Roadmaps to Utopia: Tales of the Smart City

Notions of the Smart City are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualized as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealized smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimization of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasize the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilizing a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them

PRIVATIZATION AND PERFORMANCE IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE TO NEEDY FAMILIES

In response to the passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and its lead cash assistance program Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), states have taken unique and divergent approaches to welfare policy implementation. One popular approach to workfare delivery, known as privatization, involves contracting with non-profit and for-profit entities operating within the private sector. The General Accounting Office reports that nearly every state is privatizing TANF services to some degree through third-party contracts, but very little is understood about why variation in contracting exists and the ramifications for the program outcomes of welfare recipients. This dissertation initially explores the possible factors that influence welfare privatization decisions. Ordinary least squares regression estimations suggest that contracting patterns are significantly associated with levels of fiscal capacity, urbanization, African American caseloads, and non-profit presence. Secondly, this dissertation examines the potential ramifications of privatization on the TANF program outputs and outcomes of individual welfare clients. After exploring state-level patterns in privatization and performance, I estimate multilevel models that simultaneously incorporate both individual-level and contextual-level variables providing the discipline with the clearest picture of how welfare clients are fairing under various administrative environments. The results of the multi-level analysis favor the null hypothesis as the majority of privatization coefficients are statistically insignificant, indicating minimal direct ownership effects on the quality of TANF outcomes. That being said, there is inconsistent yet persistent evidence emerging from both the state-level and multi-level analyses suggesting that non-profit welfare delivery induces superior TANF work participation rates and employment outcomes. Privatizing welfare provision is not a panacea in that TANF outcomes are seldom improved under profit-seeking or non-profit arrangements, but an unwavering commitment to social missions and assisting the poor could put non-profits in a relatively superior position to transform welfare recipients into self-sufficient, fully employed members of society

The Romanian Public Administration facing the Challenges of Integration into the European Union

The paper achieves an analysis of some issues concerning the changes in the Romanian public administration in the context of integration into the European Union. The most important processes approach Europeanization and its theoretical and practical mechanisms. Concerning the Romanian public administration, the analysis starts with the reform process, on local and national level. The paper reveals the main laws and rules as well as the principles expressed in the administrative change: actuality and continuity, openness and transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. The paper also achieves a brief analysis of the reform strategies in view of complying with the European Administrative SpaceEuropeanization, administrative system, reform, anti-corruption strategies

Toward a Critical Understanding of the World/Global City Paradigm

In the last few decades, “the city” has emerged as an important entity in our understanding of contemporary globalization, both as a place and as a discourse. As a place, it has become critical in shaping the contours of the world economy leading to a renewed importance of “global cities.” The city (“world/global city”) has also become an important site of discourse. The “world/global city paradigm” has not only become a hegemonic academic discourse, but also a critical policy tool that directs and justifies restructuring of urban space in the global South. Through a synthesis of recent literature on urbanism in the US and the global South, this paper attempts to critically understand the “world/global city paradigm” and its rise within particular socio-historical contexts in the global North. Further, the paper examines the “paradigm’s” effectiveness in understanding urbanism in the South. The paper argues that given the specific contexts within which these urban discourses emerge, they are unable to critically address unique geometries of power and inequality and how they shape urbanism in the South. The paper concludes by offering some alternatives for a culturally and historically rooted analysis of urbanism

The asymmetric use of incentives in Portugal: the example of PRIME

Entre 2000 e 2006 o programa PRIME foi usado como um instrumento político público comum. Apesar de ter sido promovido a nível nacional, serviu também como difusor dos fundos europeus entre o tecido empresarial. O objectivo deste artigo é monitorizar a aplicação deste instrumento de forma a avaliar estrategicamente o sistema das políticas de apoio às empresas, focando a análise com base numa escala regional de forma a identificar alguns eventuais impedimentos para o sucesso das empresas. Metodologicamente observámos a execução financeira de 14910 projectos com informação recolhida do portal oficial do programa PRIME em Portugal. Devido a limitações relacionadas com a informação obtida neste portal, o nosso estudo lida com um número reduzido de variáveis, sendo as seguintes: localização do projecto, ano, actividade industrial, programa financiador, NUT, distrito, investimento e incentivo. No entanto foi possível a aplicação do HOMALS, Cluster e Correspondentes Análises, permitindo conclusões sobre o nível de eficácia do PRIME, incluindo localização e nível de sectores

Urbanization of Information Systems as a Trigger for enhancing Agility: A State in The Tunisian Firms

Nowadays, the information Systems (IS) became one of the main assets of modern corporations, but it faces many problems. Among the most important are low productivity and a large number of failures like obsolescence, heavier, slower and complexity of applications integration. The problem of low productivity of IS was the product of the software crisis, as indicated by the delayed development and implementation of ISs and accumulation which leads to maintenance problems. Requests for new or improved version of the IS have grown faster than the ability of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to develop the existing IS. Some reasons are: the increase in the cost of software development and the IT choices of the CIO. All the above problems are further exacerbated by the growing complexity and size of software products. The IS is obliged to overcome these difficulties and ensure its evolution. To do this, urbanization is a framework that aims to simplify the IS, to improve communication between its components and to ensure its evolution. In an exploratory approach, this study examines the concept of urbanization studying its impact on the IS to ascertain agility. This was done in order to ascertain the evolution of IS and guarantee the agility facing the environment turbulence. The general assertion is that the Urbanized Information Systems (UIS) changes a firm vision because its procure flexibility, reactivity and interoperability of UIS. The originality of this paper is to explore IS urbanization considered as a French framework of Enterprise Architecture (EA), this study is an empirical validation of the agility of UIS. Keywords Information Systems, Urbanization, Enterprise Architecture (EA), flexibility, Agilit

Cooperation reconsidered: the case of Comité del Pueblo in Quito

The case of Comité del Pueblo is an historical example, of a neighborhood of Quito created in the 70’s by a complex cooperative machine, which had the ability to overcome, legally, the shortcomings of the government. 5000 families in need of housing, an extreme left wing political party and a faculty of architecture, together in an impressive project of solidarity. A critical reflection on such example nowadays, uncovering the vanguard social figures of students, architects and urbanists, is not finalized to celebrate its premises, but rather to question the experience in the light of on-going Ecuadorian discussions on participation and inclusion. A lesson that probably deserves to be re-read as one of the scarce attempts to satisfy the right to the city in Quito.El caso de Comité del Pueblo es un ejemplo histórico de un barrio de Quito fundado en los 70’s. Diseñado y realizado a través de una compleja maquinaria cooperativa, hubo la capacidad de colmar legalmente, aunque sin involucrar al gobierno, una masiva demanda de vivienda. 5000 familias en necesidad de un hogar, un partido político de ‘extrema izquierda’, y la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad Central de Quito trabajando juntos en un impresionante proyecto de solidaridad. La relevancia de considerar hoy en día este ejemplo, dejando patente las figuras vanguardistas de los estudiantes, arquitectos y urbanistas involucrados, no es para alabarlo, si no mas bien para cuestionarlo a la luz de la actual discusión sobre participación e inclusión en el Ecuador. Una historia que merece ser releída como uno de los escasos intentos de satisfacer el derecho a la ciudad en Quito