Sparks in the City Hall
Born and raised in a city where the public awareness of politics is lacking in every aspects except economy, I have always heard people around me talking about how policies affected them, but I have never seen any one of them participated in any kind of public consultation. Having this never-complain mindset rooted in my mind, I thought the public hearing in the United States may be similar, or a bit better. It turns out that, first time in my life, I saw how people were engaging into the planning of their neighborhood, and witnessed the spark between stakeholders in the San Francisco City Hall. The level of public participation in the two and a half hour amused me. My classmate, Iyan, and I went to the
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There were about 40 people from the public attended the hearing, and more than half of them expressed their support and concern about the proposed projects. Among the 39 items on the agenda, only 7 of them were discussed on that day, and therefore I am not sure whether the 32 items were problematic or not. There was a proposed project to establish stop signs on Cortland Avenue at Nevada Street, all 5 residents who made their testimony were in favor of the proposed project, because accidents happened frequently in the slope when people did not control their speed properly. Mr. Romagnola, a resident in that area, said that he was hit at the intersection and the insurance company still has not paid the 2000 dollars he spent for his treatment. I was surprised that even for the projects that has the unanimous support from the neighborhood, people will still attend the hour-long meeting to express their words. These proposals were definitely worth to be implemented, and although the cost is not discussed, I believe the paint and the physical standing signage would not be a burden to the city. The residents will potentially feel more secure to walk around their household thereafter. Controversial proposals are unavoidable knowing that planners sometimes are not the actual users, and they may have ignored some needs of the neighborhood. A representative of a bike-sharing
The U.S. government’s expansive role in public policy is caught in a swirl of conflicting cross-currents. On the one hand, popular expectations about government’s
On Monday, April 13th, 2009, I visited the Culver City city council meeting, and found that they operate using a council-manager form of government. For a city with a population of about 38,000, this type of governmental structure is fairly common, and I was not surprised to see it in action in a community where the median household income is around $56,000 a year. Culver City is also a culturally rich community with a 60 percent Caucasian population, and a quarter of the residents are either of African American or Asian decent. The mayor, D. Scott Malsin, is one of five members on the council, and his term as mayor is on a rotating basis. Having been to a Hermosa Beach city council meeting with a similar council-manager structure, I knew
In the novel Grand Avenue. Greg Sarris uses the theme thread of poison to connect all of his separate stories about the Toms’, a Pomo Indian family. He proves that the roots of a family are the basis which gives the family its structure, even if those roots are bad. In the Toms’ family they’re roots were poisoned from the very founding of the family starting with Sam Toms’. His poison was not the fact that he tried to steal a married woman away, but that he was filled with secrets, deceptions, and self hatred. His family was founded on these poisened roots and passes the poisen down generation after gerneration. The only way to stop the poison, or inner self hatred taken out in other forms, was to let go of past and
This is when the public has the chance to get involved in the policy making process.
The Dahlonega City Hall was crowded on the evening of March 1st 2010. The seats were full, except for at the very front, and the standing room was filled almost out the door. The crowd, mostly made up of students, leaned in to hear as the voices of the City Council members faded in and out of the faltering sound system. The six City Council members and the mayor sat along a bench as if they were the judges at a hearing. Because of the ongoing discussions and the crowd, I thought I had arrived a few minutes late; but I was able to find a seat in the front two rows. Despite how packed the small room was there were plenty of empty seats in the front. I had thought the meeting was well on its way by the way conversation was going and
1. Should we be concerned that CitySoft is focusing on cost, operational control, systems, and quality at the expense of growth?
Sentinel City appears to be a primarily urban area with very little open space. The houses are mostly multi-family complexes like apartments, condos, senior and independent living centers, that are constructed from brick. Industrial Heights and Casper Park District have older, more dilapidated buildings that were probably factories years ago. Trash and graffiti are abundant within this area. Nightingale Square and Acer Tech Center have more well taken care of lawns, less graffiti, more historical places, and sophisticated dinning and shopping options.
For the Puritans in the early New England colonies life was by no means easy, but there was the possibility to expand their beliefs free from the persecution from Church of England. They had the opportunity to create their ideal society under God with the bible as their law from which they would define how to live. The Puritans set out to create their model society which could spread and cull the impurities from the church. But how did these beliefs and goals ultimately effect their society?
This Neighbourhood Study aims to examine the demographics of Hillingdon Primary Care Trust (HPCT) such as age, gender, ethnicity, social groups in relation to the prevention of obesity. An insight into the prevalence of obesity as well as the causes and its effects shall be evaluated. Public health strategies regarding the prevention of obesity and its effects in comparison to Government strategies shall be addressed. The nurse’s role as an educator in relation to this public health issue, strategies formulated by HPCT to prevent obesity and how it focuses on other diseases associated with obesity shall be discussed. The following section gives a definition of obesity, health education and health prevention.
Thank you for your previous assistance regarding the tree on Rio Vista Drive. After conducting some research on the Norwood Borough ordinances, we discovered a few ordinances that might be applicable to this situation.
Los Angeles was the first product off the assembly line of American urban planning. Turned on in the late 19th century, the city-making machine was fueled by an immense immigration of people who sought to create a new type of city out of the previously quaint pueblo. They also strove to craft the first major city developed primarily by Americans and outside of European archetypes. As a result, Los Angles is not only incredibly diverse, but also nearly impossible to define. Since it is a product of the American machine, understanding the community of Los Angeles becomes vital to understanding the United States. But to fully comprehend the present Los Angeles, one must look at the process that created it. Specifically, Los Angeles was
My difficult questions surround the doing and the reading of the policy process. There are three areas that I would like further explore: the role of citizen participation in the policy process, importance of critical and postmodern perspectives in understanding public policy, and the role of government.
Where I live is one of the greatest neighborhoods in the city to live in; however it does have its draw backs. Importantly it has nearly everything a resident might want, beautiful picturesque scenery, proximity to shopping, and many of the cultural centers. Nevertheless the roads can be some of the most congested in town, and the streets are not safe to walk late at night.
With reference to one property development site within the City of London, critically appraise the extent to which that development delivers successful modern property development whilst at the same time respecting the historic sense of identity of the City of London as identified by Glinert.
These 8 propositions provide a basis from, which to explore the ramification of public participation, both as a concept and as a decision-making technique. The need of public participation in planning is more clearly expressed by Bolan (1967), “No matter how we improve our substantive knowledge of how cities function, and no matter how we improve our capabilities in information handling, operations research, and prediction, if there is not a corollary development of community’s capacity for improved decision-making within the framework of democratic process, there is the real possibility that heavy investment in the current forms of city planning techniques will have been in vain.”