Research-based analysis and commentary http://uwwebpro.uwinnipeg.ca/faculty/politics/faculty home.htmFebruary 18, 2010
CASE STUDIES CAN PRODUCE THEORETICAL ADVANCES: HERE'S AN EXAMPLE
Case studies have unjustifiably acquired a reputation for being semi-anecdotal investigations of the small details of individual circumstances, research that is incapable of generating significant empirical or theoretical advances in knowledge. It is argued that the case study is, at best, a preliminary step, in that it may generate hypotheses that can later be tested using such “more reliable” methods as standardized questionnaires or statistical data. In the study of politics, however, that sequence of research initiatives may well work better in reverse.
When political action generates new policies, or creates new states of affairs, these changes invariably come complete with a set of justifications, with or without a claim that the justifications are founded in scientific investigation or well-established social theory. Often, a very effective way of testing such claims, and the social science backing them, is to do a case study of the policy, or the changed state of affairs, enquiring into its causes and the effects it has produced, in order to test the validity of the original justification. A series of such case studies may, in turn, generate insights that are capable of producing theoretical advances.
Immigration and homelessness studies
A case in point is a series of case studies I've undertaken, now nearing completion, that were designed to test the efficacy of government immigration and homelessness policies, and, as well, to test some theoretical propositions I had earlier formulated - on the basis of other case studies - about the much-underestimated policy significance urban population growth rates.
In order to produce theory, studies must be grounded in theory. The starting-point for my case study series was the widely held recognition that globalization has moved cities to centre-stage in societies everywhere. Our collective well-being, both economic and social, depends on the prosperity and well-being of our cities, because, although we need food, minerals and other products of the countryside, it is cities that are our primary centres of creativity, decision-making, and ultimately of wealth-generation.
Globalization has sharpened our awareness of this reality because free trade agreements have reduced the capacity of national governments to protect urban regions from international competition, and modern communications have reduced the importance of location, plunging cities everywhere into direct competition with each other. Accordingly, we need to think carefully about how our political decision-making affects our cities. Governments everywhere, including the Canadian government, are doing that, by trying to find ways of ensuring that national policies contribute to the economic viability and social health of cities and communities.
This task is complicated by the fact that each community is as unique as each human individual. Therefore, although it is possible to set national objectives and standards that apply to all communities, complete uniformity of policy making and implementation is probably not achievable and is, in any event, undesirable, because what works in one city may not work in another. The Canadian government has addressed this reality by trying to ensure that the implementation of national policies can be tailored to the particularities of different communities.
My study focused on two examples of policies designed in this way: the National Homelessness Initiative and Immigration and Settlement. My research assistants and I looked at the implementation of these policies in three very different cities - Vancouver, Winnipeg and Saint John, New Brunswick - in order to test whether these policies were successfully adapted to a range of very different local conditions.
Findings
Here are some of our most interesting findings:
The rate of a city's population growth plays a critical, and widely overlooked role in determining the appropriateness of different policy choices. Policies that may be appropriate for rapidly growing cities are different from those that are appropriate for slow-growth cities. There is a strong tendency, however, for decision-makers in slow-growth cities to pretend that they will be able to increase their rates of growth, and premise their policies on future rapid growth - growth that rarely materializes.
The National Homelessness Initiative (NHI) contained provisions for consultation with local service providers to determine how NHI funding would be allocated. However, the NHI was created to address conditions in rapid-growth cities, and federal government policy in this area was not sufficiently flexible to allow for adaptation to the very different circumstances in slow-growth cities. As a result, NHI policies that were reasonably responsive to conditions in Vancouver proved ill adapted to the circumstances of Winnipeg and Saint John.
Federal immigration and settlement policies were adapted to local circumstances via federal-provincial agreements that devolved some responsibilities to provincial governments. In Vancouver, a famously effective network of settlement service providers suffered setbacks stemming from the British Columbia government's rigidly ideological approach to service provision. In Saint John, immigration and settlement objectives were thwarted by a local culture that proved relatively unreceptive to immigration. In Winnipeg, the provincial government implemented a set of immigration and settlement policies that have been recognized as a model, thanks to extensive consultation with service providers and flexible, thoughtful administration of a provincial nominee program.
Conclusion
The theory about the surprising importance of growth rates in setting the conditions for a wide range of policies first occurred to me because I had done case studies on a variety of subjects in such rapidly growing centres as Toronto, Vancouver and Portland, Oregon; and such slow-growth centres as Winnipeg and Edmonton, when the latter was a slow-growth centre. Because I was doing case studies, I was not narrowly focused on my particular research questions because case studies require the researcher to look broadly at the context of the question being investigated. As a result, I could not help noticing the striking differences among the cities I studied, and the way in which those differences corresponded to differences in rates of population growth.
In my comparative case studies of immigration and homelessness policies, growth rates were one of the criteria I had in mind in selecting research sites. The findings of those studies gave insights into the two policy areas and into some of the problems and possibilities of multi-level governance. But they also confirmed that policy and implementation problems were different in different cities, and that those differences were strongly influenced by population growth rates.
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For more about slow growth, see:
Christopher Leo and Wilson Brown, “Slow Growth and Urban Development Policy". Journal of Urban Affairs, 22 (2), 2000, pp. 193-213.
Christopher Leo and Katie Anderson, “Being Realistic about Urban Growth”. Journal of Urban Affairs. 28 (2), 2006, pp. 169-89.
For more about the findings regarding homelessness and immigration, see:
Leo, C. (2006). Deep Federalism: Respecting Community Difference in National Policy Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 39 (03) DOI: 10.1017/S0008423906060240
Christopher Leo, “National Policy and Community Initiative: Mismanaging Homelessness in a Slow Growth City”. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 15 (1) (supplement) 2006, pp. 1-21.
Christopher Leo and Martine August, “The Multi-Level Governance of Immigration and Settlement: Making Deep Federalism Work”. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 42 (2), 2009, pp. 491-510.
Christopher Leo and Jeremy Enns, “Multi-level governance and ideological rigidity: The failure of deep federalism". Canadian Journal of Political Science, 42 (1), 2009, 93-116.
