Municipal Decision Research Articles

Measuring and Comparing Municipal Policy Responses to COVID-19

Municipal governments are experts in social non-distancing. From swimming pools to libraries, streetcars to public parks, municipalities bring residents together and move them around—services vital to a vibrant community in ordinary times, but potentially disastrous in a pandemic. Municipal decisions to shutter these services and enforce social distancing are thus crucial for a successful COVID-19 response.

Positioning Culture within Canadian Municipalities


 
 
 Although sometimes still referred to as ‘creatures of the province’, municipalities in Canada now shape their own policies in a number of complex areas. This includes culture, since municipal cultural planning has broadened the municipal role. While municipalities still provide ‘cultural services’, such as arts centres and museums, cultural planning involves a more strategic role for the municipality in supporting the development of the local cultural sector, while integrating culture across many areas of municipal decision-making. The literature on organizational theory and design suggests that for municipal cultural planning to achieve these objectives, municipalities should adopt an organizational structure that supports this role. The Culture Position Study was initiated to better understand the different ways in which culture is currently situated within municipal organizational structures, and how these structures are evolving.
 
 

Disharmonization in the Regulation of Transgenic Plants in Europe

Disharmonization in the Regulation of Transgenic Plants in Europe

Resilience Assessment of Interdependent Infrastructure Systems: A Case Study Based on Different Response Strategies

Resilient infrastructure systems are essential for continuous and reliable functioning of social and economic systems. Taking advantage of network theory, this paper models street network, water supply network, power grid and information infrastructure network as layers that are integrated into a multilayer network. The infrastructure interdependencies are described using five basic dependence patterns of fundamental network elements. Definitions of dynamic cascading failures and recovery mechanisms of infrastructure systems are also established. The main contribution of the paper is a new infrastructure network resilience measure capable of addressing complex infrastructure system, as well as network component (layer) interdependences. The new measure is based on infrastructure network performance, proactive absorptive capacity and reactive restorative capacity, with three resilience features of network—robustness, resourcefulness, and rapidity. The quantitative resilience measure using dynamic space-time simulation model is illustrated with a multilayer infrastructure network numerical test, including different response strategies to floods of different scale. The results demonstrate that the resilience measure provides an evaluation method of various protection and restoration strategies that will optimize the performance of interdependent infrastructure system. The sector-specific decisions could not always lead to optimal system solutions, and systems approach offers significant benefits for increasing infrastructure system resilience. This study can assist municipal decision makers in (i) better understanding the effects of different response strategies on the resilience of interdependent infrastructure system, and (ii) deciding which strategy should be adopted under different types of disasters.

DEVELOPING AGE-FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES: EVIDENCE FROM MULTIPLE CASE STUDIES

The age-friendly community movement is gaining momentum in the United States. More than 325 communities have joined the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities or the WHO Global Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore what influences municipal decision-making about joining a network and how communities mobilize the resources at their disposal to make age-friendly changes after joining. The conceptual model that guided this exploratory study incorporated Kingdon’s policy change model to explore municipal decision-making about joining a formal age-friendly network and resource mobilization theory to explore factors that influence implementation of age-friendly changes after a community joins an age-friendly network. Data was gathered in three in-depth case studies of age-friendly communities in New England-- Brookline, Massachusetts; Newport, Vermont; and Ellsworth Maine. In these three cases, the policy entrepreneur was key to municipal decision-making. Kingdon posits that a single problem definition increases the likelihood that a policy is adopted. However, in these cases, the policy entrepreneur used selective framing to advocate with local organizations and municipal government, a departure from Kingdon’s model. Implications for age-friendly policy adoption will be discussed. Resource mobilization theory posits that implementation of change is dependent on resources and collaborations. Each case had access to different resources, but partnerships were key to moving the work forward (with or without collaborations). The primary resources utilized were relational and ideological. Material resources were less likely to move the work forward. Implications will be discussed.

