THE ROLES OF NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS IN URBAN SERVICE DELIVERY

It is important that students of urban life develop an understanding of the dynamics by which community associations influence the quality and quantity of public services available in their neighborhoods. Employing collective goods theory to analyze the activities of neighborhood organizations suggests that their efforts to influence public services may usefully be conceptualized in terms of three primary roles. Community associations act as consumers' cooperatives seeking to secure public services from other organizations, as alternative producers of desired services, and as organizers of citizens' coproductive efforts whereby service levels are determined through the joint efforts of neighborhood residents and public service personnel. The three roles differ significantly in the effectiveness and efficiency with which citizens can employ them to secure services, and require different resources from the community associations. The design of governmental arrangements for service delivery are closely related to the availability and effectiveness of the three strategies and must be considered as part of any effort to enhance citizens', role in public service delivery.     

Service Provision and Prosperity in Urban Communities in the Greater Cairo Region

It is widely argued that the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) in Egypt suffers from failing urban communities resulting partially from unresponsive services. The local discourse on urban services has not paid attention to the investigation of the provision process of services and its impact on community satisfaction and prosperity. In the Global South, there is an ongoing debate on the shortcomings of service provision and ways to improve them. Yet, emerging theoretical/conceptual approaches to the provision of urban services are not sufficiently comprehensive to explain processes of service provision worldwide and, arguably, cannot be because they cannot take account of local diversity. Consequently, this research investigates the impact of the process of service provision on community satisfaction and prosperity in GCR, Egypt. To help collect and analyze data, we constructed a conceptual framework of a potentially responsive process of service provision. We studied two privately developed middle- and upper-middle-income urban communities, using questionnaires with inhabitants and semi-structured interviews with relevant official representatives as well as documentary data sources. The research finds, in line with the Global South debate, that absent public participation, ineffective governmental institutions, pseudo-decentralization, and deficient regulations stand behind the failure of services, their lack of responsiveness, and low levels of community satisfaction. Yet, it also shows that community prosperity could be aided by, for example, private developers playing an active role in the provision process. Hence, community prosperity is not tied only to a specific set of institutional arrangements.     

Effects of institutional arrangements in local water supply services in Korea

In Korea, local governments are primarily responsible for providing water supply services to citizens. Since 2004, 15 local governments have contracted this service to the Korean Water Resources Corporation (K‐Water). This paper examines the effects of the two different institutional arrangements – direct public delivery versus contracting out to K‐Water – on cost savings and productivity. To do so, it employs a hybrid cost function approach and uses the panel data covering the nine years from 2000 to 2008 in local governments. Empirical findings show mixed evidence on the effects of the two institutional arrangements on cost savings and productivity gains. Water supply costs are significantly lower under contracting out than under direct public delivery. However, there are no significant differences in productivity gains between the two institutional arrangements. Local water supply systems need to further reduce the average water supply costs through increasing their size and magnitude.     

NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS AND THE COPRODUCTION OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Neighborhood organizations have been active partners with cities in service provision for many years, providing an institutional structure for coordinated action to improve their neighborhood environments through coordinated resident action. Cities' needs to relieve fiscal distress are now generating even more interest in direct service delivery by community-based organizations (CBOs). Before these efforts can be substantially expanded, however, much more needs to be learned about the kinds of services amenable to CBO delivery, the kinds of CBOs willing and able to participate, and the most effective administrative arrangements for delivering the service. This paper draws on information obtained from applications for a Federal demonstration program to address these and other empirical questions regarding city and CBO arrangements for service coproduction. The analysis indicates that cities are most likely to rely on advocacy-type organizations to deliver peripheral or supplementary services which are amenable to volunteer labor rather than those which are viewed as essential public services. Cities have yet to demonstrate, on a large scale, a willingness to enter into partnerships which would give CBOs significant responsibilities for core services. For this to occur it will be necessary to support prototype demonstrations of the feasibility of the approach and to expand significantly the capacity of CBOs through technical assistance.     

