POLS 3603 - Public Administration: Find Books

This enticing manual shows how to design sustainable, carfree cities that meet the needs and desires of their inhabitants. Based on walking, bicycling, and public transport, this comprehensive handbook offers a fresh look at city design. The book proposes methods to achieve aesthetically pleasing and practical, carfree living environments. From urban planning and neighborhood design to squares and building layouts, the author argues that narrower streets, four-story buildings, and interior courtyards offer a higher quality of life. A design process is proposed that directly involves future residents. Illustrative case examples and comparative analysis of 18 urban spaces are also included.

Urban freeways often cut through the heart of a city, destroying neighborhoods, displacing residents, and reconfiguring street maps. These massive infrastructure projects, costing billions of dollars in transportation funds, have been shaped for the last half century by the ideas of highway engineers, urban planners, landscape architects, and architects -- with highway engineers playing the leading role. In Changing Lanes, Joseph DiMento and Cliff Ellis describe the evolution of the urban freeway in the United States, from its rural parkway precursors through the construction of the interstate highway system to emerging alternatives for more sustainable urban transportation. DiMento and Ellis describe controversies that arose over urban freeway construction, focusing on three cases: Syracuse, which early on embraced freeways through its center; Los Angeles, which rejected some routes and then built I-105, the most expensive urban road of its time; and Memphis, which blocked the construction of I-40 through its core. Finally, they consider the emerging urban highway removal movement and other innovative efforts by cities to re-envision urban transportation.

This timely text provides a comprehensive overview of the dramatic and rapidly evolving issues confronting the cities of North America. Metropolitan areas throughout the United States and Canada face a range of dynamic and complex concerns--including the redistribution of economic activities, the continued decline of manufacturing, and a global growth in services. The contributors provide compelling examples: Inner cities have experienced both gentrification and continued areas of segregation and poverty. Downtown revitalization has created urban spectacles that include festivals, marketplaces, and sports stadiums. Older, inner-ring suburbs now confront decline and increased poverty, while the outer-ring suburbs and exurbs continue to expand, devouring green space. The book explores how the combined processes of urbanization and globalization have added new responsibilities for city governments at the same time leaders are grappling with planning, economic development and finance, justice, equity, and social cohesion. Cities have become the stage upon which new forms of ethnic, racial, and sexual identities are constructed and reconstructed. They are also connected to wider ecological processes as urban spaces are compromised by manmade and natural disasters alike. Introducing contemporary spatial arrangements and distributions of activities in metropolitan areas, this clear and accessible book covers economic, social, political, and ecological changes. It is also the only text to include the physical geography of urban areas. Bringing together leading geographers, it will be an ideal resource for courses on urban geography and geography of the city.

It's time to think differently about cities and nature. Understanding how to better connect our cities with the benefits nature provides will be increasingly important as people migrate to cities and flourish in them. All this urban growth, along with challenges of adapting to climate change, will require a new approach to infrastructure if we're going to be successful. Yet guidance on how to plan and implement projects to protect or restore natural infrastructure is often hard to come by. With Conservation for Cities, Robert McDonald offers a comprehensive framework for maintaining and strengthening the supporting bonds between cities and nature through innovative infrastructure projects. After presenting a broad approach to incorporating natural infrastructure priorities into urban planning, he focuses each following chapter on a specific ecosystem service. He describes a wide variety of benefits, and helps practitioners answer fundamental questions: What are the best ecosystem services to enhance in a particular city or neighborhood? How might planners best combine green and grey infrastructure to solve problems facing a city? What are the regulatory and policy tools that can help fund and implement projects? Finally, McDonald explains how to develop a cost-effective mix of grey and green infrastructure and offers targeted advice on quantifying the benefits.

The essential premise of critical social theory is that contemporary society is neither democratic nor free, but that modern global capitalism creates a citizenry satiated with consumer goods, unaware of alternative ways of living. In the public sector, critical theory suggests that governing systems are influenced, if not controlled, by the wealthy and powerful, leaving public professionals to decide whether to serve those interests or the interests of a broader public. This book provides a framework for the application of critical social theory in public administration. Its goal is to encourage awareness among public administration scholars and practitioners of social conditions that tend to shape and constrain scholarship, practice, teaching, and social change. At a time when concern for public interest and a civil society have largely been displaced by the goals of economic efficiency and the "New Public Management," Critical Social Theory in Public Administration presents a viable alternative that incorporates the latest views of postmodern thinking with the central elements of critical social theory.

