Topic
Municipal services
About: Municipal services is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 865 publications have been published within this topic receiving 10325 citations. The topic is also known as: urban service & city service.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
TL;DR: A focus on building the city for the visitor class may strain the bonds of trust between local leaders and the citizenry and skew the civic agenda to the detriment of fundamental municipal services.
Abstract: City leaders in the United States devote enormous public resources to the construction of large entertainment projects, including stadiums, convention centers, entertainment districts, and festival malls. Their justification is that such projects will generate economic returns by attracting tourists to the city. Although this economic expectation is tested in the literature, little attention is given to the political and social implications of building a city for visitors rather than local residents. A focus on building the city for the visitor class may strain the bonds of trust between local leaders and the citizenry and skew the civic agenda to the detriment of fundamental municipal services.
341 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine patterns of performance measurement use among a set of North Carolina cities and conclude that the types of measures on which officials rely, the willingness of officials to embrace comparison, and the degree to which measures are incorporated into key management systems distinguish cities that are more likely to use performance measures for service improvement from those less likely to do so.
Abstract: Many local governments measure and report their performance, but the record of these governments in actually using performance measures to improve services is more modest. The authors of this study examine patterns of performance measurement use among a set of North Carolina cities and conclude that the types of measures on which officials rely, the willingness of officials to embrace comparison, and the degree to which measures are incorporated into key management systems distinguish cities that are more likely to use performance measures for service improvement from those less likely to do so.
271 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on two service characteristics that transaction cost theory suggests may influence the chances of contract success: asset specificity, the extent to which resources applied to delivering a service can be applied to other services, and ease of measurement.
Abstract: An important decision confronting public managers is choosing when to contract for service delivery. We focus on two service characteristics that transaction cost theory suggests may influence the chances of contract success. Asset specificity is the extent to which resources applied to delivering a service can be applied to other services, and ease of measurement is the extent to which the quality and quantity of service outcomes and outputs can be easily gauged. Drawing on a survey of public managers' perceptions of these dimensions for 64 common municipal services, we review previous studies of contracting to investigate how these two transaction costs factors influence governments' decisions about whether to contract, how to manage contracts, and when contracting is likely to be successful. Our survey and review shed light on how public managers should manage contracting and how scholars should further investigate this important subject.
197 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of the carbon footprint (CF) of municipal services provided by the city of Trondheim, and show that approximately 93 percent of the total CF of the municipal services is indirect emissions, located in upstream paths.
181 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the waste collection strategies of the municipal government in Cape Town, South Africa, were analyzed and the continuities of apartheid under the neoliberal policies were highlighted, highlighting the specific ways in which the neoliberal state in its postapartheid moment uses gender ideologies and the rhetoric of voluntarism and black empowerment to justify its use of casual labor and the precarious working conditions among poor women of black townships.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the waste collection strategies of the municipal government in Cape Town, South Africa. This case is used as a point of entry to a much wider debate on global neoliberalism and the privatization of municipal services. The analysis of the case study sheds light on the links between the cost recovery agenda of the neoliberal state and the casualization of labor. To minimize costs the privatizing local governments, like private sector firms, rely on and have further enhanced the casualization of labor. This blurs the conceptual distinction between the public and private sectors whereby the local governments treat citizens as customers with stratified entitlements to basic services. Stressing the continuities of apartheid under the neoliberal policies, the paper highlights the specific ways in which the neoliberal state in its postapartheid moment uses gender ideologies and the rhetoric of voluntarism and black empowerment to justify its use of casual labor and the precarious working conditions among poor women of black townships.
163 citations