Spatial deprivation of urban public services in migrant enclaves under the context of a rapidly urbanizing China: An evaluation based on suburban Shanghai

The rapid economic growth of Chinese cities has attracted an increasingly migrant population. Faced with institutionalized discrimination caused by the Hukou system, however, rural migrants are excluded from local welfare, including certain types of urban public services. By taking suburban Shanghai as a case study, this research adopts the theoretical framework of urban deprivation and evaluates the deprivation level of migrant enclaves in terms of the provisions of public service, including educational, cultural, park, sports, healthcare, public transit, and postal service facilities through a combination of population census data, online and survey data. We then conducted questionnaire surveys and interviews in 14 migrant and local communities in order to acquire detailed socioeconomic information of residents and to understand their degree of satisfaction and information on how often they utilize public services. A multilevel regression model is run to examine the influence of indicators, including the socioeconomic status of respondents and provision of public services, on the degree of satisfaction. The paper concludes with policy implications needed to make spaces more socially equitable and inclusive in the rapidly urbanizing Chinese landscape.     

Citizen Preferences and Paying for Police

Abstract: Researchers frequently approach questions dealing with local fiscal decision‐making using economic models. These models typically base the demand for public services on a set of socioeconomic characteristics that serve as rough proxies for voter preferences. Our study focuses more directly on preference formation and explores the nature of the relationship between citizens’ attitudes about police services and their willingness to pay for them. We pay particular attention to the role of demographic traits, television media, and direct contact with service providers. We present data from a survey of Connecticut adults and use these data to test direct and indirect effects models with regression analysis. We find evidence that attitudes about police predict willingness to pay for police services, holding the demographic attributes of respondents constant. We also find that the effects of some demographic traits on demand for services are mediated by preferences, as are some types of experience and media exposure.     

Reflexion of citizens' needs in city strategies: The case study of selected cities of Visegrad group countries

Citizen-centric approach calls for respecting citizens' needs in strategic planning without defining them. This article reveals the gap in the definition of citizens' needs concept, and as a response, it proposes comprehensive specification. Special attention is given to satisfaction surveys and the explanation of the relationship between citizens' needs and strategic planning. The case study explores two Flash Eurobarometer reports on Quality of Life in European Cities and strategic plans of selected cities to find out if the needs of citizens are respected. As the examples, for the case study, are selected cities of Visegrad group countries for their common totalitarian history and cultural proximity. Satisfaction surveys are utilized in both ways; as the product of strategic planning and as the input to strategic planning. The product view brings the answer to the question how successful cities are in dealing with problem issues. The input view takes current problem issues and compares them with future strategic plans to see if they include solutions to problem issues.     

CITIZEN REACTIONS TO URBAN GROWTH: ATITUDES TOWARD QUALITY OF LIFE AND LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES IN AN EXPANDING SUNBELT COMMUNITY

This paper reports the results of a survey of citizen attitudes toward growth, and the quality of life in an expanding Sunbelt community. We find considerable continuity in our results with those of earlier research on “community satisfaction” in more stable metropolitan areas. A t the same time there are unusual findings here—in particular regarding how evaluations of certain kinds of local public services and of public sector efforts to control growth—influence perceptions of quality of life. These and other results in the paper suggest directions for future research on Sunbelt communities. They point, as well, to the importance of both population and community dynamics and local political reactions to such changes for a general understanding of perceptions of quality of life.     

Valuing the environment in developing countries: modelling the impact of distrust in public authorities' ability to deliver public services on the citizens' willingness to pay for improved environmental quality

In this paper, we employ the choice experiment method to estimate citizens' valuation of an intervention that proposes to improve the quality of the wastewater deposited in the Ganges River, India. We interviewed 150 randomly selected citizens of Chandernagore, along the banks of the Ganges River, to elicit their willingness to pay (WTP) for this intervention, measured in terms of higher municipality taxes. The findings reveal that almost all of the citizens value wastewater quality, though majority protested the intervention, and stated that they donot trust the authorities for effective management of funds. These protest responses were controlled for with the nested logit model. The results reveal that the citizens are willing to pay significant amounts for improved wastewater quality. Municipalities could rely to some extent on their citizens' WTP higher taxes but municipalities' performance, trustworthiness, accountability, as well as the citizens' perceptions of these, should be improved.     

NATIVITY,ETHNICITY, AND RESIDENTIAL RELOCATION: THE EXPERIENCE OF HMONG REFUGEES AND AFRICAN AMERICANS DISPLACED FROM PUBLIC HOUSING

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on how the experiences of refugee public housing residents differ from those of other public housing residents when they participate in housing dispersal programs. An analysis of the spatial resettlement patterns and survey responses of Hmong and African‐American public housing residents who were involuntarily relocated from public housing in Minneapolis, MN indicates the extent to which residents resettled in ethnically concentrated neighborhoods and their satisfaction with their new housing arrangements and neighborhoods. Research results suggest that Hmong did not settle in ethnically concentrated neighborhoods to the same extent as African Americans after relocation, and experienced lower levels of satisfaction in their new housing arrangements and neighborhoods. These findings indicate that the outcomes for residents involved in housing dispersal programs may depend in part on nativity status.     

