Assignment on Urban Administration

1. Conceptualize Urban Administration and discuss the major features

2. State the three conditions necessary for a stable urban environment

3. Discuss the major Structures of Urban Administration

4. Identify the 7 conditions necessary for the control of Urban Machinery

5. What do you understand by political possibility of urban policy

6. Discuss the importance of operational possibility when implementing urban policies

7. Discuss the role of the three arms of government in managing urban services

8. Discuss how government intervene in urban administration

9. Discuss the government regulatory measures introduced to improve urban development in Britain

10. Discuss how public housing measures by local government affected urban development in Britain citing concrete examples

Question 1: Conceptualize Urban Administration and discuss the major features

Solution: Conceiving Urban administration, Hozelt has argued that to understand the administrations of urban centres, we need to decipher the difference between generative and parasitic urban centre. The administration of an urban centre is seen to be generative if units produce impact in terms of administration and effective economic activities while the parasitic is the reverse. Urbanization which is a process where human being congregate in relatively large number is a universal phenomena and involves serious governance as it expand.

The administrative and functional specialization theory of urbanization is based on the specialization of functions among human communities through the division of labour. The functional specialization either by individuals or groups is a given time and period deals with the performance of activities so that goods and services can be produced by the communities.

Two important issues came out from this specialization:

1. The first deals with the need to coordinate the activities of the numerous but interdependent producers. In terms of urbanization, the role of coordinators is performed by entrepreneurs and administrators.

2. The second deals with human ingenuity with respect to pre-occupation with narrowed range of operations such that would lead to the discovery of new and more ways of performing the same operations.

Question 2: State the three conditions necessary for a stable urban environment

Solution:

1. The urban centres must be with surplus of food production to feed the urban class of specialists

2. Existence of class of people capable of exercising power and influence stable and peaceful urban environment

3. There must be a class of entrepreneurs to augment the role of the public sector.

Question 3: Discuss the major Structures of Urban Administration

Solution:

The urban administration is governed by four main structures as follows:

1. The legislative

2. Executive

3. Judiciary

4. The private sector

In each urban centre system of governance depends on the legislative arm of government. Here the legislature may be the local government councilors who deliberate on the effect of the life of the urban populace. In this context, the legislators try to make run to articulate or aggregate the interest of the urban population.

Second, the executive arm of the government which is made up of the staff of governments including the bureaucrats, traditional rulers, etc., helps to manage the urban governance.

The Judicial system include the court system, police, other paramilitary and military assist to sustain urban government.

The private sector which include non-governmental sectors, entrepreneurs, business of all categories assist tremendously in the governance of urban centres.

Question 4: Identify the 7 conditions necessary for the control of Urban Machinery

Solution:

While it may be said that the governance of urban centres is largely the main functions of the government in some respects, the government may not have a monopoly control. Within this context, various types of inputs and outputs may have to be managed where the state has not got total monopoly power to administer the urban government. The 7 conditions necessary for the control of urban machinery are as follows;

1. The ability to balance incentives that are structured to serve the various interest emerging from the internal or external environments.

2. The capacity to remove the discentries to ensure the free flow of goods and services into urban system

3. Specific objectives of different suppliers and incentives to respond in order to reduce incongruities or disequilibrium in the urban centres

4. List currencies in which pay offs are required in order to ensure political support

5. Informal Sector particularly the political parties, pressure groups and non-governmental organizations whose interest are located in area of water, light, transport must be catered for.

6. Consumers’ interest must be considered strategically with regards to tenancy rent, control price regulations, inflation, labour issues, salary increase etc.

7. Structure incentives to meet the needs of expenditure either decrementally or incrementally.

Question 5: What do you understand by political possibility of urban policy

Solution:

To be of value, an urban policy has to be politically feasible and operationally feasible - we talk about whether or not an urban housing policy operates in accordance with the objectives of the government that enacted them. An unstated and untenable assumption is once in a programme is enacted. It can be ignored to the expectation that it will impact those conditions in accordance with the intensions of its makers.

