Download or read book Rethinking Community Benefits Agreements written by Rebecca Elizabeth Economos and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the United States, conflicts often erupt when large-scale real estate development projects are proposed and executed in low-income neighborhoods of large cities. Communities increasingly ask for benefits to offset negative impacts caused by new development. These requests often take the form of negotiated contracts called Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs). CBAs are the subject of some debate, especially as regards their effectiveness, legality, and fairness. Community groups, developers, and city officials all have different views on this topic. In this thesis, the CBA debate is examined in light of five New York City-based case studies involving controversial benefits negotiations. While CBAs can lead to greater benefits for some communities, the ad hoc nature of the agreements and the ways in which they are negotiated pose serious risks. I offer a new process for managing public benefits negotiations.

Download or read book Learning from Arnstein s Ladder written by Mickey Lauria and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sherry Arnstein, writing in 1969 about citizen involvement in planning processes in the United States, described a “ladder of citizen participation” that showed participation ranging from low to high. Arnstein depicted the failings of typical participation processes at the time and characterized aspirations toward engagement that have now been elevated to core values in planning practice. But since that time, the political, economic, and social context has evolved greatly, and planners, organizers, and residents have been involved in planning and community development practice in ways previously unforeseen. Learning from Arnstein’s Ladder draws on contemporary theory, expertise, empirical analysis, and practical applications in what is now more commonly termed public engagement in planning to examine the enduring impacts of Arnstein’s work and the pervasive challenges that planners face in advancing meaningful public engagement. This book presents research from throughout the world, including Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Serbia, and the United States, among others, that utilizes, critiques, revises, and expands upon Arnstein’s aspirational vision. It is essential reading for educators and students of planning.

Download or read book Analyzing the Recent Outcomes of Community Benefits Agreements in Relation to Their Monitoring and Enforcement Provisions written by Nicholas James Leach and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements and the Limits of Institutional Citizenship in Urban Redevelopment written by Nicholas Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation explores the potential for community benefits agreements (CBAs) to serve as instruments towards a more democratic approach to situating urban redevelopment projects into residential neighborhoods. To aid my analysis, I utilize the lens of democratic political theory to describe their most intractable shortcomings as well as prescribe reforms that can better enable them to bridge the oftentimes conflicting ends of economic growth and social justice. Moreover, I consider the conditions that are most favorable for residents to maximize their bargaining power against developers and the conditions where developers are least likely to negotiate with the locals. Drawing from a range of sources including interviews, audio recordings, documents, and investigative reporting, I illustrate their common failings by using three case studies of CBAs from major American cities. I find that the most recurring problem facing CBAs is their susceptibility to co- option by powerful political and economic elites who manage to subvert them into devices for private gain. Up to this point, municipalities have been largely reluctant to regulate them, and this lack of regulation has led to agreements being shaped more by informal networks of powerful interests rather than the wants and needs of everyday residents. This informality leading up to an agreement is a major contributing factor to their failings. Thus, in the absence of a structure that actively promotes inclusive and transparent procedures leading up to the forging of an agreement, residents lack the power to meaningfully influence its terms and conditions. This observation leads critics to contend that their vulnerability to elite influence should force us to rethink, and ultimately abandon CBAs as reliable instruments for popular control over the built environment. However, I argue that this conclusion is misguided; given their proliferation across American cities and increasing salience in land-use debates, a more effective alternative is to find institutional designs that curb the excesses of such projects while also making them more responsive to local concerns. If policy makers, activists, and residents are going to continue to look to CBAs to extract concessionary gains from developers, then it is crucial to devise safeguards that effectively minimize opportunities for abuse while also enhancing residential voice in shaping the resulting agreement.

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements written by John Clint McManus and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rethinking Workplace Regulation written by Katherine V.W. Stone and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the middle third of the 20th century, workers in most industrialized countries secured a substantial measure of job security, whether through legislation, contract or social practice. This “standard employment contract,” as it was known, became the foundation of an impressive array of rights and entitlements, including social insurance and pensions, protection against unsociable working conditions, and the right to bargain collectively. Recent changes in technology and the global economy, however, have dramatically eroded this traditional form of employment. Employers now value flexibility over stability, and increasingly hire employees for short-term or temporary work. Many countries have also repealed labor laws, relaxed employee protections, and reduced state-provided benefits. As the old system of worker protection declines, how can labor regulation be improved to protect workers? In Rethinking Workplace Regulation, nineteen leading scholars from ten countries and half a dozen disciplines present a sweeping tour of the latest policy experiments across the world that attempt to balance worker security and the new flexible employment paradigm. Edited by noted socio-legal scholars Katherine V.W. Stone and Harry Arthurs, Rethinking Workplace Regulation presents case studies on new forms of dispute resolution, job training programs, social insurance and collective representation that could serve as policy models in the contemporary industrialized world. The volume leads with an intriguing set of essays on legal attempts to update the employment contract. For example, Bruno Caruso reports on efforts in the European Union to “constitutionalize” employment and other contracts to better preserve protective principles for workers and to extend their legal impact. The volume then turns to the field of labor relations, where promising regulatory strategies have emerged. Sociologist Jelle Visser offers a fresh assessment of the Dutch version of the ‘flexicurity’ model, which attempts to balance the rise in nonstandard employment with improved social protection by indexing the minimum wage and strengthening rights of access to health insurance, pensions, and training. Sociologist Ida Regalia provides an engaging account of experimental local and regional “pacts” in Italy and France that allow several employers to share temporary workers, thereby providing workers job security within the group rather than with an individual firm. The volume also illustrates the power of governments to influence labor market institutions. Legal scholars John Howe and Michael Rawling discuss Australia's innovative legislation on supply chains that holds companies at the top of the supply chain responsible for employment law violations of their subcontractors. Contributors also analyze ways in which more general social policy is being renegotiated in light of the changing nature of work. Kendra Strauss, a geographer, offers a wide-ranging comparative analysis of pension systems and calls for a new model that offers “flexible pensions for flexible workers.” With its ambitious scope and broad inquiry, Rethinking Workplace Regulation illustrates the diverse innovations countries have developed to confront the policy challenges created by the changing nature of work. The experiments evaluated in this volume will provide inspiration and instruction for policymakers and advocates seeking to improve worker’s lives in this latest era of global capitalism.

