Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Revenue Sharing and the Lessons of the New Federalism

The shift from categorical grants to general revenue sharing and block grants as the form of intergovernmental transfer represents an important turning point in the evolution of the American federal system. What factors account for this shift? WNhat forces propel such changes in the balance of power? And how will our intergovernmental system work when and if the New Federalism displaces the federal domestic aid strategy that has evolved over the past forty years

Water and democracy: new roles for civil society in water governance

In most democratic countries, government officials make water-allocation decisions. Citizens depend on these officials and their technical advisors to take account of both technical and political considerations in determining which water uses get priority, what infrastructure investments to make and what water quality standards to apply. In many parts of the world, water users and stakeholders have additional opportunities to comment on such decisions before they are implemented. Under some circumstances, citizens can challenge water management decisions in court. This is not enough. More direct democracy, involving stakeholders before such decisions are made, can produce fairer and increasingly sustainable results. The steps in collaborative adaptive management – a form of stakeholder engagement particularly appropriate to managing complex water networks – are described in this article along with the reasons that traditional forms of representative democracy are inadequate when it comes to water policy

Changing Perspectives on the Facility Siting Process

Building regionally necessary but locally noxious facilities such as power plants, landfills, waste incinerators and prisons has become increasingly difficult. David Laws and Lawrence Susskind discuss some of the traditional steps involved, including needs assessment, choice of technology, site selection, assessing and mitigating impacts, and management. They provide an alternative approach to facility siting that includes, among other things, seeking consensus, working to develop trust, setting realistic timetables, getting agreement that the status quo is unacceptable, choosing a design that best addresses the problem, and fully compensating for negative aspects of the facility

Guidelines for state involvement in the development of new communities in Massachusetts: toward a state urban growth policy.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. Thesis. 1970. M.C.P.Includes bibliographies.M.C.P

Planners and Planning Trying to Find Their Way in the World

If you were lost in the woods, what would you do? You would try to find your way out, of course. You would need to get your bearings, figure out where you were headed, and navigate appropriately given the terrain in which you were trapped. Some of my planning colleagues at the University of North Carolina appear to be lost. Moreover, they think the whole profession has lost its way – lost its professional identity, given up whatever authority it once had, and misplaced its vision of the future. Let’s look more closely at how and why the North Carolina folks are feeling so disoriented. They seem to have awakened from a dream in which planners had the authority to tell everybody what to do, the power to impose their will on anyone who didn’t agree with them and a monopoly on good ideas. Ah, now I see the problem. They were dreaming about a place and time that never existed. So, of course, they are feeling out of sorts now that they have opened their eyes

Decision-making and resource allocation in State government: a new perspective on revenue sharing and strategies for city survival.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. Thesis. 1973. Ph.D.Bibliography: leaves 620-640.Ph.D