Evaluation of the effects of health impact assessment (hia) practice in monteregie

Abstract This study explores the effects of the collaborative model of health impact assessment (HIA), as deployed in Monteregie (Quebec), on the development, adoption and implementation of municipal projects that include health considerations. Nine HIA processes were studied in nine territories and 35 individuals were interviewed. Data collection was based on the six steps of contribution analysis, and included document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and on-site observations. The study results showed that the HIAs had varying results. First, the actors involved acquired new knowledge. However, the HIAs had little impact in terms of increasing the municipal actors’ awareness of health issues. Rather, it helped them acquire arguments for raising awareness among and convincing their municipal council members of the merits of certain actions and their potential positive impacts on citizens’ health. In fact, the HIAs were generally undertaken by municipal actors already aware of the importance of promoting citizen health. Second, in a few of the HIAs, some recommendations were integrated into planning documents, but usually the HIA report constituted an additional planning document and was not merged with the original planning documents. Lastly, following the HIAs, most of the municipal actors continued to include health considerations in their subsequent planning of public policies and projects. Prerequisites for effective HIA include the presence of municipal actors who are aware of the importance of their role in their local population’s health, municipal policies that include health considerations, and the municipality’s active participation in the HIA process. This study sheds light on the complexity of the factors that ensure HIA impact on municipal decision making and decisions. Key messages HIA have a significant impact to change municipality practice. The HIA process is crucial in order to have an impact on municipal projects that include health considerations.

Rationalising public support for private early childhood education and care: the case of Finland

ABSTRACTIn Finland, early childhood education and care (ECEC) is traditionally publicly provided. However, private ECEC provision has increased during the past decade, largely as a result of financial support from the public sector. Drawing on qualitative interviews with municipal decision-makers, this article identifies three frames within which publicly subsidised private ECEC provision and marketisation are rationalised: the pragmatic frame, the government frame and the choice frame. The results show that even though market logics and tendencies seem to have gained a strong foothold in local policies, there is a keen interest in universalism and maintaining public control over local ECEC provision.

Toward a model of the municipal evidence-based decision process in the strategic digital city context

Technological and connected modern cities demand effective decisions by managers that are aligned with citizens demands. The strategic digital city that comprises strategies, information, services, and information technology resources can provide the necessary context so that decisions based on evidence are made possible at the municipal level of management. The objective of this study is to propose a municipal decision process model in the context of the strategic digital city. The research methodology employed was qualitative and applied to circumstantial theoretical reality, emphasizing exploratory and descriptive methods aided by bibliographic and documentary survey along with the non-participatory observation of the variables that make up the model. Similar models were identified and analyzed. The municipal decision process in the context of the strategic digital city was built from three constructs: decision, evidence, and strategic digital city. These constructs are interconnected by their thirteen variables, which are related to the conceptual base of the model developed. The conclusion reinforces the importance of using evidence to support the decision process, making it one of the strategic elements for digital cities aiming at improving their citizens quality of life.

Striking a balance between the costs and benefits of increasing response capability: A microworld study of the effect of capability assessments

The Hyogo and Sendai frameworks highlight the key role of disaster risk management (DRM). However, the guidance is limited on how to best conduct DRM activities, such as capability assessments, to reduce the impact of disasters. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of different ways of presenting capability assessments, both when dealing with so-called high impact/low probability (HILP) events and low impact/high probability (LIHP) events. More specifically, we introduce microworld experiments as a new approach to studying and developing DRM knowledge. This approach allows the researcher to retain some of the dynamics and complexity of the real DRM context while providing greater experimental control compared to field studies. We report the results from such a study in which forty-nine DRM professionals assumed the role of municipal decision-makers who were asked to balance investments in public services and goods with increasing response capability (in order to reduce losses from potential future adverse events), with or without support from capability assessments. The results show, as expected that it was harder to manage the trade-off between the cost of increasing response capability and benefits in terms of reduced losses in HILP situations compared to LIHP. Also, the results show that presenting capability assessments to the decision-makers increased the investments in capability and they became better at balancing the cost of investment with reduced losses. The results thus suggest that capability assessments can be useful to support decision-making for proactively reducing the impacts of disasters.

The concept of a geographic information system for the identification of degraded urban areas as a part of the land administration system - A Polish case study

Suburbanization leads to urban sprawl, and it contributes to the depopulation of cities, underinvestment in urban infrastructure and, in combination with population ageing, to urban degradation. Conscious land administration and sustainable spatial policies are needed to prevent such processes. The parties responsible for spatial planning (municipal decision makers: planners, administration authorities and property administrators) are only able to make optimal decisions if they are well informed about the processes occurring in urbanized areas. For this reason, decision makers have to be provided with access to valid and reliable data on the legal and spatial status of land. This study was conducted on the assumption that a cohesive system is required for collecting and creating access to comprehensive data to identify degraded urban areas. Poland does not have a uniform geographic information system supporting policy makers in this matter. The following research hypothesis was formulated for the needs of this study: as a sub-module of the Integrated Real Estate Information System (IREIS), the proposed Geographic Information System for the Identification of Degraded Urban Areas (GIS-IDUA) will streamline the process of identifying degraded areas. The IREIS is a Polish land administration system which integrates public real estate registers and provides information about various processes occurring in urbanized areas. This article attempts to determine whether the Polish LAS, referred to as the IREIS, can supply the public administration with the data and tools required for the identification of degraded urban areas. This goal was achieved by evaluating the degree of data overlap between the GIS-IDUA and the currently developed IREIS. Data required for the identification of problematic urban areas were selected and grouped for the needs of the conducted analysis. The results of the study validated the research hypothesis.

