’ in the wake of efflorescence and that their city councils became populated with merchants. Yet, according to the existing literature, Antwerp challenges this narrative, as the influx of merchants was very limited during late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries when Antwerp transformed from a medium-sized Brabantine city into the leading economic centre in western Europe. Moreover, scholars disagree on whether the economic expansion had any impact at all on the composition and profile of Antwerp's political elite. By analysing the social composition of the city council and how this evolved from the beginning of Antwerp's commercial expansion around 1400 until its apogee around 1550, I revisit the question whether Antwerp constitutes an exception to the established pattern of elite formation in gateway cities and, if so, why.

scholarly journals Citizen Participation and Machine Learning for a Better Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Procter ◽  
Miguel Arana-Catania ◽  
Felix-Anselm van Lier ◽  
Nataliya Tkachenko ◽  
Yulan He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
City Council ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The City

The development of democratic systems is a crucial task as confirmed by its selection as one of the Millennium Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. In this article, we report on the progress of a project that aims to address barriers, one of which is information overload, to achieving effective direct citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes. The main objectives are to explore if the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning can improve citizens? experience of digital citizen participation platforms. Taking as a case study the ?Decide Madrid? Consul platform, which enables citizens to post proposals for policies they would like to see adopted by the city council, we used NLP and machine learning to provide new ways to (a) suggest to citizens proposals they might wish to support; (b) group citizens by interests so that they can more easily interact with each other; (c) summarise comments posted in response to proposals; (d) assist citizens in aggregating and developing proposals. Evaluation of the results confirms that NLP and machine learning have a role to play in addressing some of the barriers users of platforms such as Consul currently experience.

The Impact of the District’s Magnitude on the Gender Composition of the Municipal Deputy Corps

2021 ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Ruslan S. Mukhametov
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Gender Composition ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Electoral District ◽  
Statistical Program ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

The purpose of the study is to explain the difference in the proportion of women deputies in the representative bodies of different municipalities. The author assesses the impact of the electoral districts size on the gender composition of municipal legislative bodies (dumas). A review of theoretical and empirical works shows that more women are elected to Parliament under the proportional representation system than under the majority system with single-mandate constituencies. According to the author, the decisive factor is not the type of the electoral system, but the size of the electoral district. Two working hypotheses were formulated. According to the first, representative bodies of municipalities, whose elections are held according to a majority system with multi-member districts, will have a higher representation of women than local dumas which are formed on the basis of a majority system with single-member districts. According to the second hypothesis, higher representation of women in the deputy corps of settlements can be associated with the holding of elections under the majority system with multi-mandate districts. To test the proposed hypotheses in the context of municipalities, empirical material was collected. The study was carried out on the data from the Sverdlovsk region. The database of indicators of municipalities of Rosstat, as well as the official websites of local administrations were used as the source of information. The method of multiple linear regression is used as the main research method. The data was analyzed with the Gretl applied statistical program. Statistical calculations have revealed a positive and statistically significant impact of multi-mandate constituencies-based elections on the proportion of women in the deputy corps, which contributes to the study of gender aspects of politics. It is shown that the size of the electoral district is important for the representation of women in the city councils. The article notes that the transition to holding elections of deputies on the basis of a majority system with multi-mandate districts will help increase the proportion of women in municipal representative bodies.

Can States Promote Minority Representation? Assessing the Effects of the California Voting Rights Act

2019 ◽  
pp. 107808741989685
Author(s):  
Loren Collingwood ◽  
Sean Long
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Average Treatment Effect ◽  
City Council ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Before And After ◽  
And Control ◽  
The City

One goal of the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) is to broaden representation in largely White-controlled city councils state-wide by incentivizing cities to shift council electoral jurisdictions from at-large to single-member districts. However, little research has investigated whether the CVRA helped contribute to increased minority representation at the city level. This article employs matching and difference-in-difference methods to determine whether cities that switched to district elections as a result of the CVRA enhanced city council diversification. By comparing matched treatment and control group’s racial composition of city councils before and after fully switching from at-large to district election jurisdictions, we estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) of city switching on minority city council representation at 10% to 12%. Further analysis reveals treatment effects are larger among cities with larger shares of Latinos (21%). Thus, states seeking to increase local-level minority representation should consider policies similar to those found in the CVRA.

