National Civic Review articles from March 1993

National Civic Review archives from March 1993

Civic infrastructure: a new approach to improving community life.
March 22, 1993... * In Denver, Colorado in 1989, at the deepest point in a regional economic recession, civic, neighborhood, business, and government leaders worked together to pass the largest bond issue in the history of the community. * In Los...

What makes democracy work? (importance of a vital civic life)
March 22, 1993... Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? This is a burning question today in all parts of the world -- from Moscow and Mogadishu to South Central Los Angeles. Just when America's democratic ideals are held in highest global...

Leadership and the design and use of forums, arenas and courts.
March 22, 1993... As U.S. citizens consider what to do about major public issues like homelessness, rural poverty, escalating health care costs, or ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, we are constantly confronted with evidence that we live in a...

Building new arenas for civic renewal: smaller American cities.
March 22, 1993... Cities have been an integral part of American life since the country's founding. Before and after the Revolution, American towns were experiencing rapid population growth and mounting demands for services. By the time of the Revolution,...

Governance and the civic infrastructure of metropolitan regions.
March 22, 1993... A century ago changing economic and social conditions in the central cities of the United States pressed against existing governance capacity. City fortunes were increasingly dominated by large corporations rather than small and medium size...

The new civic infrastructure: intersectoral collaboration and the decision-making process.
March 22, 1993... The challenges faced by the public, private, nonprofit, and volunteer sectors are more complex than any in our previous history. How we respond will determine the course of our common future. These challenges are being generated by the complex...

Testing legislative term limitations: the San Mateo Board of County Supervisors as laboratory.
March 22, 1993... Legislative term limitations have emerged as the political phenomenon of the 1990s. In 1990, voters in three states, Oklahoma, Colorado and California, approved citizen initiatives to limit state legislative terms. The Colorado initiative also...

Congressional representation of rural and small-town interests, 1981-1990.
March 22, 1993... When Ed Koch was mayor of New York he liked to stop people on the street or in the subway to ask, "How'm I doin'?" This article seeks to respond to that question as if it had been posed in 1992 by U.S. Representatives and Senators to folks...

Second proms and second primaries: the limits of majority rule. (arguments for cumulative voting)
March 22, 1993... Brother Rice High School held two senior proms last spring. It was not planned that way. The members of the prom committee at Brother Rice, a boy's Catholic high school in Chicago, expected just one prom when they hired a disc jockey, picked a...

Gimme Five! (cumulative voting and the Voting Rights Act)
March 22, 1993... As the dozens of new legislative districts drawn after the 1990 Census await court approval, the Voting Rights Act is once again under close scrutiny. In November and December the Supreme Court heard major cases challenging redistricting plans...

Downsizing: hazard or opportunity for restoring confidence in government? (Canadian politicians seek to regain public confidence by cutting public spending)
March 22, 1993... Restoring confidence in government recently has taken on a new and strange dimension in Canada, as a growing number of politicians have finally realized their political careers were on the line. Voters, even the traditionally apathetic ones,...

Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.
March 22, 1993... Ever since Alexis de Tocqueville travelled across New England almost 150 years ago, scholars, high school students, and almost everyone in between, have used quotes from his study Democracy in America to prove their arguments about the nature...

The Spirit of Community: Rights Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda.
March 22, 1993... In his most recent book, entitled The Spirit of Community, Amitai Etzioni articulates the communitarian philosophy and agenda, both of which have gained increased public attention in the past few years. As the founder of the communitarian...