The Governance of Mandated Partnerships: The Case of Social Housing Procurement

Partnership working is nowadays a seemingly ubiquitous aspect of the management and delivery of public services, yet there remain major differences of opinion about how they best work for the different stakeholders they involve. The balances between mandate and trust, and between hard and soft power, are crucial to current debates about public service partnerships. This paper explores the example of social housing procurement in Northern Ireland, and the requirement to form mandated procurement groups. The research shows that the exercise of hierarchical power is still important in network governance; that mandated partnerships alter the balance between trust and power in partnership working, but the impact is uneven; and that these relationships are (re)shaping the ‘hybrid’ identity of housing associations. The balance between accountability for public resources and the independence of third sector organisations is the key tension in mandated partnerships. The Northern Ireland experience suggests that trust-based networks could provide more productive working relationships in partnerships for service delivery.     

Beyond ‘What do I get?’ Functional and procedural sources of Dutch citizens’ satisfaction with local democracy

This paper deals with a dual question: (1) How important are procedural value orientations (pertaining to the democratic quality of decision-making) and functional value orientations (pertaining to the governmental performance in solving problems and delivering services) for Dutch citizens’ ideas about what constitutes good local governance? (2) To what extent and how do these functional and procedural evaluations affect Dutch citizens’ overall satisfaction with local democracy? These questions will be answered on the basis of data collected through a survey amongst 1060 Dutch citizens.     

Prioritizing urban rivers' ecosystem services: An importance-performance analysis

The importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been developed and widely utilized to understand customer satisfaction and prioritize provision strategies based on the assumption that satisfaction is resultant from a preference (perceived importance) for a service and a relevant judgment of its performance. However, little work has been performed to examine to what degree different social groups are satisfied with diverse ecosystem services provided by urban rivers, being a unique yet underinvested public good. This study pioneers the IPA application to systematically analyze local communities' perceived importance of urban rivers' ecosystem services and their perceptions about how well those ecosystem services have been provided by urban rivers in Guangzhou (south China). We found notable importance-performance gaps for 10 out of 12 ecosystem services. The local residents were more dissatisfied with provision performance than the non-locals even though both groups of residents could explicitly recognize the importance of urban rivers' ecosystem services. Enhancement of water purification was ranked first amongst all ecosystem services by all respondents, irrespective of respondents' hukou status (Chinese household registration system) and residing environment. Thus, this ecosystem service should be prioritized in relevant management and restoration initiatives. These data provide an accurate picture of potential approaches for the improvement and prioritization of ecosystem services that would satisfy the respective target groups' needs. The IPA offers a mechanism to help match local residents' needs with ecosystem services provision. The IPA also has promise as a means of helping decision-makers and practitioners to communicate effectively with various social groups holding diverging expectations and levels of satisfaction. Such communication is essential to curate urban spaces enjoyed and appreciated by diverse social groups via inclusive urban ecosystem governance.     

Planning and Social Media: A Case Study of Public Transit and Stigma on Twitter

Problem, research strategy, and findings: How media portray public transit services can affect the way voters and stakeholders think about future transit investments. In this study, I examine social media content about public transit from a large sample of Twitter comments, finding that they reflect more negative sentiments about public transit than do the comments about most other public services, and include more negative material about transit patrons. However, transit agencies may be able to influence the tone of those comments through the way they engage with social media. Transit agencies that respond directly to questions, concerns, and comments of other social media users, as opposed to merely “blasting” announcements, have more positive statements about all aspects of services and fewer slurs directed at patrons, independent of actual service quality. The interaction does not have to be customer oriented. Agencies using Twitter to chat with users about their experiences or new service also have statistically significantly more positive sentiments expressed about them on social media. This study's limitations are that it covers only one social media outlet, does not cover all transit agencies, and cannot fully control for differences in transit agency service.

Takeaway for practice: Planners committed to a stronger role for public transit in developing sustainable and equitable cities have a stake in the social media strategy of public transit agencies; moreover, they should not let racial and sexist slurs about patrons dominate feeds. Planners should encourage interactive social media strategies. Even agencies that only tweet interactively a few times a day seem to have more civil discussions surrounding their agencies and announcements on Twitter than agencies that use their feed only to blast service announcements.     

Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State

State-welfare provision cushions individual citizens from the full impact of capitalist market economy. One of its consequences is the expansion of the rights of citizens in their claims for welfare provisions as citizenship entitlements. The government is obligated to meet these claims in order to maintain its mass loyalty and its legitimacy to rule. However, citizens' dependency on state provision renders them clients of the state, reducing their political power at the ballot box. This emasculating tendency reaches its logical conclusion when the state monopolises the provision of particular goods or services, it is then able to threaten to withhold provision, thus threatening the material life of particular societal segments, if electoral support were not forthcoming from the latter. This political dynamic is examined through the near universal public housing programme in the single-party dominant state of Singapore.     

Urban morphology and local citizens in China's historic neighborhoods: A case study of the Stele Forest Neighborhood in Xi'an

This paper analyzes the role of local citizens in the morphological transformation of China's urban historic neighborhoods. With a focus on ordinary neighborhood properties, this research explores how local citizens have consumed different types of properties, and critically investigates socio-spatial problems that arise from such consumptions. By the case of the Stele Forest Neighborhood in Xi'an, the study argues that both the local state and local citizens recognize heritage resources as an important source of profit and that the competition for exchange values between the two has contributed to historic neighborhood physical patterns. Local citizens' resistance against and dissent from local government's conservation policies are manifested through passive bargains and tolerated illegalities, and are eventually reflected in their neighborhood morphological forms. Morphological pattern-related decision-making and subsequent actions in China's neoliberal urban setting are no longer monopolized by the local state, but shared by the local state and non-state actors.     

Local policies and local government legitimacy. The Swedish case

Do local policies improve local government legitimacy and how do different forms of legitimacy relate to each other? These questions are analysed on the basis of an extensive survey carried out in 2010 in 111 Swedish municipalities, that generated responses from approximately 50,800 citizens, and complemented with register-based background data. Local legitimacy is construed as citizens’ assessments of whether the local political system functions in an acceptable way. Distinctions are made between input legitimacy, output legitimacy related to welfare services and output legitimacy that concerns basic collective services. Controlling for other individual and municipal-level factors, policies aimed at improving input legitimacy have an effect, but it is even more important that local government delivers welfare and other services in a way that is appreciated by the citizens. Output legitimacy related to welfare services is improved by public provision of these services, but not by additional spending. On the other hand, spending on cultural institutions, leisure, roads and streets increases citizens’ appreciation of basic collective services. In addition, the study shows that all three types of local government legitimacy are empirically related to each other. Whether they enhance each other or reflect one underlying dimension calls for further time-series-based research.     

Key factors for defining an efficient urban transport interchange: Users' perceptions

The sustained increase in the urban population and the trend towards urban sprawl in European cities has led to a change in mobility patterns, and many public transport users now need to combine several modes or transport services at urban transport interchanges before they reach their final destination. Therefore, they have become an everyday experience for users where, in addition, users spend time inside. This paper aims to identify the key factors both from a functional and psychological perspective for defining an efficient transport interchange. Since the users' perceptions of their experience are particularly important for achieving the most appropriate policy measures for interchanges, an ad-hoc travellers' satisfaction survey was designed and carried out in three European transport interchanges. The assessment methodology used here – Principal Component Analysis – is proposed as a useful step-by-step procedure. The results of this research highlight the ambivalent nature of the urban transport interchanges. The key functional aspects identified contribute to make easier the transfer and reduce the waiting time, while the psychological factors make the stay more comfortable for users.     

Design-and-build contractors' service quality in public projects in Singapore

In the construction industry, total quality comprises corporate service quality, project service quality and quality of the constructed facility. This study investigates the project service quality of design-and-build (D&B) contractors when undertaking projects for public sector clients in Singapore. Service quality is operationalized into five determinants: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangible. From these, 34 attributes that may affect project service quality in D&B projects are identified. A questionnaire is used to ascertain clients' service quality expectations of these 34 attributes. The clients were also asked the extent to which D&B contractors achieve project service quality. It is found that D&B contractors did not meet clients' expectations in all the five dimensions of service quality. This means that D&B contractors are not giving clients the satisfaction that they hope for. This study offers D&B contractors feedback relating to clients' expectations of their service delivery and the areas of service that need to be improved in order to provide quality service that will satisfy public sector clients.