Posted by leo-c at 1:49 PM
September 16, 2009
IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT IN MANITOBA: MAKING DEEP FEDERALISM WORK
This is the second in a series of two posts about the findings I'll be presenting next week in Toronto at the IPAC-PPM Cities and Public Policy conference. The previous post dealt with the mismanagement of homelessness in Winnipeg. This one focuses on the achievement of deep federalism in the administration of immigration and settlement in Winnipeg. In both entries, the overarching theme is that slow-growth cities have policy problems that are very different from those of cities that are growing rapidly, and that these differences are not being given the attention they deserve.
Vancouver and Toronto, like many rapidly-growing cities, are inundated in immigrants. Their biggest problem is providing adequate settlement and integration services. Winnipeg, like many slow-growth communities, gets few immigrants and suffers from labour shortages. Its challenge is to figure out how to use immigration as a means of addressing the labour shortages.
The Manitoba government began pursuing immigration as early as the 1970s, partly because of a consensus, at least among elite groups, which would be considered remarkable in many other jurisdictions. Because of labour shortages, and because of slow growth, in Manitoba as a whole and in Winnipeg in particular, the business community wanted immigration to address the shortages and the City of Winnipeg wanted to expand its tax base and population, and to revitalize decaying neighbourhoods with new residents. The right wanted economic growth and more workers, and the left wanted to meet humanitarian goals while building a more diverse society.
In the Canada-Manitoba Agreement on immigration and settlement, the provincial government won the right to nominate immigrants and oversee their integration. The government has done the kind of listening to the community in this case that the federal government failed to do in the case of the National Homelessness Initiative, and has, in the process, made deep federalism work. It established relationships with community groups that were interested in promoting immigration, such as the Société franco-manitobaine, which was looking for French-speakers to come to St. Boniface, the French Quarter; and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, which, initially, wanted to rescue Jewish Argentinians from the economic collapse there and later sought to bring in Jewish immigrants from other countries.
Thanks to a plethora of community alliances, the provincial government was able, first to lobby for a provincial nominee program for Manitoba and then, with the help of feedback from the community, to develop a workable set of programs for bringing immigrants to Manitoba, connecting them with jobs, and ensuring they had the services they needed to integrate. The program is widely recognized as a model, and it demonstrates that, in a number of policy areas – not all policy areas by any means – there is available knowledge and wisdom at the community level that can be tapped by governments at all levels to produce better policy.
Governments need to work harder at figuring out ways of drawing on the skills and knowledge that are available in communities everywhere, to help achieve governance that respects community difference in national policy, and in policy at all levels of government.
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For more detail on immigration and settlement in Winnipeg, look up:
Christopher Leo and Martine August. “The Multi-Level Governance of Immigration and Settlement: Making Deep Federalism Work.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 42 (2), 2009, pp. 491-510. To look at a draft of the article click here.
Posted by leo-c at 7:35 PM
September 15, 2009
MISMANAGING HOMELESSNESS IN A SLOW-GROWTH CITY
I'll be at the IPAC-PPM Cities and Public Policy conference next week in Toronto, reporting on some of the things I've learned about the impact of federal government policies on Winnipeg. My overall theme will be that slow-growth cities have policy problems that are very different from those of cities that are growing rapidly, and that these differences are not being given the attention they deserve.
Rapid growth generally pushes up the price of housing and multiplies the numbers of homeless people living on the street. Slow growth often depresses the price of housing and produces decayed housing, because the value of houses is not high enough to produce the necessary incentive for home renovations. People are less likely to be living on the street and more likely to be living in unsafe or inadequate housing. Two entirely different problems, and clearly different solutions are indicated.
The federal government’s National Homelessness Initiative was a response to an incident in the late 1990s, in which a homeless man froze to death on the streets of Toronto. The federal government resolved to mount a program, but having vacated the housing field some years earlier, it was determined not to get back into providing funding for housing.
The result was SCPI, the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, which, over a period of three years - our study ended in 2006 - made $23.5 million available in Winnipeg for funding such things as emergency shelters and services to street people. Winnipeg service providers argued that Winnipeg, like most slow-growth cities, had relatively small numbers of people living on the streets, but large numbers of people living in precarious housing.
They pleaded with the government to make some of its funding available for home renovation programs, and for the development of low-cost housing, but to no avail. Their only recourse was to invent programs that met federal government funding conditions, programs that they knew were not the best way to spend $23.5 million dollars.
As a result, Winnipeg service providers were forced to develop programs that might have been money well spent in Vancouver or Toronto, but that were less than optimum for Winnipeg.
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For full details on this case, take a look at:
Christopher Leo and Martine August. National Policy and Community Initiative: Mismanaging Homelessness in a Slow-Growth City. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 15 (1) (supplement) 2006, pp. 1-21. To view a draft of the paper, click here.
Posted by leo-c at 5:12 PM
December 13, 2008
IKEA: DOING WINNIPEG A FAVOUR OR LOOKING FOR A SWEETHEART DEAL?
The perennial "Is IKEA coming to Winnipeg?" story recently took a new twist. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, an IKEA spokesperson characterized Winnipeg as "the market that we are taking the most serious look at right now for expansion." She said IKEA has identified a location, but refused to say what it was and fed the air of mystery that has surrounded this story from the beginning by adding: "It is very premature for us to say anything at this point."
Still, it was enough to leave Winnipeg's legion of IKEA fans bubbling with enthusiasm. A typical comment on Skyscraper.com: "The fact that this city is even on the radar shows that we are not some deadwater city with no potential, as these kinds of stores don't set up in places like Sudbury."
IKEA's strip-tease approach to announcing its intentions one tantalizing detail at a time has all the earmarks of development strategists who are savvy in the ways of exploiting the collective inferiority complex of a slow-growth city. Many Winnipeggers feel bad about their home because they consider it to be, not the excellent place to live that it is, not a great place for dining out and enjoying every variety of the arts, which it is as well, but a backwater, not worthy because it is not as big as Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto.
Inferiority complexes offer excellent opportunities for head games, and nobody plays them better than developers. If IKEA does come to Winnipeg, the first step in preparing for the move will be negotiation with the city about the terms and conditions for locating here. IKEA, we may be sure, will be seeking concessions: possibly cheap land, tax concessions, a good deal on the cost of infrastructure, or maybe favourable terms regarding design and location of the store.