Seen from the outside, the world of politics and policy-making seems to be in constant flux. Leading institutionalist and sociological theories of the state, on the other hand, predict equilibrium and stability. This book addresses this contradiction by posing the question: Why do some (but not all) individuals possessing the power and influence necessary to make a difference in contemporary democratic societies - actors whose very position suggests that they have done well under existing conditions - actively seek to change policies or institutions? Ongoing competition for legitimate authority, the book's authors conclude, provides the often-neglected dynamic element that explains this behavior.

Serving the public interest with integrity requires a moral perspective that can rise above the day-to-day pressures of the job. This book integrates Western philosophy's most significant ethical theories and merges them with public administration theory to provide public administrators with an explicit moral foundation for ethical decision making. "Ethics in the Public Service" reviews moral thought through the ages, from Plato to Rorty, and makes the philosophies of the more difficult thinkers accessible to both students and practitioners. Unifying seemingly disparate ethical positions, including those of Aristotle, Kant, and Mill, the authors defend the idea of objective moral truth and critique subjectivist views, refuting postmodernism and ethical relativism. Using their integrated objective approach, they tackle such dichotomies in public administration theory as bureaucracy vs. democracy, and they also examine a case study in an administrative setting. Offering a better understanding of moral dilemmas rather than a formula, this book presents scholars and practitioners with a framework that is both objective and flexible, theoretical and practical. This original synthesis provides scholars and practitioners with a comprehensive basis for administrative thought and action.

The modern governor holds one of the most powerful and influential offices in the American political system. In their role, governors have the opportunity to guide policy within their home states, but also have the opportunity to shape policy outside their home states, for example, by developing successful policies that are mimicked by other states. Furthermore, in recent decades, developments in intergovernmental relations have afforded governors an opportunity to shape federal policy as states have become responsible for the administration of various federal policies. Governors have responded to this situation by actively pursuing policies at the federal level that are most beneficial to the states. Even though this is the situation, current empirical work on the American governorship has generally failed to consider the importance of the governors' role in helping shape federal policy. For the most part, the work on the governorship has been limited to studying such concepts as the formal and informal powers of governors as they work within the boundaries of their home states but has mostly ignored the intergovernmental role of the modern governorship. As a result, the researchers' ability to fully understand the breadth of the office has been limited. This book strives to address this gap in the research literature by focusing on the intergovernmental role of the nation's governors. This is done by examining the lobbying efforts of the governors through their national organization, the National Governors Association (NGA). The NGA has been a prominent representative of state interests for a number of decades, and the increasingly complex relationships between the states and the federal government--and the governors' role as manager of those relationships--have ensured that the governors and the NGA remain at the center of many critical national policy debates. Furthermore, the NGA serves as the primary organizing body of the governors, and the organization allows the state executives to effectively exert their influence over important policy decisions at the federal level. For these reasons, the NGA is a most appropriate organization for the study of governors as they work to influence federal policy. Taking a mixed method approach, this study highlights the factors that affect the ability of governors to shape national policy decisions and examines the results in the context of contemporary literature on the governorship, intergovernmental relations, and federalism. This book is therefore ideal for all who are interested in U.S. governorship, intergovernmental relations, and federalism generally.

The Handbook provides a comprehensive statement and reference point for hazard and disaster research, policy making and practice in an international and multi-disciplinary context. It offers critical reviews and appraisals of current state-of-the-art and future development of conceptual, theoretical and practical apporaches as well as empirical knowledge and available tools. Organised intot he interrelated sections, this Handbook contains sixty-five contributions from leading scholars. Part I situates hazards and disasters in their broad political, cultural, economic and environmental context. Part II contains treatments of potentially damaging natural events/phenomena organised by major earth system along with categories of vulnerabilities to them and capacities to deal with them that exist in communities. Part III critically reviews progress in responding to disasters including warning, relief and recovery. Part IV addresses mitigation of potential loss and prevention of disasters under two sub-headings: governance, advocacy and self-help, and communication and participation. Part V ends with a concluding chapter by the editors. The engaging international contributors reflect upon the politics and policy of how we think about and practice applied hazard research and disaster risk reduction. This Handbook provides a wealth of interdisciplinary information and will appeal to students and practioners interested in Geography, Environment Studies and Development Studies.