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements the prosperous province strategies for building community wealth August 2015 written by Andrew Galley and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A People s Curriculum for the Earth written by Bill Bigelow and published by Rethinking Schools. This book was released on 2014-11-14 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a collection of articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about the environmental crisis. The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution—as well as on people who are working to make things better. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth has the breadth and depth ofRethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, one of the most popular books we’ve published. At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions. Praise for A People's Curriculum for the Earth "To really confront the climate crisis, we need to think differently, build differently, and teach differently. A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is an educator’s toolkit for our times." — Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate "This volume is a marvelous example of justice in ALL facets of our lives—civil, social, educational, economic, and yes, environmental. Bravo to the Rethinking Schools team for pulling this collection together and making us think more holistically about what we mean when we talk about justice." — Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Bigelow and Swinehart have created a critical resource for today’s young people about humanity’s responsibility for the Earth. This book can engender the shift in perspective so needed at this point on the clock of the universe." — Gregory Smith, Professor of Education, Lewis & Clark College, co-author with David Sobel of Place- and Community-based Education in Schools

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements written by Julian Gross and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Constructing Community written by Jeremy Levine and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the benefits and consequences of the rise of community-based organizations in urban development Who makes decisions that shape the housing, policies, and social programs in urban neighborhoods? Who, in other words, governs? Constructing Community offers a rich ethnographic portrait of the individuals who implement community development projects in the Fairmount Corridor, one of Boston’s poorest areas. Jeremy Levine uncovers a network of nonprofits and philanthropic foundations making governance decisions alongside public officials—a public-private structure that has implications for democratic representation and neighborhood inequality. Levine spent four years following key players in Boston’s community development field. While state senators and city councilors are often the public face of new projects, and residents seem empowered through opportunities to participate in public meetings, Levine found a shadow government of nonprofit leaders and philanthropic funders, nonelected neighborhood representatives with their own particular objectives, working behind the scenes. Tying this system together were political performances of “community”—government and nonprofit leaders, all claiming to value the community. Levine provocatively argues that there is no such thing as a singular community voice, meaning any claim of community representation is, by definition, illusory. He shows how community development is as much about constructing the idea of community as it is about the construction of physical buildings in poor neighborhoods. Constructing Community demonstrates how the nonprofit sector has become integral to urban policymaking, and the tensions and trade-offs that emerge when private nonprofits take on the work of public service provision.

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements written by William Hy Ho and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban redevelopment projects involve three parties: (1) the public sector (e.g. public officials), (2) the private sector (e.g. developers), and (3) the community (e.g. residents and community groups). Traditionally, decision-making power in urban redevelopment projects resided between the public and private sectors, with little authority given to communities. The development of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) were a reaction to this imbalance and have helped communities gain influence in the redevelopment process. These agreements are "legally" binding contracts between a developer and community group(s) - to ensure that development projects benefit local community residents. Their creation is rooted in several decades of failed urban policies and the public learning that has taken place since Urban Renewal. CBAs first appeared in Los Angeles in 2001 and have since taken root across the country in such geographically diverse places as Denver, Milwaukee, and New York City. These agreements represent a significant evolution in collective bargaining, the ability of varied entities to come together and take a common position on a topic, and the ability of communities to secure benefits from developers. This thesis examines why these agreements came into existence, the process by which they are implemented, and how they have been employed. It will look at how these agreements have created greater overall value for all three sectors involved in publicly subsidized redevelopment projects and how to improve upon the community benefits negotiation process.

