EUKN - Netherlands - The New (and Old) Politics of Urban Problem-solving

The New (and Old) Politics of Urban Problem-solving

Introduction

The paper outlines major trends affecting both the nature of urban problems and the shape of much public interest problem-solving in urban America.

Description

Beyond a great deal of patience and courage, problem-solving in this context calls for specific civic skills - a re-invention and updating of what de Tocqueville, in his landmark study of democracy in America 150 years ago, termed "the art of combining."

Most urgent are the skills needed to confront five broad, recurrent challenges:

learning together,
organizing and shaping interests,
seeking agreement and managing conflict,
planning and deciding together,
producing together.

Background information

The trends of problem-solving in urban areas include:

the continued suburbanization of jobs, wealth, and political power;
the evolution of a skill-intensive and networked global economy in which competitiveness is ultimately tested at the regional level;
the decentralization of governance - including the devolution of key aspects of social policy to states and localities and deeper cultural demands that power be shared, that traditional authority and expertise are illegitimate;
the "marketization" and nonprofitization of public responsibilities;
massive demographic change, in particular the so-called "greying" and " browning" of America.

Conclusions

Community building, broadly conceived, is at least the most promising local approach to solving problems in the public interest. This calls for specific civic skills, as outlined above.

Contact info

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xavier de Souza Briggs (Researcher), tel. +1 617-253-7956

Publication date

Project finished

01/01/2002

Researcher

Xavier de Souza Briggs

Download the full paper “Community Building: The New (and Old) Politics of Urban Problem-solving” (Eng, PDF, 263 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration

Keywords

Community development