Drawing on interviews with tech and policy leaders, the first chief technology officer of the United States, inspired by private sector trailblazers, offers a look at how open government can establish a new paradigm for the twenty-first century.
Over the last twenty years, our economy and our society, from how we shop and pay our bills to how we communicate, have been completely revolutionized by technology. As Aneesh Chopra shows in Innovative State, once it became clear how much this would change America, a movement arose around the idea that these same technologies could reshape and improve government. But the idea languished, and while the private sector innovated, our government stalled, trapped in a model designed for the America of the 1930s and 1960s. The election of Barack Obama offered a new opportunity. In 2009, Aneesh Chopra was named the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States federal government. Previously the Secretary of Technology for Virginia and managing director for a health care think tank, Chopra was tasked with leading the administration's initiatives for a more open, tech-savvy government. Inspired by private sector trailblazers, Chopra wrote the playbook for governmental open innovation. In Innovative State he offers an absorbing look at how open government can establish a new paradigm for the internet era and allow us to tackle our most challenging problems, from economic development to affordable health care.

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana--on August 29, 2005--journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans's efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting effects not just on the city's geography and infrastructure--but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation's great cities. Much of New Orleans still sat under water the first time Gary Rivlin glimpsed the city after Hurricane Katrina. Then a staff reporter for The New York Times, he was heading into the city to survey the damage. The Interstate was eerily empty. Soldiers in uniform and armed with assault rifles stopped him. Water reached the eaves of houses for as far as the eye could see. Four out of every five houses--eighty percent of the city's housing stock--had been flooded. Around that same proportion of schools and businesses were wrecked. The weight of all that water on the streets cracked gas and water and sewer pipes all around town and the deluge had drowned almost every power substation and rendered unusable most of the city's water and sewer system. People living in flooded areas of the city could not be expected to pay their property taxes for the foreseeable future. Nor would all those boarded-up businesses--21,000 of the city's 22,000 businesses were still shuttered six months after the storm--be contributing their share of sales taxes and other fees to the city's coffers. Six weeks after the storm, the city laid off half its workforce--precisely when so many people were turning to its government for help. Meanwhile, cynics both in and out of the Beltway were questioning the use of taxpayer dollars to rebuild a city that sat mostly below sea level. How could the city possibly come back? This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripes--politicians and business owners, teachers and bus drivers, poor and wealthy, black and white--as they confront the aftermath of one of the great tragedies of our age and reconstruct, change, and in some cases abandon a city that's the soul of this nation.

This revised and updated edition of Memos to the Governor goes behind governmental fiscal gobbledygook to clearly explain the technical, economic, and political dynamics of budget making. Dall Forsythe untangles the knotty processes of budget preparation and implementation, outlining the budgeting process through a series of memos from a budget director to a newly elected governor - a format that guides the neophyte through the complicated financial processes involved in state governance.

Mark H. Moore's now classic Creating Public Value offered advice to public managers about how to create public value. But that book left a key question unresolved: how could one recognize (in an accounting sense) when public value had been created? Here, Moore closes the gap by setting forth a philosophy of performance measurement that will help public managers name, observe, and sometimes count the value they produce, whether in education, public health, safety, crime prevention, housing, or other areas. Blending case studies with theory, he argues that private sector models built on customer satisfaction and the bottom line cannot be transferred to government agencies. The Public Value Account (PVA), which Moore develops as an alternative, outlines the values that citizens want to see produced by, and reflected in, agency operations. These include the achievement of collectively defined missions, the fairness with which agencies operate, and the satisfaction of clients and other stake-holders. But strategic public managers also have to imagine and execute strategies that sustain or increase the value they create into the future. To help public managers with that task, Moore offers a Public Value Scorecard that focuses on the actions necessary to build legitimacy and support for the envisioned value, and on the innovations that have to be made in existing operational capacity. Using his scorecard, Moore evaluates the real-world management strategies of such former public managers as D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, and Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Revenue John James.