scholarly journals LoRaWAN and Urban Waste Management – A Trial

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Cruz ◽  
Nuno Cota ◽  
João Tremoceiro
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Network Capacity ◽  
Initial Study ◽  
City Council ◽  
Use Cases ◽  
Multiple Use ◽  
Urban Waste Management ◽  
Difficult Challenge ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

The city of Lisbon, has any other capital of a European country, has a large number of issues while managing the waste and recycling containers spread throughout the city. This document presents the results of a study promoted by the Lisbon City Council for trialing LPWAN technology on the waste management vertical under the Lisbon Smart City initiative. Current waste management is done using GSM sensors, and the aim is to use LPWAN to reduce the costs, improve range and reduce provisioning times when changing the communications provider. After an initial study, LoRa was selected as the LPWAN of choice for the trials. The study is composed of multiple use cases at different distances, types of recycling waste containers, placements (underground and surface) and different kinds of waste level measurement LoRa sensors, deployed in order to assess the impact of the different use cases on the LoRa sensor usage. The results shown that the underground waste containers present the most difficult challenge, where the container itself imposes attenuation levels of 26dB on the link budget. The results promoted the deployment of a city wide LoRa network available to all departments inside the Lisbon City Council, and considering the network capacity the network, the network is also available to citizens to be used freely.

ARCHETEPATIVE BASIS OF INTERACTION AUTHORITIES AND OPPOSITIONS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECOMMUNIZATION POLICY IN UKRAINE

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (14) ◽  
pp. 285-300
Author(s):  
Viktoriia Viktorivna Sychova
Keyword(s):  
City Council ◽  
Information Support ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Political Values ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Regional State ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
State Administration ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
The City

In the article, in the context of the archetypal approach, the interaction of the authorities and the opposition in the course of implementing the decommunization policy was analyzed. An integral part of a decommunization policy was changing the Soviet names of toponymic objects in residential places bearing the Communist totalitarian regime symbols that consecrated persons involved in the crimes of the latter, also the events related to the activities of the Communist Party, the development of Soviet power in Ukraine, the persecution of participants in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence in the XX century. The Soviet archetypal basis of decommunization methods in Ukraine is revealed, which it was testified to the rapid pace of policy, the lack of information support, explanations, especially for the population of the central and eastern regions of Ukraine, for which the Soviet symbolices was continues to be valuable. The imperial/Soviet archetypes of interaction between the authorities and the opposition are defined by the example of renaming of Soviet names for objects of toponymy of settlements containing symbols of the communist totalitarian regime. Polarized regionalism of Ukrainian society, two distinct national identities based on different systems of political values, have formed various archetypes. Thus, in Uzhgorod and Kirovohrad, the influence of the imperial (respectively, Austrian and Russian) archetypes was reflected. The opposition of some city councils of the Naddnipryanshyny and eastern Ukraine to the parliament’s decisions was sometimes determined not by the number of opposition, but by the Soviet identity of the deputy corps. The existence of a confrontational type of the interaction between parliamentary opposition and government/president is substantiated; also between the opposition, embodied by the local political and management elite of Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Komsomolsk of Poltava’s region, and the state power, personified by the head of the relevant regional state administration/parliament. It is proved that the conformal type is inherent of interaction the opposition, which is represented by the city council of Dnipropetrovsk and the authorities represented by the respective mayor/parliament; also the interaction between opposition, which represented by the city council/mayor of Uzhhorod and the authorities, which is represented by the chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration.

scholarly journals Prestação dos serviços de água e esgotos em Sete Lagoas-MG: “o SAAE é nosso” ou “que venha a Copasa”?

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarcisio T. Nunes Jr. ◽  
Léo Heller ◽  
Priscila Luiza Da Silva ◽  
Sonaly Rezende ◽  
Antônio Leite Alves Radicchi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
City Council ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
The City