Every concession the city grants IKEA extracts costs us, financially or in other ways. By letting representatives of the company, and our political leaders, see how avidly we desire one of their stores, and how deeply that desire is tied to our sense of self-worth, we put pressure on politicians to make concessions. Let's hope that Winnipeg doesn't join the ranks of those who, notoriously, are born at the rate of one a minute.
29 December 2008
POSTSCRIPT
I returned from a business trip to Tokyo to find that IKEA is already a done deal. From news reports, it does appear that some substantial concessions may have been made in the cost of infrastructure needed for the new development. News reports are unclear regarding other possible concessions.
Posted by leo-c at 5:56 PM
November 13, 2008
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN UTICA TURNED WATER SERVICES OVER TO A REGIONAL AGENCY
Here's an excerpt from an article that ought to be required reading for anyone who is involved or interested in the proposal to turn Winnipeg's water and sewer services over to an independent regional water utility. It raises questions that require careful consideration. The complete article is available at http://strikeslip.blogspot.com/2008/11/wrong-regionalization-oneida-county.html
Thanks to Tom Christoffel for pointing this out to me.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wrong Regionalization: The Oneida County Sewer District
[This article was originally published in the October 2008 "Utica Phoenix":]
Over 40 years ago Oneida County made the first "regionalization" effort in Greater Utica by forming the Oneida County Sewer District to serve 12 area municipalities. The goal was noble: build a system of sanitary sewer interceptors, pumping stations and a treatment plant to clean up water pollution in the Mohawk River, and make it affordable by spreading the cost over all system users by charges attached to water bills. The goal was accomplished, but flaws in the scheme have produced harmful results.
Dilution of representation: One flaw is that sewer district residents ceded control of the system to many disinterested parties, specifically, the county legislators from places untouched by the sewer district. This meant that decisions would not necessarily be made from the perspective of the customers receiving the service and paying the bills, but rather by many people who would not be held accountable for their actions - people who could use their controlling position to advance other agendas.
Uncoordinated decision-making: Another flaw is that decisions over sewers are made by people with no responsibility for other municipal services, making it unlikely that decision makers will be aware of how their decisions could adversely affect the supply of other services.
Diluted representation and uncoordinated-decision making have contributed to urban sprawl, the county's violation of water pollution laws, and the people of Utica subsidizing suburban growth.
Utica is geographically small, with most of its land previously developed. In an older age when people gravitated to cities for convenience, as structures aged and fell into disuse, they were replaced with something bigger and better. Utica was no different. With the automobile and improved highways, outlying areas also became convenient to reach. Since it usually is cheaper to build on undeveloped land ("green fields") than tearing down an old structure and rebuilding, both people and businesses started to migrate to the suburban areas as city structures aged, paying to extend the city's water and sewer services.
With the advent of the Part County Sewer District and its interceptor lines, far-flung localities were able to tap into the treatment plant located in Utica. These places could never have afforded on their own the level of service that they received. Since the vast bulk of the population lived in Utica, Utica residents paid for most of the cost of this system. In effect, Utica residents were financing suburban growth while encouraging the rotting of their city from within.
(Click here for the complete article from the Utica Phoenix.)
Posted by leo-c at 1:11 PM
November 8, 2008
A REGIONAL WATER UTILITY: BUSINESS-LIKE GOVERNANCE OR A WAY TO DODGE RESPONSIBILITY?
Mayor Sam Katz wants to create a regional water utility, to run Winnipeg's sewer and water systems, possibly taking over garbage disposal and recycling as well. The agency would operate independently of city council and, if it wished, market Winnipeg's water to adjacent municipalities.
The agency would set rates for the services it provides, applying to the provincial Public Utilities Board for permission to raise rates. Katz told the Winnipeg Free Press that "Handing this power over to the board would take politics out of the process." Good idea, eh? No more interference in these services from low-life politicians: just good, honest, business-like governance.
Wait a minute: It was a politician that proposed this. Why would a political leader want to hand over a substantial chunk of his responsibility to someone else? The answer can be found in the city's most recent six-year capital budget, which sets out the money that the city must invest in maintenance and improvement of its services.
Click here for capital budget summary.
The biggest liability on the list is $826 million for sewage disposal projects, a consequence of the provincial government's order to the city to clean up the water it dumps into the river system. Not far behind is $164 million for the water system. Imagine how much easier the mayor's life would be if future sewer and water rate increases, as well as sewage and water supply problems, could be blamed on the Public Utilities Board and the regional water agency.
Anyway, everyone seems to love the idea. The Winnipeg Free Press referred to it as "branching out". In a radio interview, a couple of political leaders in municipalities adjacent to Winnipeg voiced their strong support, and expressed their impatience with nonsensical arguments about sprawl.
Sprawl? Does this have something to do with sprawl? In trying to answer that question, it helps to bear in mind that industrial and commercial development requires the kind of generous and reliable water supply that only a municipal water system can deliver. Already all the municipalities surrounding Winnipeg are able to build their revenues by offering opportunities for residential development at substantially lower tax rates than the ones Winnipeg can offer.
Wouldn't it be nice if those municipalities could compete on similarly favourable terms for the Winnipeg region's industrial and commercial development? Indeed it would, for them. And for Winnipeg?
As it happens, I can draw you a picture of what the regional marketing of Winnipeg's water might hold in store for the city, because there is at least one precedent. After World War II, decision-makers in the thriving city of Detroit thought they had hit on a wonderful opportunity for revenue generation: Market their excellent municipal water supply regionally. In the years that followed, Detroit lost its mainstay, automobile manufacturing, in part to municipalities in the region. Residential and commercial development joined the exodus.
Today a visitor to Detroit can, if she ignores warnings from tourism advisors - as I did a few years ago - walk for hours through the empty streets, past the abandoned buildings of what remains of one of America's most dynamic cities. It's actually quite safe. The streets are so empty that, if you do meet someone, they'll probably stop and talk to you, and they may tell you stories about the grand hotels, and the tycoons, the jazz musicians and factory workers who used to jostle each other in the crowded streets of Detroit.
Of course, Winnipeg is not Detroit. No two city histories are identical. But what we can learn from Detroit is how rapidly and completely a city can be devastated by growth beyond its boundaries, even a major city like Detroit, never mind a medium-sized or smaller city like Winnipeg, Camden, N.J., East St. Louis, Illinois, and numerous others whose downtowns have been similarly ravaged. Given that potential, it makes no sense for Winnipeg voluntarily to give up one of the few development tools it controls, and turn it over to an agency that will have every incentive to meet its costs by promoting growth wherever possible, and no real incentive at all consider the city's ability to maintain its own viability.
