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Urban Services (urban + services)
Selected AbstractsParticipatory Governance in Urban Management and the Shifting Geometry of Power in MumbaiDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2009Marie-Hélène Zérah ABSTRACT This article questions the participatory dimension of urban governance in Mumbai. Based on surveys of a number of participatory projects for urban services, it compares the differentiated impacts of participation in middle-class colonies with those in slums. Results demonstrate that changing citizen,government relationships have led to the empowerment of the middle and upper middle class who harness the potential of new ,invited space' to expand their claims on the city and political space. In contrast, the poor end up on the losing side as NGOs function more as contracted agents of the State than as representatives of the poor. Direct community participation empowers influential community members, small private entrepreneurs and middlemen, and contributes to labour informalization. Ultimately, these processes consolidate a form of ,governing beyond the State' that promotes a managerial vision of participation and leads to double standards of citizenship. [source] Expectations, performance, and citizen satisfaction with urban servicesJOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2004Gregg G. Van Ryzin The expectancy disconfirmation model has dominated private-sector research on customer satisfaction for several decades, yet it has not been applied to citizen satisfaction with urban services. The model views satisfaction judgments as determined,not just by product or service performance,but by a process in which consumers compare performance with their prior expectations. Using data from a New York City citizen survey, this study finds that citizen expectations, and especially the disconfirmation of expectations,factors that previously have not been considered in empirical studies of the determinants of citizen satisfaction,play a fundamental role in the formation of satisfaction judgments regarding the quality of urban services. Interestingly, the modeling results suggest that urban managers should seek to promote not only high-quality services, but also high expectations among citizens. Additional implications for research and public management practice are discussed. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Issue Representation in Neighborhood Organizations: Questing for Democracy at the GrassrootsJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2000David Swindell In this era of government reinvention and devolution, some have expressed interest in applying that logic to the local level by including neighborhood associations among the mechanisms for delivering urban services. However, if decision-making authority were to be decentralized to a greater extent, there is the possibility that the decisions of these organizational participants might not be reflective of the group they are supposed to represent. This article seeks to examine the issue representation ability of neighborhood associations. Using a unique neighborhood-level dataset from Indianapolis, this analysis reveals how representative the organization's activities are in terms of the issues that are of most importance to residents (other participants and non-participants). In addition, the article presents and tests a model to explain differences in the levels of representation. The findings raise concerns with the wisdom of such devolution as well as highlight the environmental and organizational characteristics that influence issue representation. [source] | ||||||||||