A decisão municipal acerca do modelo mais adequado de gestão dos serviços de saneamento básico ainda é objeto de controvérsias e disputas. Com a perspectiva de compreender o processo político de tomada de decisão, o artigo apresenta e analisa o debate ocorrido em Sete Lagoas (MG) entre a possibilidade de concessão dos serviços para a Companhia de Saneamento de Minas Gerais (Copasa) ou a manutenção do Serviço Autônomo de Água e Esgoto (SAAE). Informações foram levantadas junto à Prefeitura, Câmara dos Vereadores e jornais locais, somadas às entrevistas realizadas com alguns dos principais atores do debate, de modo a recriar o cenário, com suas motivações e interesses acerca dessa importante decisão. Não obstante, o desfecho provisório do caso difere da maioria de tantos outros que vêm ocorrendo no país, a partir da criação das Companhias Estaduais de Saneamento Básico. A falta de posicionamento explícito dos representantes públicos do município e a bipolarização da opinião pública entre o desejo da melhoria dos serviços e, por outro lado, os receios de aumento das tarifas e do desemprego, deram o tom da discussão e culminaram em uma decisão inesperada: o encerramento do debate e a continuidade do SAAE. Palavras-chave: saneamento básico; gestão; concessão; política; participação. Abstract: In Brazil, municipalities’ decision concerning the most adequate model for water and sanitation management is still a controversial issue and a field for frequent conflicts. Addressing the perspective of understanding the policy process on decision-making, this paper presents and analyzes the debate that took place in Sete Lagoas (Minas Gerais) about the possibility of transferring the WSS services to the Companhia de Saneamento de Minas Gerais (Copasa) or keeping it in municipal hands, through the Serviço Autônomo de Água e Esgoto (SAAE). Information was collected in the City Hall, City Council and local newspapers, aswell as through interviews with the main stakeholders, aiming at understanding the political picture, motivations, and interests around the debate. However, the provisional outcome of the case is different than many others that have been taking place elsewhere, after the creation of state companies for water supply and sanitation in Brazil. Public representatives’ lack of a clear political opinion and the divide of the population in two positions – wish for services improvement and fear for tariffs increase and for unemployment – were determinants for the unexpected decision: end of the debate and continuity of the SAAE. Keywords: water supply; sanitation; management; concession; participation.

scholarly journals Disclosure of Accountability Practices on Websites of Malaysian City Councils

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-111
Author(s):  
Dayang Hafiza Abang Ahmad ◽  
◽  
Corina Joseph ◽  
Roshima Said ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
City Council ◽  
Significant Finding ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Accountability Practices ◽  
The City

Accountability in the public sector has been widely scrutinised due to the increasing demand from various stakeholders including the public. Disclosure practices could substantially improve the accountability of the public sector through the usage of technology, i.e., websites. This paper examined the extent of the disclosure of accountability practices (DACP) on the websites of the entire Malaysian city councils. A content analysis was carried out to analyse the content of official websites of 14 city council. A Modified Accountability Disclosure Index (MOADI) comprised of 100 disclosure items was adopted to measure the extent of the DACP of Malaysian city councils. There was an average of 59% of the extent of DACP found on the website of city councils. The findings further indicated that the highest and the least frequent information disclosed by the city councils were classified under delivery and other information, respectively. This paper contributes a significant finding which highlights the importance of the website as a medium for discharging accountability to enhance the overall administrative system in local authorities’. The findings provide valuable insights and implications about accountability practices to several groups of stakeholders including the local authorities, regulators, and the community.

scholarly journals Procedural Environmental Injustice in ‘Europe’s Greenest City’: A Case Study into the Felling of Sheffield’s Street Trees

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 100 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Heydon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Public Involvement ◽  
City Council ◽  
Street Trees ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
Public Rights ◽  
The City ◽  
Public Opposition

With around two million trees within its boundaries, the city of Sheffield, England, is known as the ‘greenest city in Europe’. Of these, 36,000 are ‘street trees’, defined as those planted on pavements and other public rights of way. As of 2012, however, a private contractor was awarded a £2.2 billion contract by Sheffield City Council to upgrade the city’s roads over a 25-year period. This required the felling of over 6000 street trees by the end of August 2017. By 2015, this had sparked such widespread public opposition that the felling programme missed its 2017 deadline. For protesters, the central point of contention was and continues to be the seemingly indiscriminate felling of healthy trees. This article examines the specific forms of harm precipitating local public involvement in such opposition. In doing so, it explains the substantive injustices associated with the felling of street trees before focusing on the underpinning forms of procedural environmental injustice that have allowed for their ongoing production. This contributes to wider green criminological literature by demonstrating how public participation in decision-making is crucial for the attainment of environmental justice.

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