It has been suggested that the sale of Winnipeg's water might be in the city's interest if adjacent municipalities were required to pay a substantial premium for the same service Winnipeg gets at a lower price, or that it might be all right if water were supplied on the stipulation that the adjacent municipalities could not use if for commercial or industrial development. The thing to remember is that, once water supply is turned over to an independent agency, such decisions will be out of the hands of either the citizens of Winnipeg or city council.
The independent water utility would be free to sell water to any municipality that wanted to buy it, and would have every incentive to do so at every opportunity. The setting of the price for the water service would be in the hands of the Public Utilities Board, also entirely beyond the control of Winnipeg's citizens or city council. The PUB would be unlikely to agree to differential rates for the same service.
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You can find a detailed account of the evolution of water policies in metropolitan Detroit in:
George M. Walker, Jr., and Norman Wengert, Urban water policies and decision-making in the Detroit metropolitan region. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1970.
Posted by leo-c at 6:32 AM | Comments (1)
May 27, 2008
CITY HALL TAKE NOTE: PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS WON'T FIX THIS PROBLEM
Everyone agrees that Winnipeg's spending on infrastructure maintenance is seriously short of what is required to maintain the streets, sewers and water lines in good condition. Anyone can confirm this by taking a drive or a walk around some of the older neighbourhoods and observing the potholes and cracks in the streets. Winnipeggers who keep an eye on the news will observe more fundamental ills, including sinkholes that open up suddenly, sometimes swallowing automobiles or construction machinery, because of the deteriorated state of underground sewer lines.
The causes of this problem are obvious, if you think through what's happening, and they can be fixed. This is a tad complex, so bear with me.
Within recent years the infrastructure deficit - the amount needed, but not being spent, on maintenance - has been estimated at $1 - $2 billion, and that was before recent, very substantial increases in construction costs. You can get a more concrete sense of how serious the under-spending is by looking at some sample figures from the most recent, detailed study of the matter.
That study was published in 1998, but changes since then have not been for the better, even though both federal and provincial governments have put new money into Winnipeg's infrastructure. The reasons for this are complex, but the most fundamental one is that Winnipeg can't break the habit of spreading itself too thinly, spending so much money on new horizontal infrastructure - roads and the underground municipal services that go with them - as to undermine its own viability.
Not only infrastructure, but other city services - from transit, policing and fire-fighting to mosquito and weed control - cost more if equipment and people have to be moved over longer distances. The city sprawls out across bald prairie, but is settled so thinly that there are not enough property tax payers to cover the costs of its services. This happens because the city builds roads generously, and exercises no real control over the location of new development. By default, the choice of location falls to developers.
In choosing locations for new development, one of the most important considerations for developers is access to the rest of the city. As the city expands the road system, the areas available for development multiply. A developer's primary obligation is to his or her shareholders so, quite properly, development proposals focus on the potentially most profitable locations. Those locations are not the same as the ones that the city would choose if it were ensuring the most cost-effective expansion of its network of infrastructure and services.
The developers are doing their job of focusing on profit, but the city is not serious about doing its job of regulating location. In practice, the city is highly reluctant to say no to any serious development proposal. The result is that perfectly developable parcels get by-passed because they don't represent a priority for developers. Therefore, the city straggles across the countryside, all the while straining to cover the costs of infrastructure and services.
Transcona West (click on the picture) is only the most conspicuous parcel in a large inventory of land located well within the city that is suitable for conventional suburban development, meaning developments in the same style as the fringe neighbourhoods of Whyte Ridge and Island Lakes. In 2004, according to the city's Residential Land Supply Study, land usable for conventional suburban development amounted to 20,300 lots, while the most optimistic population growth projections yielded an estimated maximum demand of 19,618 for lots by the year 2011.
At that point, the Manitoba Homebuilders' Association stirred up a panic about a so-called "critical lot shortage". At the same time, the Manitoba government was anxious to secure revenue from the development of a large tract it owned at the southern edge of the city, in the area known as Waverley West. (Other parts of Waverley West are owned by a developer, Ladco, and the University of Manitoba.) As a result the city was browbeaten into changing Plan Winnipeg in order to open up the 2,900 acres of Waverley West, making enough agricultural land available for more than 13,000 additional single-family suburban homes.
As the city scrambled to do the planning work necessary for this fringe development, Transcona West, and other substantial parcels of land available within the city, languished undeveloped. Meanwhile, the development of Waverley West will require the extension of Kenaston Boulevard to the Perimeter Highway. (See diagram below.) That extension, the other infrastructure required for this development, and the full panoply of city services to follow, will add further to the city's costs, spreading it more thinly yet, making it still more difficult to cover its costs.
What's more, the extension of Kenaston provides improved access to land outside the city, in areas where property taxes are substantially lower than taxes in Winnipeg, for the very good reason that largely rural, gradually urbanizing municipalities can get by with a much lower level of services than those a city has to supply. In other words, by extending Kenaston to the Perimeter, the city is creating improved access to areas outside the city, thereby enabling the development of new suburban neighbourhoods in adjacent municipalities. The residents of those neighbourhoods will make frequent use of Winnipeg's over-stretched services, but not have to pay Winnipeg property taxes.
To get a taste of where that can lead, take a look at McGillivray Boulevard (click on picture above), most of which crosses an area of farmland in the south-west corner of the city, an area served mainly by gravel roads. For reasons best understood by city planners and decision-makers, McGillivray became a paved highway to the perimeter. That stretch of pavement has drawn little development within the city. But just outside the city is Oak Bluff, a conventional suburban development surrounded by farmland.
It's a safe bet that most of the residents of Oak Bluff travel regularly up and down that nice stretch of highway, thoughtfully provided by Winnipeg taxpayers to make it easier for them to enjoy Winnipeg services while evading Winnipeg taxes. Similar situations prevail on all sides of the city, and in all directions access is being improved to municipalities with highly competitive cost structures, hungering to compete with Winnipeg for new development. Each time they succeed in attracting a development that might otherwise have been located in the city, Winnipeg becomes a little bit poorer.
In short, the city's expenses are already out of control, and our decision-makers are bending every effort to drive them still farther out of control. How will we bring the cost of infrastructure development under control? Ask the decision-makers in City Hall, and they will tell you that the solution is public-private partnerships.
Instead of borrowing money to build bridges and other infrastructure, we are told, the city will sign contracts with a private companies, in which a company agrees to construct a facility and lease it to the city. Somehow, by paying a company to borrow money and build a bridge, the city, it is implied, will save enough money to resolve the infrastructure crisis.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a company is actually able to deliver infrastructure at a lower cost to the city than the city itself would achieve. (Studies suggest that it is a controversial proposition. See citations below.) It should be obvious that such savings cannot possibly make up for the ills of a city stretched too thinly to cover the costs of its own services. There is, in fact, no way this problem can be resolved in the short run.
In the short run, we will have to choose between higher taxes to cover the costs of services, or continuing deterioration of our services. In the long run, the city, and the provincial government, will have to screw their courage to the sticking-point and exercise their legal control over land use, at the risk of saying no to developers from time to time.
The alternative is further decline in our older infrastructure, and in municipal services. We have already gone a good way down this road. A rapid transit system - conceived on the lowest possible budget to begin with - has been cancelled. Recreation facilities in low-income neighbourhoods, widely acknowledged to be key in the battle against gangs, are being shut down and razed. Mayor Sam Katz's so-called Economic Opportunities Commission, reduced to grasping at straws, has suggested the city consider privatizing golf courses and swimming pools, and turning the delivery of municipal services over to business organizations and homeowner associations.
Ultimately, the question is this: Will the city take control of land use, or will it go the way of Camden, New Jersey (below), and many other American cities that have been unable to find the courage to take their fate in their hands.
Photos by Camilo José Vergara. To see more of Camden, and other cities, go to a beautifully constructed web site entitled Invincible Cities
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For more detailed discussions of the causes of urban decay, and means of addressing it in Winnipeg's context, take a look at;
Christopher Leo and Lisa Shaw, with Ken Gibbons and Colin Goff, “What causes Inner-city decay and what can be done about it?” In Katherine Graham and Caroline Andrew, eds., Urban affairs: Is it back on the policy agenda? Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002, 119-47.
Richard Lennon and Christopher Leo, “Metropolitan growth and municipal boundaries: Problems and proposed solutions”. International Journal of Canadian Studies, 24 (Fall), 2001, 77-104.
For briefer discussions addressing various elements of the problems of a straggling city, see:
Fixing sprawl would be a lot easier if we'd focus on the problem.
Are you tired of the sprawl game?
On public-private partnerships, see Jean-Etienne de Bettignies and Thomas W. Ross, "The economics of public-private partnerships". (Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, 30 [2], pp. 135-154). Also, watch for a forthcoming book by John and Salim Loxley, entitled The economics and financing of P3s: Theory and Canadian policy and practice.
The detailed assessment of Winnipeg's infrastructure deficit, referred to above, is in City of Winnipeg, Strategic infrastructure reinvestment policy: Report and recommendations. City of Winnipeg, 1998.
Posted by leo-c at 6:02 AM | Comments (2)
October 5, 2007
RAPID URBAN GROWTH, SLOW GROWTH, AND MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE
Multi-level governance distinguishes itself from the traditional federal system by treating cities, and sometimes communities, as visible and significant partners in the interplay among levels of government, and not simply as the lowest level of government. The emergence of this change in the way the federal system is conceived is related to the enhanced economic and political importance of cities in a world marked by greatly increased freedom of movement for goods, people, ideas and money. In a world marked by free movement, cities become magnets for wealth and production on one hand and problems on the other. In the process their political importance is magnified.
If she were still with us, Jane Jacobs might appreciate the irony that it has taken the economic realities of globalization to force a recognition of the centrality of cities to the national economy. Long before anyone was talking about globalization, she led the way in making the case, in Cities and the Wealth of Nations, that running a country as if it constituted a single economy was a sure way to get governance wrong. And since the economy is intimately interconnected with all other areas of national life, there are many policy domains in which national uniformity is a good recipe for failure.
Each city, or at least each urban-centred region, is a different economy, and should be governed differently from other cities. I have used the term "deep federalism" to describe policy that succeeds in respecting community difference. How can we accomplish that? There is no easy way to understand community difference, no simple set of generalizations that will allow us to say that a community of type A has characteristics B, C and D, while a community of type E has another set of readily definable characteristics. If there were, there would be no need for deep federalism. The federal government could develop a different policy model for each of a finite number of well-defined community types and administer everything from the centre. But there is nothing finite about community difference.
Despite that, my research on multi-level governance has uncovered one variable that seems particularly robust, and my findings regarding this source of community difference confirm the results of earlier research. (See also "Being realistic about urban growth", listed below.) A very basic reason why different cities need different policies is population growth rate. Cities with rapid population growth face a very different set of problems than cities that are growing slowly. This is obvious in a number of policy areas, including two - housing and immigration - that are covered by my multi-level governance research. An exploration of the importance of this source of difference in both policy areas helps us to better understand the need for deep federalism while providing insight into some of the problems posed by differences in growth rate.
Immigration is always a sensitive political issue in Canada, and it has been especially so in recent years, as immigration legislation has undergone a series of hotly contested revisions. Throughout these changes, the government has been under pressure to limit immigration, on the basis of fears that immigrants will place undue burdens on the social safety net and that they will take jobs from Canadians. Whatever the merits of those arguments — the case against immigration is less than compelling — a point that has been frequently overlooked is that immigration has very different impacts on different communities. Much of the controversy surrounding immigration is centred in major metropolitan areas, especially such growth magnets as Toronto and Vancouver. In Toronto, much is made of fears that the city will attract large numbers of immigrants with limited skills, many of whom, it is feared , will end up a burden on the state, and perhaps become involved in criminal activity. In Vancouver, there has long been controversy over allegations that Asian immigrants are driving up the cost of housing.
If such arguments have any substance at all, they are relevant mainly for the few metropolitan areas in the country with rapid population growth and high housing costs. In our research, the clearest contrast with Vancouver and Toronto is Winnipeg, a slow-growth centre that is not even remotely in danger of becoming inundated by large numbers of any population. By the same token, the city is an ideal location for people, especially those with limited resources, who are looking for a stable community and a chance to make a future for themselves and their families: a large stock of affordable housing; some decent schooling at all levels, even in poorer neighbourhoods; and, for people from dozens of different countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia, a supportive community environment.