Understanding Cumulative Hazards in a Rustbelt City: Integrating GIS, Archaeology, and Spatial History

We combine the Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) concept developed within spatial history with elements of archaeological predictive modeling to demonstrate a novel GIS-based landscape model for identifying the persistence of historically-generated industrial hazards in postindustrial cities. This historical big data approach draws on over a century of both historical and modern spatial big data to project the presence of specific persistent historical hazards across a city. This research improves on previous attempts to understand the origins and persistence of historical pollution hazards, and our final model augments traditional archaeological approaches to site prospection and analysis. This study also demonstrates how models based on the historical record, such as the HSDI, complement existing approaches to identifying postindustrial sites that require remediation. Our approach links the work of archaeologists more closely to other researchers and to municipal decision makers, permitting closer cooperation between those involved in archaeology, heritage, urban redevelopment, and environmental sustainability activities in postindustrial cities.

Did incentives help municipalities recover from the Great Recession? Evidence from Midwestern cities

AbstractThis study assesses the impacts of local business incentives in the largest urban areas of Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, three Midwestern states that share similar histories and settings. We assembled a unique dataset combining information on two types of incentives, tax increment financing districts and tax abatements, together with socio‐economic, geographic, fiscal, and spatial competitive characteristics for all of the municipalities in six metropolitan areas. The outcome measures include employment growth, establishment formation, and business relocation. The analysis extends knowledge of the effects of economic development incentives in two ways. First, we improve upon previous research by incorporating key factors in municipal decisions to offer incentives. Second, we add to limited empirical evidence concerning local incentives following the Great Recession. Variation in the use of incentives reflects not only local decision‐making but also differing fiscal capacities and situations of adaptation to adverse economic conditions, with some governments pulling back on incentives and others initiating new approaches to retain or lure businesses.

The role of water quality for local environmental policy implementation

The objective of this study is to examine the role of surface water quality for the decisions by Swedish municipalities to adopt environmental targets and action plans, as well as allocating these decisions to a responsible authority. To this end, we assess how environmental, socioeconomic, and political factors, as well as the availability of environmental expertise, affect these municipal decisions. Questionnaire data from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, in combination with environmental monitoring data and official statistics, are used for the econometric analysis. Results show that: (i) municipalities with bad water quality, greater coastal length, and higher income are more inclined to adopt local policies; (ii) collaboration with interest groups increases the likelihood of adopting local policies; and (iii) municipalities with high Center Party representation tend to set responsibility for environmental policy with the municipal council board.

Estimating Milkweed Abundance in Metropolitan Areas Under Existing and User-Defined Scenarios

Metropolitan areas play an undetermined role in supporting migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) populations despite providing habitat areas rich with milkweed (Asclepias spp.), the obligate host plants for monarch larvae. Researchers from the US Geological Survey and collaborating institutions have called for an “all hands on deck” approach to establishing monarch butterfly habitat by focusing on potential contributions from all land use sectors at levels necessary to sustain the eastern migratory monarch butterfly population. To understand the current and potential contribution of milkweed stems in metropolitan areas, our research teams surveyed milkweed densities using a new “metro-transect” protocol and conducted interviews and surveys across a diverse set of stakeholder groups in four major metropolitan areas (Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Kansas City, and Austin). We developed Geographic Information System (GIS) tools that use these data to model existing milkweed stems in metropolitan areas, and to estimate the potential to add additional milkweed stems with the adoption of milkweed-friendly planting practices across different land use classes (e.g., residential, institutional, and commercial). By extrapolating metropolitan Chicago milkweed densities across US Census urbanized areas in the northern US range of the eastern monarch butterflies, we estimate that approximately 29.8 million stems of milkweed can be added under modest “enhanced” milkweed densities, and up to 271 million stems may be added under “exemplary” milkweed densities. Both estimates are derived from a two percent “adoption rate,” or landowner conversion of green spaces. These findings show that metropolitan areas provide important habitat opportunities and should be included prominently in monarch conservation strategies when working toward national goals to increase the amount of milkweed stems and monarch habitat across the Midwest. Municipal decision-makers and planners can estimate their capacity to add stems across the metropolitan landscape by identifying where the biggest opportunities exist with help from our Urban Monarch Conservation Planning Tools.