In fact, in any worthwhile analysis of urban housing policy, one must focus on political implementation as well as policy formulation and seek to understand the problems with policy makers face in both tasks. The ignorance policy implementation is to ignore the world.

Policy makers who are responsible for formulating and implementing housing programme are acutely aware that programmes have to be politically feasible in order to be enacted to obtain sufficient interest group support and operationally feasible in order to state the chance of being implemented in accordance to the objectives.

Political feasibility deals with the problems of getting programmes enacted. These are the assumptions:

1. In making urban housing policies, governments seek to build up or at least main of their level of political support.

2. Generally politicians and civil servants are constantly involved in forming coalition and bargain for politician support through electoral or legislative means – all it attempt to maximize support.

3. Political and the feasibility of policy programmes is considered a function of the demands and resources of actors and cost or benefits perceived as to flow from the programmes.

4. Actors like political parties bureaucrats, interest groups and public opinion leaders make demands which are sometimes phrased internal of broad objectives and sometimes require the adoption of specific progrmme or courses of action.

Question 6: Discuss the importance of operational possibility when implementing urban policies

Solution:

A crucial distinction affecting the implementation of programmes lies between policy field in which government is a monopoly (or near monopoly) supplier of goods and services as services and fields in which government is wholly or mainly restriction to structure incentives with a view to inducing private suppliers and consumers of goods and services.

In the first type of field, serious slippage is not uncommon but the successful implantation of programmes is relatively easy. Governments are in a position to instruct their own employees (i.e. civil servants at central and local level) to provide the necessary goods and services.

The extent to which such instructions are carried out may be taken to depend on the following factors;

1. Programme design – the extent to which a programme has explicit, generally effective means e.g. standard operation procedures) for attaining objectives.

2. Continued political support for the programme.

3. The quantity and quality of resources financial, human and organizational – main available to implement the programme.

In fields which government is not a monopoly supplier of goods, and services to additional factors affect implementation. In particular policy makers need to be skill enough to balance a range of incentives (and remove disincentives) so as to ensure that right types and quantities of goods and services are supplied and consumed at acceptable prices.

For analysis of policy implementation in the housing field, we must attempt to specify the objectives of different suppliers and consumers and hence the incentives they respond. It will also be useful to list the currencies in which pay-offs are required. In the housing sector the actors involved in programme implementation. In addition to politicians and servants, are suppliers of land, capital and labour and consumers of owners – occupied, tenant housing.

The fact that housing suppliers and consumers respond to diverse incentive and monetary incentive make the policy formulation and implementation task of government immensely complex. However, from the point of view of making trade-offs, diversity of incentives is an advantage. It participants only cared about monetary incentives, housing policy making would be a zero sum game in which gains to one set of participants (e.g. builders) would mean comparable losses to other participants (e.g., building workers and tenants). The range of incentives which actually comes into play, however, opens up the possibility of non-zero sum policy programmes which involve pay-offs to several sets of participants.

Question 7: Discuss the role of the three arms of government in managing urban services

Solution:

Below are the three arms of government and their roles in managing urban services.

1. The legislative

2. Executive

3. Judiciary

Secondly, the executive arm of the government which is made up of the staff of governments including the bureaucrats, traditional rulers, etc., helps to manage the urban governance.

The Judicial system includes the court system, police, other paramilitary and military assist to sustain urban government.

Question 8: Discuss how government intervene in urban administration

Solution:

The pattern of intervention of the Nigerian Federal and State governments should not include detailed control of operational programmes of urban administration which should be done by other agencies closer to the masses of the people. In support of this arrangement is my profound belief that more sensible choice are most likely to be made when an authority is close to the people and their problems and this has an intimate understanding of the issues involved, than when it is far distant. In this connection, I confess to a profound belief in the philosophy of Dr. Robbert C. Weaver who was once Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the United States of America that “creative federalism stresses local initiative, local solutions to local problems”.