The benefits Winnipeg offers immigrants are matched by the advantages their influx holds for a city suffering from labour shortages and badly in need of more residents in declining older neighbourhoods. The Manitoba provincial government has been aware of the potential benefits of immigration in a slow-growth jurisdiction since at least the late 1970s, but a federal government response was slow in coming. Thus, until the late 1990s, Winnipeggers were treated to the spectacle of Torontonians bitterly complaining about immigrants while national policies denied Winnipeg the immigrants it needed. Immigration policy, therefore, provides an excellent example of the importance of deep federalism, and the significance of urban population growth. A uniform national immigration policy is simply counter-productive, for reasons intimately connected with urban growth rate. A slow-growth city like Winnipeg may be looking for more immigrants, even while rapidly growing cities are struggling to cope with the influx they already have.
Similar observations can be made about urban growth and housing. Rapidly growing Vancouver, typical of cities in similar circumstances, suffers from runaway housing prices, prices high enough to pose serious problems for the middle class and to drive some poor people into the streets. Winnipeg, meanwhile, has much more affordable housing. A Statistics Canada comparison of salaries and housing costs for Vancouver and Winnipeg gives some sense of the scale of that contrast.
Click here for cost of living and housing comparison.
With housing cost differentials that dwarf differences in income, it is small wonder that Winnipeg has less absolute homelessness — the social service term for life in the streets, under bridges, in parks or in shelters — than Vancouver and Toronto. In Vancouver, homeless censuses produced a total of 1049 in 2002 and 2112 in 2005. In Toronto, according to David Hulchanski (cited below), the average number of people using emergency shelters on any given night was 4900 in 2000, 4600 in 1999 and 2400 in 1992.
Meanwhile, a report titled “A community plan on homelessness and housing in Winnipeg”, prepared by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg and representing the views of 36 community groups involved in service delivery to homeless people, did not attempt a count of the absolutely homeless. Rather, in a carefully thought-out strategy for dealing with homelessness, the focus was not on street people but on what service providers call the relatively homeless: people who are paying far more than they can afford for housing, or are living in seriously inadequate shelter.
Why? In Winnipeg, as in other slow-growth centres, while the numbers of street people are not as overwhelming as those in Toronto and Vancouver, the numbers of people in desperate need of housing that is both affordable and conducive to stable family life is nevertheless very substantial, because low housing costs undermine the incentive for home maintenance. The result is relatively ready availability of a great deal of ramshackle housing, and a stakeholder consensus that the priority must be affordable housing.
In short, the rate of urban population growth is a critical determinant of a range of important differences among cities. Certainly in both immigration and housing, uniform national policies for cities growing at different rates are a good way to go wrong.
The points made in this blog entry are documented in:
Christopher Leo, “Deep Federalism: Respecting Community Difference in National Policy.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 39:3, 2006, 481-506.
Want to find out more about this topic? Take a look at:
Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations. New York: Vintage, 1984.
Christopher Leo and Martine August, “National Policy and Community Initiative: Mismanaging Homelessness in a Slow Growth City.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 15 (1) (supplement) 2006, pp. 1-21.
Christopher Leo and Wilson Brown, “Slow Growth and Urban Development Policy.” Journal of Urban Affairs, 22 (2), 2000, 193-213.
Christopher Leo and Katie Anderson, “Being Realistic about Urban Growth.” Journal of Urban Affairs. 28:2, 2006, 169-89.
J. David Hulchanski, "A New Canadian Pastime? Counting Homeless People." Toronto: Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, December, 2000.
Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, "A Community plan on Homelessness
and Housing in Winnipeg. Winnipeg: Social Planning Council, 2001.
Posted by leo-c at 5:21 PM
March 3, 2007
FIXING SPRAWL WOULD BE A LOT EASIER IF WE'D FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM
In a post entitled "Are You Tired of the Sprawl Game?", I argued that we miss the essentials of the problem of managing urban growth by focusing instead on images and ideologies - arguing, for example, about New Urbanism vs. modernism, or liberalism vs. conservatism, instead of doing what needs to be done. In this post, I follow that argument up with some practical suggestions for Winnipeg.
I focus on a particular city because that's really the only way growth problems can be addressed. Each city is unique, and there is no universal template. That said, each city displays many similarities with many other cities. My suggestions for Winnipeg will resonate with many who are familiar with the problems of other mid-size, slow-growth cities in North America.
In Winnipeg, as in many other slow-growth cities, the essence of the problem of sprawl is that we extend roads, sewers and water lines much farther than we need to to accommodate our slow population growth. As a result, the costs of these facilities spiral out of control for want of enough property owners to pay for them. There are a lot of simple, straightforward planning practices that we could be following to help bring our runaway infrastructure and servicing costs under control, while making the city a more interesting and pleasant place to live.
There are generally no very good reasons why we're not doing these things. The most important single reason is quite simply that North American cities have, over the past three-quarters of a century, been developed on principles that sounded good in theory but haven't worked in practice, and we've been slow to break the bad habits that developed during this period.
Here's my five-step program for getting a start on breaking those habits:
1. GET SERIOUS ABOUT DOING NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANS FOR THE SUBSTANTIAL AREAS WITHIN THE CITY THAT ARE AVAILABLE FOR CONVENTIONAL SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT.
The development industry and the city planning department talked City Council into opening up a vast new tract of farmland now called Waverley West, which will greatly increase the city's infrastructure and service delivery burdens. They won City Council approval for this ill-advised move by arguing that there was a critical lot shortage. What they didn't say was that the reason for the shortage is that the city has failed to do the planning work necessary to open up areas within the city that would be suitable for regular suburban development, but would not constitute sprawl, and would allow us to make more efficient use of existing infrastructure and service networks, instead of developing new ones. The city needs to hire more planners and put them to work on this critical task. (Go to Are you tired of the sprawl game? for more detail.)