Spatial data quality impacts on the efficiency of the property tax system: The case of construction land fees

Spatial data are directly linked to spatial planning, and to spatial management in general, including the property tax system. Spatial data quality impacts the efficiency of the property tax system, as well as its equity and reasonability. This article presents a methodological approach to analysing the quality of spatial databases managed by municipalities for assessing construction land fees. Adjusted Jaccard and Czekanowski indices were defined and applied for data quality analysis because they are applicable in cases in which differences between the data compared amount to less than 5%. The indices were used to establish the level of matching for areas of buildings and the unbuilt construction land in the municipal construction land fee assessment databases and in the real estate register. Based on an analysis of the completeness, logical consistency, and thematic accuracy of municipal construction land fee assessment databases, municipal databases were updated. Modifications to the municipal databases were analysed following updating in terms of the number of persons subject to construction land fee payment and the construction land fee amount payable. The results of the first study of this type have been obtained on a small sample, but the methodology is also applicable for analysis on a large sample or in all Slovenian municipalities. As such, the analysis may be of help to experts at municipal offices, spatial planners, and decision-makers in taxation policies.

Collaborative Role of Metropolitan Municipalities in Local Climate Protection Governance Strategies: The Case of Turkish Metropolitan Cities

The impacts of global warming, environmental pollution and corrective protective policies for climate change have been discussed by scholars for more than half a century. This study elaborates enabling factors for municipalities that have an active role in emission reduction and adaptation in metropolitan cities in Turkey. Annual Action Reports and Strategic Plans of corresponding Turkish metropolitan municipalities in the second period of Kyoto Protocol were examined with document analysis to capture their local climate protection capacities. Secondary data were also gathered mainly from public institutions inventory and reports to determine major external factors on municipal climate initiatives. Ordinary Least Square regression method was used to analyse the extent of enabling factors including socio-economic, emission and vulnerability conditions that have an impact on local climate governance initiatives in metropolitan cities. The findings of the study indicate that emission level and socio-economics capacity of the metropolitan cities in Turkey have a high aspiration for greenhouse gases reduction actions, while vulnerability level of the climate change has no significant effect on municipal decision-makers and practitioners on local climate protection governance.

A multi-criteria decision making method for urban flood resilience evaluation with hybrid uncertainties

Urbanization and climate change have increased the frequency of damaging urban floods. While some urban floods are inevitable, it is critical to ensure urban flood resilience to minimize flood losses. This paper develops an urban flood resilience evaluation system that can provide guidance for municipal decision makers. This study first builds a comprehensive flood resilience evaluation system with the whole period of the disaster cycle that covers the resistance capacity before a flood, the coping and recovery capacities during a flood, and the adaptive capacity after a flood. The proposed evaluation system includes hybrid uncertain information that involves hesitant fuzzy judgements from experts and random data. Then, to conquer the weighting difficulty, a maximum consensus model for experts’ weights is proposed. After that, the traditional VIKOR method is expanded to aggregate all crisp, random and hesitant fuzzy information, so that, the aggregation method is more adaptive to hybrid uncertain environment. In addition, the proposed method is applied to 5 south-eastern coastal cities in P.R.China. Practical managerial suggestions are put forward to increase urban flood resilience in these cities. Finally, the sensitivity analysis for the results and the comparison analysis are conducted.

Exploring the value of participatory system dynamics in two paired field studies of stakeholder engagement in sustainability discussions

