National Civic Review articles from March 2001

National Civic Review archives from March 2001

NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2001... One of the most important accomplishments of the National Civic League has been its leadership in developing and advocating new models for local government. This historical role goes back to the end of the nineteenth century, when America's...

How American City Governments Have Changed: The Evolution of the Model City Charter.(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... We thank Terrell Blodgett, William Cassella, John Nalbandian, and James Svara for their thoughtful reading of an earlier draft of this article and for their suggested revisions. Dynamic is hardly a word associated with government. Neither...

Do We Still Need Model Charters? The Meaning and Relevance of Reform in the Twenty-First Century.(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... In 1989, the National Civic League (NCL) released the seventh edition of the Model City Charter. In some respects, that edition was out of date when the NCL published it. The major new features were the endorsement of practices that had already...

An Interview with Terrell Blodgett.(Interview)
March 22, 2001... Throughout its history, the National Civic League (NCL) has been concerned with the relationship between government and citizenship. The Progressive reformers of the early twentieth century sought to focus attention on municipal government as a...

Council-Manager Government: Alive and Leading Today's Best-Managed Communities.
March 22, 2001... This article was originally published in PA Times. It was reprinted with permission from the American Society for Public Administration. Despite the corruption and lack of responsiveness that characterized local entities at the dawn of the...

Whither Local Government Reform? The Case of Wisconsin.(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... Under the leadership of Robert La Follette and his sons, progressives had a major impact on Wisconsin's policies, laws, and institutions throughout the first half of the twentieth century Grassroots municipal reform played a major part in this...

The Manager as Political Leader.
March 22, 2001... The author wishes to thank Val Drogt, Melissa Mundt, Mary Ontko, Davin Suggs, and Kate Watson, who worked on this subject as an MPA class project at the University of Kansas; and George Frederickson and Irene Rub in, who gave significant...

Making Regions Viable by Making Them Imageable.
March 22, 2001... Neal Peirce and the coauthors of Citistates [1] were among the first to argue that regions are the new units of global economic competition. Functioning competitively, they suggest, requires developing a capacity for regional governance. But...

Hispanics, Social Capital, and Civic Engagement.(Statistical Data Included)
March 22, 2001... We would like to acknowledge the support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which made this project possible. Few contemporary topics have had such an impact on America's intellectual community as social capital. The study of social capital and...

The Dynamics of Social Capital: Creating Trust-Based Relationships and Trustworthy Environments.
March 22, 2001... Recent discussions of social capital focus on whether the phenomenon is vanishing or reappearing in new forms, and why this may be happening. Questions abound as academics attempt to describe the nature and dynamics of this seemingly threatened...

Community Development and Systems Thinking: Theory and Practice.
March 22, 2001... That a cause may have several effects and an effect may be a result of many causes is conceded by all. Yet in management of practical affairs and in attempts at problem-solving, this truism is often lost sight of.... A new awareness of the...