2. SUPPORT THE TRANSIT SYSTEM BY PAYING ATTENTION TO THE LOCATION OF NEW MEDIUM AND HIGH-DENSITY DEVELOPMENT.
People living in apartments and row houses tend to be users of transit, if convenient transit is available. But if we permit the location of apartment buildings in the far reaches of such suburban areas as St James, or Island Lakes, as we have, we end up with apartment dwellers dependent on automobiles for almost all their transportation, because it's impossible provide a good transit service in those locations. An efficient transit system that draws a lot of passengers is essential to the development of a sustainable city.
3. GET BUSY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAPID TRANSIT, A JOB THAT ALMOST EVERYONE NOW ACKNOWLEDGES NEEDS TO BE DONE.
Fifty years of talk and studies should provide an ample basis for decisions. The establishment of an efficient, modern transit system would be a critical step toward bringing the costs of services and infrastructure under control. In tandem with the development of rapid transit, land use measures need to be taken to allow so-called transit-oriented development along the transit lines.
4. MAINTAIN AND EXPAND THE GOOD INITIATIVES WE HAVE UNDERWAY FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF INNER CITY RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBOURHOODS AND THE COMMERCIAL CORE...
...and intensify the focus on the development of housing to support both the commercial heart of the city and low-income residents of nearby neighbourhoods, instead of abandoning those initiatives, as the city now seems to be doing. (A recent measure to provide tax incentives for multi-family and mixed commercial-residential development is a step in the right direction.) A lively, attractive downtown, where people from all walks of life can afford to live, is central to the achievement of all the other objectives I advocate.
5. PUT NEIGHBOURHOOD COMMERCE, SHOPPING-MALL-BASED BUSINESSES AND BIG BOX DEVELOPMENTS ON A LEVEL PLAYING-FIELD.
At the moment, such big box stores as those in the St. James Street strip enjoy hidden subsidies because they do not have to meet the same standards for building design or contributions to infrastructure maintenance as other businesses. The importance of giving all our business people an even break ought to be obvious to everyone, regardless of their political beliefs. For more information, read The Twilight Zone of City Zoning Regulations
We can get all these things done without arguing about New Urbanism vs. modernism, liberalism vs conservatism or capitalism vs. socialism. By all means, let's continue these debates. They're inherently interesting, and important in the long term. But they need not and should not distract us from pursuing straightforward planning measures that can help restore Winnipeg's ability to manage its resources within its budget, while making the city more attractive and more functional.
Want to find out more? Here are some useful sources:
A more detailed and comprehensive set of proposals for growth management in the Winnipeg region is presented in Richard Lennon and Christopher Leo. “Metropolitan Growth and Municipal Boundaries: Problems and Proposed Solutions.” International Journal of Canadian Studies, 24 (Fall), 2001, 77-104.
For land use measures that support the transit system, go to http://www.vtpi.org/, or just run a search on "TOD" or "Transit-oriented development". The internet is full of useful information about this important subject.
Posted by leo-c at 5:32 PM
March 5, 2006
WHY SPRAWL IS A BIGGER PROBLEM WHEN GROWTH IS SLOW
A lot of genuine experts in problems of urban growth assume that urban sprawl is a big problem for cities that that are growing rapidly, but that it is much less of a problem with slow growth. This is only one of many illustrations of how the problems of slow-growth cities are neglected, because a little bit of reflection is all it takes to conclude that the opposite is true. In a nutshell, the problem of slow-growth cities is that, unlike the proverbial growth machine, they are a machine for the creation of empty space.
In the typical North American city, empty spaces appear in both suburban areas and the inner city. In the suburbs this happens because farms, forests or fields at the edge of the city are rarely developed in strict sequence, with the land nearest to existing urbanized tracts ahead of more distant ones in the development queue. A parcel of land separated from the rest of the city by greenfields will require roads, sewerage, water lines and transit service. These expensive services will have to be extended across lands that generate the low levels of taxation typical of farmland, rather than the much higher taxes that come from urban development. Once occupied, a new subdivision requires conveniently located community centres and library branches, and the same response times for fire fighters, police and paramedics that more densely-populated areas of the city enjoy. Street cleaning, snow removal, grass cutting, insect control, and everything else the municipality does will have to serve empty parcels of land as well as full ones.
Photo by Lynn Betts, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service http://photogallery.nrcs.usda.gov/
If a city is growing slowly, as Winnipeg is, those empty spaces can be there a long time before development fills them up. In a rapidly growing city, such as Vancouver, empty parcels are filled up more quickly. For example, Vancouver and surrounding municipalities, with 690 persons per square kilometre, has an easier time paying its bills than the Winnipeg area, with 162. Even if everyone in Winnipeg lived in expensive homes and everyone in Vancouver in modest bungalows – which is decidedly not the case – Winnipeg would have trouble keeping pace.
Someone will object that both the Winnipeg and Vancouver metropolitan areas – but especially metropolitan Winnipeg – include large areas belonging to urbanizing municipalities, where thinly scattered residences may require a much lower level of municipal services. However, a comparison of the cities of Vancouver and Winnipeg, excluding surrounding municipalities, produce much the same result: population densities, respectively, of 4759 and 1332. By either calculation, Winnipeg is forced to spread its services far more thinly than Vancouver.
To be sure, a gross calculation based only on population density skips many important details, but more detailed investigations have produced similar results. A variety of studies that, among them, have calculated the infrastructure costs associated with different densities and settlement patterns, as well as the differences between uniform and mixed-use developments, make it clear that the low-density, single-land-use development that is typical of North American suburbs and exurban areas carries a heavy price tag. Studies that go beyond infrastructure to calculate the costs of other services similarly demonstrate that higher densities and greater proximity of different types of development (houses, stores, offices) produce substantial savings compared with the isolated residential districts, shopping centres and industrial areas typical of North American suburban development.
What does all this have to do with slow and fast growth? By sheer force of numbers and distance, cities necessarily densify as they get larger, even if they are badly planned, and if they are growing rapidly, they densify more quickly. As a practical matter, that means that when leap-frog development takes place at the edge of metropolitan Vancouver, the empty spaces that represent a taxpayer liability get filled in quickly, while, in Winnipeg, they languish for a long time as empty spaces, and taxpayer liabilities. That is one way that North American urban development is a machine for the production of empty spaces.
