2.2.3 Idea III: Building New Systems of Urban Government,
Governance, and Eco-Governance
The third idea that I want to introduce is the need to develop new institutions to guide
and implement the creation of resilient low-carbon cities and urban regions in the
twenty-first century. While I realize that efforts will have to continue at the international level to develop policies to alleviate the worst effects of global warming
(United Nations Development Programme 2007), these should be carried out in
tandem with local policies that in the short term may be more effective. Such policy
developments must occur in urban regions because of the significant role they play in
the production of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, here we are faced with yet
another policy dilemma created by the fact that the existing forms of urban government are often the historical products of previous centuries and have undergone
limited change.
There are two major challenges to developing new institutional forms of urban
government. The first is that generally at a global level, urban governments form a
third or fourth tier of government within the national system, having only a limited
range of responsibilities. Often, it is the second tier of the state or province that has
overall responsibility for cities in their jurisdiction as is the case in Canada. There are
exceptions: Some of China’s largest municipalities, such as Shanghai, have the same
status as provinces. In Brazil, after 1988, municipalities were given equal status with
the States and the Federation in the revised Constitution (McGee 2010). Over the last
two decades, in developing countries, there has been a growing “decentralization” of
fiscal and administrative powers to the urban level of government by the central state
in order to “transfer” some of the responsibility for generating revenue to the city
level. In the case of many of the more rapidly economically growing countries such
as China and India, this has led to a growth of what have been described as
“entrepreneur cities” that emphasize economic and infrastructural investment as a
major mode of development (McGee et al. 2007; Mathur 1999). This often creates
conflict with other levels of government. But, for example, in China, there is an
increasing realization that the creation of clean, energy-efficient, and environmentally attractive cities is an important factor in their ability to be competitive economically. The growth of cities in the twenty-first century will involve increasing
collaboration between intergovernmental jurisdictions to enable environmental policies to be effective.
A second dimension relates to the changes that are occurring in the urban systems
of developing countries that are imitative of their earlier phases of urban development. For many nations of the developing world, increasing urbanization will
involve a change in distribution of urban population between urban places of
different size, with an increasing proportion of these residents in large urban regions
that dominate the urban hierarchy, among which the largest play a role in the global
and national economy (Sassen 2001). These large urban regions produce a significant proportion of their countries’ GDP and are assuming increasing importance in
the political economy of the nations of which they are part. Often, they take the form
2 The Management of Urbanization, Development, and Environmental Change in. . .
27
Governance, and Eco-Governance
The third idea that I want to introduce is the need to develop new institutions to guide
and implement the creation of resilient low-carbon cities and urban regions in the
twenty-first century. While I realize that efforts will have to continue at the international level to develop policies to alleviate the worst effects of global warming
(United Nations Development Programme 2007), these should be carried out in
tandem with local policies that in the short term may be more effective. Such policy
developments must occur in urban regions because of the significant role they play in
the production of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, here we are faced with yet
another policy dilemma created by the fact that the existing forms of urban government are often the historical products of previous centuries and have undergone
limited change.
There are two major challenges to developing new institutional forms of urban
government. The first is that generally at a global level, urban governments form a
third or fourth tier of government within the national system, having only a limited
range of responsibilities. Often, it is the second tier of the state or province that has
overall responsibility for cities in their jurisdiction as is the case in Canada. There are
exceptions: Some of China’s largest municipalities, such as Shanghai, have the same
status as provinces. In Brazil, after 1988, municipalities were given equal status with
the States and the Federation in the revised Constitution (McGee 2010). Over the last
two decades, in developing countries, there has been a growing “decentralization” of
fiscal and administrative powers to the urban level of government by the central state
in order to “transfer” some of the responsibility for generating revenue to the city
level. In the case of many of the more rapidly economically growing countries such
as China and India, this has led to a growth of what have been described as
“entrepreneur cities” that emphasize economic and infrastructural investment as a
major mode of development (McGee et al. 2007; Mathur 1999). This often creates
conflict with other levels of government. But, for example, in China, there is an
increasing realization that the creation of clean, energy-efficient, and environmentally attractive cities is an important factor in their ability to be competitive economically. The growth of cities in the twenty-first century will involve increasing
collaboration between intergovernmental jurisdictions to enable environmental policies to be effective.
A second dimension relates to the changes that are occurring in the urban systems
of developing countries that are imitative of their earlier phases of urban development. For many nations of the developing world, increasing urbanization will
involve a change in distribution of urban population between urban places of
different size, with an increasing proportion of these residents in large urban regions
that dominate the urban hierarchy, among which the largest play a role in the global
and national economy (Sassen 2001). These large urban regions produce a significant proportion of their countries’ GDP and are assuming increasing importance in
the political economy of the nations of which they are part. Often, they take the form
2 The Management of Urbanization, Development, and Environmental Change in. . .
27