Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Public Participation In Municipal Service Delivery Review, Noah Atlin

MPA Major Research Papers

One of the techniques used by municipal administrators to evaluate their spending is the Service Delivery Review (SDR), for which a “how-to” manual, known as the Guide to Service Delivery Review for Municipal Managers, was created. This paper examines the Guide to determine whether it proposes a useful SDR structure that has adequate provisions for public participation. It analyzes the literature pertaining to the SDR process and public participation and it also provides an examination of public participation using case studies of six municipal SDRs in Ontario: Brockville, Port Hope, Brantford, Halton Hills, Barrie, and Hamilton. The findings reveal that …

Teaching Planners To Deal : The Pedagogical Value Of A (Simulated) Economic Development Negotiation, Laura Wolf-Powers

Laura Wolf-Powers

Three decades after planners in North America and Europe began adopting the public–private partnership approach, such arrangements have become the norm in urban redevelopment and city-building. As a result, when teaching real estate development as a facet of urban economic development, academic practitioners of planning face an uneasy dichotomy between deliberation—which embraces the “plannerly” virtues of inclusivity and participation—and negotiation, the procedural vocabulary of public–private contracting. This dichotomy is felt acutely by instructors who are interested in incorporating principles of equity and social justice into redevelopment pedagogy.

This paper describes a classroom exercise in which students apply negotiation and project …

Affordable Housing Policies: What China Could Learn From Canada, Jingyuan Sun

MPA Major Research Papers

This paper discusses the lessons China could learn from Canada with respect to affordable housing. It uses specific case studies that focus on the experiences of Shanghai and Toronto respectively, with the necessary information regarding the policies of both cities being sourced from existing research papers, government documents, and government websites. The findings reveal that the affordable housing system in China is lacking the enlargement of public participation, the reinforcement of community engagement, and the expansion of public-private partnerships, suggesting that these three areas can be improved with reference to the affordable housing experience in Toronto, where these factors are …

The Revitalization Of Social Housing: An Analysis Of Mixed-Income Housing In The City Of Toronto, Zoie Browne

MPA Major Research Papers

This paper examines whether community-based organizations (CBOs) offer a viable strategy for addressing social and community development issues within mixed-income housing in Toronto. It analyzes how and under what conditions mixed income housing developments produce a vibrant base of CBOs that reflect the social diversity of residents and it explores the extent to which mixed income developments build a sense of community with reference to the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood. Interview data is used to provide empirical evidence regarding both the physical and social principles relating to community development in the area. The findings reveal that the success of a model …

Explaining Social Media Variation: An Analysis Of Internal Municipal Factors That Shape Canadian Municipal Websites, Julien Patel

MPA Major Research Papers

This paper explains the variations in social media features on Canadian municipal websites by measuring internal characteristics of key municipal administrators. The research process used a questionnaire to measure administrators’ attitudes towards engagement and municipal corporations’ capacity to improve websites moving forward. The results of the survey are contrasted with a dataset that scores each respondent’s municipality using predetermined criteria. Representatives from 43 Canadian municipalities agreed to participate in the study. The findings reveal that age, citizen pressure to provide online services, and engagement efforts with local stakeholders significantly explain a proportion of variation in municipal social media features.

E-Governance On Ontario Municipal Websites: Exploring The Development Of E-Governance Tools Used By Ontario Municipal Planning Departments, Spencer Sandor

MPA Major Research Papers

This paper examines whether there are patterns to the adoption of e-Governance tools on Ontario municipal websites, with a specific focus on whether the adoption follows a hierarchical pattern based on intended engagement outcomes. The planning department sections of 160 websites for municipalities with populations between 10,000 and 500,000 were searched for a list of 15 online tools that were selected following a literature review of the various uses of online tools. The findings illustrate a number of statistically significant relationships, suggesting that there is a hierarchical pattern to tool adoption. In addition, the results demonstrate a relationship between the …

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …