How do we govern metropolitan areas in the Age of Emergencies?

As cities grow, their formal boundaries often no longer reflect their true size and influence. Nuno F. da Cruz (LSE) argues that in an age of uncertainty and emergencies, we should pay serious attention to how we re-scale urban governance, and how to do it in a democratic way

Scorecards for sustainable local governments

The current paper addresses the issue of performance measurement and benchmarking in local government. It briefly reviews some relevant international experiences and categorizes the existing assessment tools according to their general features. The authors argue that more than the benchmarking results themselves it is the evaluation process that matters. Furthermore, it is suggested that focusing only on effectiveness (e.g. ensuring the availability of certain public services) or efficiency (e.g. achieving good economic performance), is no longer consistent with the challenges that local decision-makers are now facing. Based on this, a conceptual model for benchmarking the “sustainability” of local governments is proposed. The illustrative municipal scorecard is presented for the city of Lisbon. The results show that using a comprehensive approach and a set of simple and carefully selected quantitative and qualitative indicators may empower citizens to act as “armchair auditors” and encourage local governments to realign their objectives

Viability of municipal companies in the provision of urban infrastructure services

This article discusses the organisational and institutional model of municipal company in the provision of urban infrastructure services in Portugal. The law recently enacted which defined the legal regime for the local business sector, as well as the growing awareness that the new public management models represent great advantages in comparison with the bureaucratic ones that characterise the traditional public administration, make this a current and relevant issue. For the purpose of investigating the viability of this provision model, this research encompasses three complementary analyses. First, the results obtained from a nationwide questionnaire on the features of municipal companies are analysed. Second, a SWOT matrix is constructed to examine the model of municipal company and, third, the total factor productivity (TFP) of these organisations is determined using the index number theory, in order to evaluate their performance and compare it with that of the traditional bureaucratic models. Although the concept of municipal company is based on noble principles and, in theory, it shows advantages compared to other means of service provision, this research points to very negative results regarding the model and leads to the conclusion that the aimed benefits are not achieved in Portugal. There are many causes contributing to this effect, but the political patronage of these companies and the lack of technical competence are presumably two of the most significant ones

A multi-criteria model to determine the sustainability level of water services

Sustainability is frequently associated with the triple bottom line (TBL) approach, but this is not sufficient to describe the sustainability of urban water cycle services (UWCS) since technical and governance aspects are also relevant. Nuno Ferreira da Cruz and Rui Cunha Marques suggest several dimensions, objectives and criteria that represent the sustainability level of UWCS and use a multi-criteria decision analysis model to aggregate these numerous aspects

Structuring composite local governance indicators

The importance of good governance is praised by many academics and practitioners. The prominence of the subject suggests that measurement is important. However, setting out to measure the quality of governance empirically is controversial. Doubts regarding the feasibility and meaningfulness of this undertaking are widespread in the literature. Recognizing the potential caveats, the current article discusses a set of guidelines for structuring a theoretically-sound local governance assessment tool based on the Decision Analysis and Operational Research literatures. The authors argue that using a multi-criteria model which employs several objective (quantitative and qualitative) indicators and relies on a participatory method to aggregate them is a suitable way of developing sensible Local Governance Indicators. The purpose here is to provide a detailed roadmap for any country (or region, or locality) willing to engage in the assessment of the qualityof local governance. The real-world implementation of a model developed according to these guidelines could help raise awareness, promote good practices, and increase the ‘governance literacy’ of citizens. By operationalizing good governance, analysts may also be able to further investigate the relationships between local governance practices and several socio-economic factors

An application of a multicriteria model to assess the quality of local governance

This article presents a method to assess the quality of local governance practices. The multicriteria decision analysis modeling approach is illustrated through a real application (Portuguese municipalities). To define the criteria, performance descriptors, and reference levels in each dimension of local governance, and to account for the differences in preference of scoring in each criterion, the judgments of legitimate stakeholders were considered through decision conferencing. The constructed “Municipal Governance Indicator” is calculated for the case of Lisbon to show the outputs of the model and its potential usefulness

New development: the challenges of designing municipal governance indicators

Quantitative governance indicators are being increasingly used to investigate the quality of governance and to ‘measure what matters’ in local government. This article addresses the challenges of developing appropriate and accurate indicators and presents a model for assessing governance systematically

New urban governance: a review of current themes and future priorities

This review paper explores some of the key concepts, trends and approaches in contemporary urban governance research. Based on a horizon scan of recent literature and a survey of local government officials it provides a big picture on the topic and identifies areas for future research. Bridging the gap between the scholarly research focus and the perceptions and requirements of city administrators represents a major challenge for the field. Furthermore, because global and comparative research on urban governance is confronted with an absence of systematically collected, comparable data, the paper argues that future efforts will require experimenting with methodologies that can generate new empirical insights

National transport policy and cities: key policy interventions to drive compact and connected urban growth

This paper provides a foundation for national transport policy-makers to begin pragmatic but ambitious conversations about actions they can take to make cities more accessible