This paper presents empirical evidence from two field studies about the effect of participatory system dynamics processes in stakeholder discussions about sustainability issues. Both studies examined paired real‐world group processes in which stakeholders were asked to provide policy recommendations to municipal decision makers. One group in each study used a general meeting facilitation approach, and the other used participatory system dynamics. One pair of groups discussed urban growth issues and met monthly for over a year. The other pair of groups discussed a proposed Zero Waste management initiative and met for one workshop session during a single‐day conference. The urban growth study was an opportunistic, post hoc comparison of two groups with similar stakeholders independently convened at the same time. The participatory system dynamics group followed a full‐group model‐building process. The Zero Waste study was a field experiment in which participants in the same 1‐day conference were divided into two groups for facilitated discussion, and the participatory system dynamics group used an existing system dynamics simulation model for analysis. Content analysis of meeting material as well as participant surveys and interviews in the longer term engagement showed the system dynamics group followed key steps of an “ideal” problem‐solving process more closely, scored higher on most group process and outcome variables, and had higher participant satisfaction than the traditionally facilitated group. In the short‐term processes, prediscussion and postdiscussion surveys showed the participatory system dynamics group produced better policy recommendations, but the traditionally facilitated group reported higher procedural satisfaction. Although the difficulty of strictly controlling for all variation in context limits our conclusions, these field comparisons support the value of participatory system dynamics for improving stakeholder engagement processes. The differences in participant satisfaction outcomes imply that special attention must be paid to satisfaction in shorter term participatory system dynamics activities.

Evaluation of the Effects of Health Impact Assessment (Hia) Practice in Monteregie

This study explores the effects of the collaborative model of health impact assessment (HIA), as deployed in Monteregie (Quebec), on the development, adoption and implementation of municipal projects that include health considerations. Nine HIA processes were studied in nine territories and 35 individuals were interviewed. Data collection was based on the six steps of contribution analysis, and included document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and on-site observations. The study design is cross-sectional design were every HIA was analysed at least six month after completion. The individuals interviewed where those implicated into the HIA process (no matter at what point of the process). No exclusion criteria were applied considering that all points of view were important for this analysis. The Contribution Analysis (CA) was used to analyze the data. The study results emerged form by the interviews, the field observations and document analysis. They showed that the HIAs had varying results. First, the actors involved acquired new knowledge. However, the HIAs had little impact in terms of increasing the municipal actors’ awareness of health issues. Rather, it helped them acquire arguments for raising awareness among and convincing their municipal council members of the merits of certain actions and their potential positive impacts on citizens’ health. In fact, the HIAs were generally undertaken by municipal actors already aware of the importance of promoting citizen health. Second, as observed in the document, in a few of the HIAs, some recommendations were integrated into planning documents, but usually, as reported by the actor, the HIA report constituted an additional planning document and was not merged with the original planning documents. Lastly, following the HIAs, document analysis and interviews showed that most of the municipal actors continued to include health considerations in their subsequent planning of public policies and projects. Prerequisites for effective HIA include the presence of municipal actors, who are aware of the importance of their role in their local population’s health, municipal policies that include health considerations, and the municipality’s active participation in the HIA process. This study sheds light on the complexity of the factors that ensure HIA impact on municipal decision making and decisions. The particularities of each HIA process play a major role.

Why people engage in a weight loss intervention at their workplace - a stratified case study

BackgroundThe prevalence of obesity has increased significantly worldwide within the last decade. As obesity is recognised as a contributing factor when developing various health threatening chronic diseases, prevention initiatives focusing on weight loss are becoming more important. Because of the time spent at the workplace, workplaces can be optimal arenas for weight loss programs and these programs have been effective to decrease body weight. Thus, reasons for engaging in weight loss interventions needs exploring, in order to engage more workplaces in weight loss interventions. Such information provides important knowledge that may help to inform decisions of municipalities, employers and other public health decision makers, when and if implementing weight loss interventions. The aim of this study was therefore to explore reasons for employee engagement in weight loss projects at the workplace and the incentives a municipality, a manager at a home-care centre, and a project manager have to launch such project.MethodsA stratified case study was conducted. A representative from the municipality, the manager at a home-care centre, the project manager of the weight loss intervention and six health-care workers were interviewed at the end of a one-year weight loss intervention at the workplace. Data were analysed using Systematic Text Condensation.ResultsAnalysis identified different views and considerations for engaging in a weight loss intervention at the workplace. For the representative of the municipality the possible economical gain of the project was in focus. The project manager and the manager of the home-care centre both reflected mainly on improvement of the healthcare workers health. For the project manager, achieving good scientific results was highlighted as well. However, the employees were influenced by several factors, such as their own health and weight loss, the pressure from the environment and their struggle for recognition.ConclusionsThis study concluded that if targeting the increasing worldwide obesity problem through workplace initiated weight loss programs, the sales pitch to managements and employers have to be tailored in order to increase the participation and the motivation for the initiative.Trial registrationClinicalTrial.gov: NCT01015716, registration data 14.12.2010 (Prospectively registered).