Government in the Twilight Zone : Volunteers to Small-City Boards and Commissions / John R. Baker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baker, John R., 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cities and towns--United States.

Cities and towns.

Municipal government--United States.

Municipal government.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (204 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

While 97 percent of all American cities are smaller than 50,000 and millions of Americans experience civic life in these communities, what we know about their politics and governance is limited, particularly how local board systems operate, who the board members are, what motivates them to serve, and what they think about their experiences. Drawing on a unique and extensive set of survey data from board members, mayors, and city councilors in sixty cities across six states, Government in the Twilight Zone significantly expands our knowledge of small city boards and politics. By embedding the empirical research in the historical trajectory of small towns, John R. Baker provides a rich narrative that discusses the role of entities such as planning commissions, parks and recreation boards, and zoning appeals boards. He also clarifies how board and commission members are recruited in small cities, explains how these organizations work to make the decisions required of them, and reveals what they and their city councilors and mayors think about their importance and effectiveness.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""List of Illustrations""; ""Tables""; ""Figures""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction Government in the Twilight Zone: Volunteers to Small-City Boards and Commissions""; ""Overview and Synopsis of the Book""; ""Genesis, Methodology, and Approach""; ""Data""; ""Methodological Concerns""; ""Chapter 1 “We�re Not Dead Yet��Small Cities Become Big(ger) Players?""; ""Two Competing Narratives""; ""A Vanishing America?""; ""The Revival of Small Towns""; ""Large Units in Small Jurisdictions: Superstores, Big Business, and Prisons""

""Two Decades of Change and Its Effects on Sample Cities""""What the Transformation of Small Towns Means for Their Systems of Boards and Commissions""; ""Chapter 2 The Taxonomy of Local Boards and Commissions in Small Cities""; ""The Small Cities Board and Commission Landscape""; ""Does Size Matter?""; ""Metropolitan Status and Form of Government""; ""Types of Boards""; ""Mandated Versus Optional Boards""; ""Planning Commissions""; ""Site Plan and/or Development Proposal Reviews""; ""Design Review""; ""Zoning Change Requests""; ""Zoning Code Amendments""; ""Conditional Use Permits""

""Overall Planning Advice and Supervision""""Zoning and/or Building Appeals Board""; ""Batesville, Arkansas""; ""Napoleon, Ohio""; ""Appeals of Administrative Decisions""; ""Requests for Variances""; ""Parks and Recreation Board""; ""Parks and Recreation Planning""; ""Monitoring of Recreation Services""; ""Hearing Complaints""; ""Promoting Collaborative Arrangements for Service Provision""; ""Executing Plans Adopted by the City Council""; ""Civil Service Commission/Personnel Review Board""; ""Summary and Conclusions""

""Chapter 3 The Ties that Bond and Bridge: Small-Town Board Members as Social Capitalists""""A Portrait of Small-City Board Members""; ""Small-City Board Members as Social Capitalists""; ""Combining Bottom-up and Top-Down Influences on Social Capital Creation""; ""Small-City Board Members as Social Capitalists: Measuring Social Capital""; ""Explaining Variation in Social Capital Among Social Capitalists""; ""Individual Attributes""; ""Contextual Factors""; ""Discussion of Findings""; ""Social Capitalists and Social Capital Creation in Small Towns: Final Thoughts""

""Chapter 4 Incentive Theory and Voluntarism: Motivations for Board Service""""Incentive Theory and Voluntarism: Motivation for Board Service""; ""Voluntarism, Collective Action, and Small-Town Politics""; ""Selective Incentives and Board Service""; ""Why Do Citizens Volunteer for Boards and Commissions?""; ""What Were the Common Incentives?""; ""What Accounts for Variation in Importance of Motivations?""; ""Individual Attributes""; ""Contextual Factors""; ""Conclusions""; ""Chapter 5 Explaining Recruitment Patterns of Board Members""

""Selective Incentives, Civic Voluntarism, and the Context of Recruitment""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438456324

1438456328

OCLC:

908550816