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Community Benefits Agreements written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ecosystem, rooted in hundreds of years of political history and economic development, is composed of an intertwined set of incentives, public and private information and a complex and sometimes opaque set of rules and processes based on constitutional law, legislative law, conventions and struggles for power. [...] Increasing attention is being paid to the pursuit of community benefits as part of the process of public infrastructure investments because of. [...] The successful negotiation of such benefits enhances both the quality of life and the functionality of a neighbourhood, making it a better place to live, work and play... the goal of all public policy. [...] But the community has to be ready to take on the task of identifying and. [...] The expertise of this partner--with more experience in large construction than anyone else at the table except the developer--provided YWCA with a critically important perspective on what indicators were of greatest significance in the course of the project's evolution and helped circumvent potentially big problems as the project evolved.

Download or read book Too Big to Know written by David Weinberger and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If anyone knows anything about the web, where it's been and where it's going, it's David Weinberger. . . . Too Big To Know is an optimistic, if not somewhat cautionary tale, of the information explosion." -- Steven Rosenbaum, Forbes With the advent of the Internet and the limitless information it contains, we're less sure about what we know, who knows what, or even what it means to know at all. And yet, human knowledge has recently grown in previously unimaginable ways and in inconceivable directions. In Too Big to Know, David Weinberger explains that, rather than a systemic collapse, the Internet era represents a fundamental change in the methods we have for understanding the world around us. With examples from history, politics, business, philosophy, and science, Too Big to Know describes how the very foundations of knowledge have been overturned, and what this revolution means for our future.

Download or read book Reconsidering Localism written by Simin Davoudi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Localism" has been deployed in recent debates over planning law as an anodyne, grassroots way to shape communities into sustainable, human-scale neighborhoods. But "local" is a moving category, with contradictory, nuanced dimensions. Reconsidering Localism brings together new scholarship from leading academics in Europe and North America to develop a theoretically-grounded critique and definition of the new localism, and how it has come to shape urban governance and urban planning. Moving beyond the UK, this book examines localism and similar shifts in planning policy throughout Europe, and features essays on localism and place-making, sustainability, social cohesion, and citizen participation in community institutions. It explores how debates over localism and citizen control play out at the neighborhood, institutional and city level, and has come to effect the urban landscape throughout Europe. Reconsidering Localism is a current, vital addition to planning scholarship.

Download or read book Rethinking Food and Agriculture written by Amir Kassam and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-18 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the central role of the food and agriculture system in driving so many of the connected ecological, social and economic threats and challenges we currently face, Rethinking Food and Agriculture reviews, reassesses and reimagines the current food and agriculture system and the narrow paradigm in which it operates. Rethinking Food and Agriculture explores and uncovers some of the key historical, ethical, economic, social, cultural, political, and structural drivers and root causes of unsustainability, degradation of the agricultural environment, destruction of nature, short-comings in science and knowledge systems, inequality, hunger and food insecurity, and disharmony. It reviews efforts towards 'sustainable development', and reassesses whether these efforts have been implemented with adequate responsibility, acceptable societal and environmental costs and optimal engagement to secure sustainability, equity and justice. The book highlights the many ways that farmers and their communities, civil society groups, social movements, development experts, scientists and others have been raising awareness of these issues, implementing solutions and forging 'new ways forward', for example towards paradigms of agriculture, natural resource management and human nutrition which are more sustainable and just. Rethinking Food and Agriculture proposes ways to move beyond the current limited view of agro-ecological sustainability towards overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on the principle of 'inclusive responsibility'. Inclusive responsibility encourages ecosystem sustainability based on agro-ecological and planetary limits to sustainable resource use for production and livelihoods. Inclusive responsibility also places importance on quality of life, pluralism, equity and justice for all and emphasises the health, well-being, sovereignty, dignity and rights of producers, consumers and other stakeholders, as well as of nonhuman animals and the natural world. - Explores some of the key drivers and root causes of unsustainability , degradation of the agricultural environment and destruction of nature - Highlights the many ways that different stakeholders have been forging 'new ways forward' towards alternative paradigms of agriculture, human nutrition and political economy, which are more sustainable and just - Proposes ways to move beyong the current unsustainable exploitation of natural resources towards agroecological sustainability and overall sustainability of the food and agriculture system based on 'inclusive responsibility'

Download or read book Rethinking Investment Law written by David Schneiderman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no denying that the rules and enforcement mechanisms of investment law and arbitration reach deep into the regulatory and policy space of host states. Investment tribunals have the ability to second-guess all variety of state measures and, in doing so, have displayed a remarkable lack of restraint. Despite investment law's muscularity, without equal in international law, the prevailing orthodoxy treats investment law as a defensible and just restraint on government and politics. This volume helps to correct the prevailing view. Rethinking Investment Law illustrates how investment law protections for foreign investors constrains states and over-compensates investors. It offers a more balanced vision of how international law can protect all those affected, not just foreign investors. An expert set of contributors explain both the conventional law and its limitations. Their analysis shows that doctrines, now widely entrenched, in orthodox accounts of investment law could have taken, and could still take, a different turn. They offer a more respectful approach to states' roles and responsibilities to enact laws in the public interest. This text will be an illuminating read for students and academics in areas such as investment law and international economic law. It provides cutting-edge analysis for researchers, practitioners, and students seeking to understand and question the usual standards of treatment under investment treaties.