When state and federal governments intrude, abdicate responsibility, or prove unable to respond to local needs, how can cities fight back? How can they promote and defend their own interests? Addressing these questions, Lori Riverstone-Newell explores the emergence of local policy activism and its impact in a number of state and federal policy arenas.

Little work has been done to systematically analyze how high-profile incidents of child neglect and abuse shape child welfare policymaking in the United States. In Scandalous Politics, Juliet Gainsborough presents quantitative analysis of all fifty states and qualitative case studies of three states (Florida, Colorado, and New Jersey) that reveal how well-publicized child welfare scandals result in adoption of new legislation and new administrative procedures. -- Gainsborough's quantitative analysis suggests that child welfare policymaking is frequently reactive, while the case studies provide more detail about variations and the legislative process. Scandalous Politics increases our understanding of the politics of child welfare at both the state and federal level and provides new insights into existing theories of agenda-setting and the policy process. It will be of interest to everyone involved with child welfare policymaking and especially public policy and public administration scholars.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development. Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs's twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, The Age of Sustainable Development is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

Intended primarily for principles of economics, public policy, and social issues courses, this text also provides practical content to current and aspiring industry professionals. Brief, relevant readings that spark independent thinking and classroom discussions. The Economics of Public Issues is a collection of brief, relevant readings that spark independent thinking and classroom discussions in Principles of Economics and Social Issues courses. This text encourages readers to apply theoretical discussions to today's important issues and to gain a deeper understanding of current economic policy concerns.

The community that establishes and maintains a solid economic framework greatly improves its chances of sustaining itself through fluctuations in the economy. The question is, of course, how can city officials and administrators make this happen? The Formula for Economic Growth on Main Street America examines why economic growth during the late twentieth century was marked by the dramatic rise of some communities and the equally stunning demise of others. This book identifies the key components of sustained economic growth as well as the policies, actions, and inactions that are precursors to the decline of local economies. Based on the author's 25 years of experience as president of one of America's foremost economic development agencies, and his involvement in assisting communities around the world, the book shows how to assess the needs of communities and details what is needed to put plans in place. Drawing on case studies, the book illustrates lessons learned and how they can be applied, including: * What steps elected and administrative officials can take to stabilize and enhance the growth of their cities * Why the growth of some communities within a single regional marketplace can dramatically outpace that of neighbors possessing similar locations and assets * How communities can establish programs that sustain economic growth and provide jobs--without raising taxes As communities struggle to cope with diminished tax revenues, the idea of achieving sustainable growth without raising taxes seems too good to be true. Tapping into the same strategies that allowed Fairfax County, Virginia, to enjoy triple-digit job growth while reducing property taxes, Dr. Gerald Gordon provides the framework and strategies to weather most economic storms and chart a course toward sustainable economic development.

Americans today are frustrated and anxious. Our economy is sluggish, and leaves workers insecure. Income inequality, cultural divisions, and political polarization increasingly pull us apart. Our governing institutions often seem paralyzed. And our politics has failed to rise to these challenges. No wonder, then, that Americans -- and the politicians who represent them -- are overwhelmingly nostalgic for a better time. The Left looks back to the middle of the twentieth century, when unions were strong, large public programs promised to solve pressing social problems, and the movements for racial integration and sexual equality were advancing. The Right looks back to the Reagan Era, when deregulation and lower taxes spurred the economy, cultural traditionalism seemed resurgent, and America was confident and optimistic. Each side thinks returning to its golden age could solve America's problems. In The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin argues that this politics of nostalgia is failing twenty-first-century Americans. Both parties are blind to how America has changed over the past half century -- as the large, consolidated institutions that once dominated our economy, politics, and culture have fragmented and become smaller, more diverse, and personalized. Individualism, dynamism, and liberalization have come at the cost of dwindling solidarity, cohesion, and social order. This has left us with more choices in every realm of life but less security, stability, and national unity. Both our strengths and our weaknesses are therefore consequences of these changes. And the dysfunctions of our fragmented national life will need to be answered by the strengths of our decentralized, diverse, dynamic nation. Levin argues that this calls for a modernizing politics that avoids both radical individualism and a centralizing statism and instead revives the middle layers of society -- families and communities, schools and churches, charities and associations, local governments and markets.

Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly sixty-five thousand bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient.' This crisis--and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis--shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public. In The Road Taken, acclaimed historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from historical and contemporary perspectives and explains how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health. Recounting the long history behind America's highway system, Petroski reveals the genesis of our interstate numbering system (even roads go east-west, odd go north-south), the inspiration behind the center line that has divided roads for decades, and the creation of such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial parts of our national and local infrastructure. His history of the rebuilding of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reveals the complex and challenging interplay between government and industry inherent in the conception, funding, design, and building of major infrastructure projects, while his forensic analysis of the street he lives on--its potholes, gutters, and curbs--will engage homeowners everywhere. A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.

The original Handbook of Public Administration was a landmark publication, the first to provide a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the discipline. The eagerly-awaited new edition of this seminal international handbook continues to provide a complete review and guide to past and present knowledge in this essential field of inquiry. Assembling an outstanding team of scholars from around the world, the Second Edition explores the current state-of-the-art in academic thinking and the current structures and processes for the administration of public policy. The Second Edition has been fully revised and updated, with new chapters that reflect emerging issues and changes within the public sector. A dominant theme throughout the handbook is a critical reflection on the utility of scholarly theory and the extent to which government practices inform the development of this theory.

The goal of this book, the second in a series, is to inform policymakers, practitioners, and scholars about the effectiveness of select policy approaches, reforms, and experiments in addressing key social and economic problems facing cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. What can we say about what works, what doesn't, and why? And what does this knowledge and experience imply for future policy questions? The authors take a fresh look at several different issues (e.g., education, economic development, land use) and conceptualize how each should be thought of. Once the contributors have presented the essence of what is known, as well as the likely implications, they identify the knowledge gaps that need to be filled for the successful formulation and implementation of urban and regional policy.

Preface -- Introduction: The Live Oaks -- Chapter 1: The Lower Ninth Ward -- Chapter 2: The View from Above -- Chapter 3: The Grassroots Take Charge -- Chapter 4: What Katrina Couldn't Destroy -- Chapter 5: The Bells Keep Ringing -- Chapter 6: Building New, Restoring Old -- Chapter 7: Inside and Outside the Levee -- Chapter 8: Environmental Connections -- Chapter 9: The Demise of Charity Hospital -- Chapter 10: Crime, the Jail, and the Police -- Chapter 11: The Education Challenge -- Chapter 12: Public Housing and Disaster Capitalism -- Chapter 13: Women at the Forefront -- Conclusion: "We're Still Here Ya Bastards"

Immigration reform policies continue to influence domains like housing ordinances, official language laws, mass deportation, and bilingual education, amongst many other topics. In this work, authors Donathan Brown and Amardo Rodriguez demonstrate how immigration policies belie simplistic conversations pertaining to border control. Their focus is on actual policy as opposed to mere headlines and "talking points," as it is policy and the debates they produce that inform the headlines and subsequently incite controversy and heated arguments. Each chapter of the book addresses both policy and the fallout they produce to clearly articulate how such policies usurp fact with fiction, producing residual messages that equate "diversity" with destroying our social and political order. This accessible book provides high school, college, and graduate-level students insight into the laws and lawsuits stemming from current legislation, an understanding of the peculiar racial dimensions intertwined in these policies and debates, as well as comprehension of immigration reform against the grander backdrop of the growing Latino demographic in the United States. The authors argue that the varying degrees of immigration reform passed by state legislatures throughout the country are based on thinking that ignores the sociopolitical and cultural realities of modern-day America, and continue to rely less on facts and more on fear, causing greater deep-seated paranoia, distrust, and resentment within our nation.