The role of the Federal and State Governments should be limited to the provision of expert advice, financial resources and men of technical know-how of the right caliber while the role of the local agency should be the provision of initiatives, detailed control and administration. Reflective of the idea of bringing governmental authority close to the people and preventing remote control are the local government reforms recently carried out in the country. From these reforms, the inference can be drawn that it is generally accepted that local organization are in a much better position to assess local requirements than any other organization which has to root in the locality.

Local government councils properly equipped with professionally qualified staff and adequate revenue and broadly representative of various groups can certainly help develop service programmes at the locality. The objective should be to maximize citizen participation in the task of urban management. It is of the utmost importance that citizens should posses a sense of belonging to their community and participate actively in the administration of their own affairs rather than feel apathetic or powerless to deal with the urban problems which stare them in the face.

The need for a systematic pattern of governmental intervention in the administration of urban affairs – if only to ensure that the growth of our urban centres is rationally controlled and the towns or cities themselves are adequately equipped to fulfill the ever-widening and insistent demands for better services by the entire urban population can hardly be over stressed. The type of intervention proposed here entails not just physical planning and the fulfillment of urban dweller’s material needs, it involves also a rational and well-thought out policy of curbing the massive exodus of job and pleasure seekers from rural areas to urban centres; controlling the rate of urban rural development to avoid over-concentration; as well as distributing population and providing efficient and adequate services.

Question 9: Discuss the government regulatory measures introduced to improve urban development in Britain

Solution:

The regulatory framework in the UK recognises that the environmental issues that are encountered daily, and in the future, are not limited to the country alone.

The environmental impact of the daily work and social practices has a global effect and, to that end, the regulatory framework is very much influenced by policy decisions made by the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) at international forums that lead to international legislation. However, there is not always a clear business case to be sustainable, and there is also scientific and political debate over urban development. Either way, legislation is in place to ensure that there is a base business case (i.e. meet legislation or face monetary fines/other penalties) and it is recognised that most, if not all, resources are finite and, as they become progressively harder to extract or recycle, their cost will go up.

Therefore, even with the environmental impact pushed aside, it is in the best interests of business to achieve the minimum baselines set by legislation, and often beneficial to exceed them. There is therefore a ‘stick’ in the form of legislation and the rising cost of resources, and the ‘carrot’ – the positive incentives to be more sustainable.

Question 10: Discuss how public housing measures by local government affected urban development in Britain citing concrete examples

Solution:

Public housing in the United Kingdom provides the largest proportion of rented accommodation in the country. Houses built for public or social housing use are built by local authorities and collectively known as council houses. Before 1865 housing for the poor was provided solely by the private sector. Council houses were built on council estates, where frequently other amenities like schools and shops were provided. From the 1950s blocks of flats and three or four storey blocks of maisonnettes were widely built too. Flats and houses were also built in mixed estates.

Council homes were built to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at reasonable rents to primarily working-class people. Public housing in the mid-20th century included many large suburban "council estates" and numerous urban development’s featuring tower blocks. Many of these developments did not live up to the hopes of their supporters, and now suffer from urban blight.

In 1979, the role of council housing was to change. Housing stock has been sold off through Right to Buy legislation, and new social housing has mainly been developed and managed by housing associations. A substantial part of the UK population still lives in council housing, in 2010 this was about 17% of UK households.

Approximately 55% of the country's social housing stock is owned by local authorities (of which 15% is managed on a day-to-day basis by arms-length management organisations, rather than the authority), and 45% by housing associations.

The government wants builders, investors and local councils to increase the supply of both new-builds and repurposed empty homes. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) schemes listed here should act together to increase housing supply by:

· removing unnecessarily complex regulations

· providing finance for projects that can’t proceed without it

· helping buyers who can’t afford to buy a home because they can’t afford the deposit

The Builders Finance Fund is a recoverable capital investment to help unlock stalled housing schemes, with capacity to produce up to 15,000 new homes on small sites of between 15 and 250 units in size.

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