The second empty space machine is the decay, followed possibly by abandonment, of many inner city neighbourhoods adjacent to the commercial heart of the city. In a city that is growing rapidly, development pressure tends to produce rapid gentrification or expansion of downtown towers. In slow-growth centres, the decay simply continues, and empty lots sprout, producing more untaxable land that must be serviced. In many cities decay simply overwhelms efforts at regeneration.
http://invinciblecities.camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html
Accordingly, in Vancouver’s poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside, gentrification and the encroachment of the financial district have been ongoing issues. In Winnipeg’s centrally-located North End and West End neighbourhoods, things aren't as bad as in the picture above, but community organizers are locked in a never-ending battle against the proliferation of boarded-up buildings and empty lots. They make the best of a bad situation by renovating houses and developing pocket parks, community gardens or new, affordable homes. But the empty lots continue to proliferate. Gentrification or office development is out of the question in much of that vast area. Downtown as in the suburbs, Winnipeg's taxpayers assume the burden of servicing empty spaces, and neighbourhoods with low property values, while Vancouver's decaying areas quickly fill up with premium-rate taxpayers.
This is only one of many ways that the politics and the problems of cities differ according to their rate of growth. Slow-growth cities and rapidly-growing ones need to be managed differently, but usually the decision-makers in slow-growth cities simply ape the policies being pursued by such cities as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Calgary and Dallas. Until they learn to manage their affairs according to their actual situation, instead of mindlessly adopting policies being pursued elsewhere, they will remain urban North America's poor cousins.
Want to find out more, and see additional documentation? Look for:
Christopher Leo and Katie Anderson, “Being Realistic about Urban Growth.” Journal of Urban Affairs. 28:2, 2006.
Christopher Leo and Wilson Brown, “Slow Growth and Urban Development Policy.” Journal of Urban Affairs. 22:2, 2000, 193-213.
Posted by leo-c at 4:11 PM
February 14, 2006
RAIDING THE RESERVE FUNDS
The City of Winnipeg has a series of reserve funds for investment in heritage properties, housing rehabilitiation, improvements to Assiniboine Park, perpetual care of city cemetaries, and much more. The purpose of these funds is to ensure that the city will be able to meet its obligations in the face of the inevitable fluctuations in budget allocations and costs.
In the 1980s it used to be an annual ritual for city council to balance the budget by raiding these funds. Mayors Susan Thompson and Glen Murray, who were the city's chief executives from 1992 until 2004, had the good sense to put a stop to that practice. Now the city is reviving it.
Our troubles began a long time before the 1980s, when the city set out on a policy of building roads, sewers and water systems across the bald prairie, far in excess of our actual needs, and far beyond what we could afford to maintain. (See "Why sprawl is a bigger problem when growth is slow") Ms Thompson and Mr Murray didn't put a stop to that, but at least they forced the city to face its budget problems, through an honest accounting of our assets and liabilities, instead of continuing the annual charade of covering current requirements by impairing our ability to meet our obligations in future.
Dipping into the reserve funds to put money into road maintenance and building, is, in practice, a raid on the public library system, the transit system, the golf courses, the city's computer system, the development of much-needed open space, and much more, in order to deal with our ruinous infrastructure deficit. I hope city council, if it cannot solve this problem, will at least opt not to sweep it under the rug, leaving our children and grandchildren to clean up the mess.
Posted by leo-c at 8:20 PM | TrackBack
February 13, 2006
SLOW GROWTH ISN'T AN ILLNESS
Cities that are growing slowly are often thought to be in trouble for no other reason than slow growth. The residents and leaders of slow-growth cities often sound as if they're apologizing for themselves. In reality, it's not slow growth, but mismanaged growth that's likely to be the problem.
Take the example of Winnipeg, which has a very modest growth rate and, and, in terms of collective self-image, an ego to match. The word "decline" is often, and inaccurately, used in describing the city's economy, or population. In self-characterizations, harsh winters and mosquitoes are invariably mentioned, salubrious summer weather and Winnipeg's acknowledged status as the "performing arts capital of Canada" almost never. If self-deprecation is charming, Winnipeg is Charm City.
The evidence does not support this gloomy self-assessment. Neither the city's population nor its economy is in decline. Calculating from Table One, I find that Winnipeg's average annual population growth rate in the decade preceding 2004 was .32 per cent: slower than Frankfurt, the primary financial centre of continental Europe (0.91 per cent annual average, 1985-95); but much faster than Milan, a powerhouse of the Italian economy (-1.59), and Copenhagen, a city of legendary attractiveness and liveability (-0.28).
The population growth rate gives still less cause for concern when we consider it together with the growth of the economy, and when we compare Winnipeg with rapidly-growing Vancouver on both dimensions. Table One reveals that Winnipeg's economic growth from 1994 through 2003 outpaced its population growth in all but two years, and never fell behind. Vancouver did not fare as well, with the result that Winnipeg's per capita Gross Domestic Product - a measure of economic activity - steadily gained on Vancouver's.
(Click on the table to enlarge it.)
However one may interpret those figures, they don't suggest that Winnipeg is declining. Nor does a comparison of unemployment rates show that Winnipeg is in greater trouble than Vancouver. On the contrary, Winnipeg's average unemployment rate was the same as or lower than Vancouver's eight out of 10 years - substantially lower most of the time.
Instead of being characterized as decline, Winnipeg's slow growth could easily be seen as an asset, since, in part at least, it stems from the fact that the economic base is a well-balanced mix of agriculture, manufacturing, government (the provincial capital and a major regional centre for the federal government) and education (two universities and a community college), not subject to booms, but also relatively well-insulated from busts.
If we want to do an intelligent job of managing cities that are growing slowly, we have to begin by understanding that slow growth is simply a circumstance, not a pathology. We need to appreciate the implications of our city's rate of growth whatever it may be, in order to manage well. But speeding up the growth - something we're unlikely to accomplish anyway - will not necessarily improve things.
Want to find out more? Look for a full discussion in Christopher Leo and Katie Anderson, “Being Realistic about Urban Growth.” Journal of Urban Affairs. 28:2, 2006.
To consider some further policy implications of urban growth rates, take a look at Christopher Leo and Wilson Brown, “Slow Growth and Urban Development Policy.” Journal of Urban Affairs, 22 (2), 2000, 193-213; and section 3.2 of Christopher Leo, “Deep Federalism: Respecting Community Difference in National Policy.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 39:3, 2006, 481-506.
Posted by leo-c at 10:51 AM