Local Government and Suburbanization

1
Local Government and Suburbanization

• Local issues
• local government
• growth and sprawl
• smart growth

2
Local Government--what people really care about

• Some issues of local govt
• maintaining town character--pleasing
  neighborhoods and vital downtown
• preserving local environment and green space
• providing recreation
• providing health and social services
• ensuring public peace and safety
• maintaining infrastructure, waste disposal
• providing schooling

3
Forms of local government

• City
• mayor, city council, city manager, planning
  commission, police review board, etc.
• weak mayor/strong mayor
• district/at large elections

4
contd

• Special districts
• School
• Transportation
• Air
• water
• waste management
• Etc.

5
contd

• County
• Board of Supervisors5 by district
• Like city council for unincorporated areas
• SF a special case11 supervisors
• County provides services mostly funded by state
  and fed govt
• Courts and jails
• Hospitals and health
• Welfare and social services

6
California population
7
Growth and sprawl

• abandoning pre-automobile land-use
• low density
• separation of functions
• single family residential, commercial, office,
  industrial

8
Is growth good or bad?

• neo-traditionalism and smart growth?
• infill not greenfield
• higher densities, especially in urban cores
• mixed uses
• streetscape designed for pedestrians as much as
  cars
• http//www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/community/transfo
  rmations/index.asp

9
Gated housing and privatopias

• Growth of homeowner associations

10
Obstacles

• Nimbyism
• Proposition 13--starved localities for property
  tax revenue, distorts development
• many problems are regional in nature--traffic and
  transport, housing, development

11
A choice