How many local governments in the us

This is particularly true at the end of a long and arduous process. A staff member's credibility can be seriously undermined if key interests introduce relevant, new information at a final public hearing before action is to be taken. Councilmembers depend on staff to provide pertinent, timely, and complete information on issues the council must take under consideration.

Elected officials like to have choices. No one likes to feel backed into a corner with only one solution. Even a brilliant staff proposal may not carry the day if other choices were not seriously considered. Staff can be an enormous help. Staff can set an example by showing how compromise can be reached on thorny issues.

What Elected Officials Need to Know about Staff Some key staff belong to national and state associations that hold members to professional and ethical standards. Asking staff to help on certain political matters, such as election and ballot campaigns, puts them in a difficult position. State laws also significantly limit the use of public resources for campaign issues. Explore challenging issues with staff and encourage their creativity.

Staff will sometimes assert that "we can't do this because it violates technical standards. For example, street design standards favor the movement of traffic. If the street is not critical for the movement of large traffic volumes, there may be ways to design the street to achieve other community goals by providing wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and space for recreational and social activities.

However, access may be lost to certain categories of state or federal funds if standards are not met. Get to know and trust key staff. Competent staff can be a tremendous help in developing ideas, structuring good processes, and generally keeping you out of trouble. Treat each other respectfully.

Otherwise, you may not get that extra effort that can make a difference in effectiveness. Avoid public criticism of each other; it only makes for martyrs. If there is a legitimate concern, discuss the matter privately. If you are a councilmember, remember that you do not have the authority to direct employees.

Discuss your concerns with the executive, mayor, or city manager. If you are on staff, ask for policy clarification if you are not sure what was intended. Not only are these people regularly exposed to deadly diseases, their work is also challenged by climate change.

COP26 will help us answer How to make food production more sustainable and equitable? ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network of more than local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Our Members and team of experts work together through peer exchange, partnerships and capacity building to create systemic change for urban sustainability. Joining ICLEI means connecting to more than 2, local and regional governments as well as technical experts and a diversity community of partners worldwide.

ICLEI Members actively engage with their peers through conferences, workshops, webinars and online platforms and take advantage of our connections with businesses, financial institutions and other implementation partners that help strengthen innovation and resourcing. Got any questions? I will be happy to assist. Please contact me at iclei at iclei.

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Figure 5 highlights just how expensive and variable these construction projects can be in the United States, with average costs per mile in Boston more than 12 times the cost per mile in Sacramento. Costs depend importantly on whether the rail system is underground or above ground, but also vary across cities based on contracting and regulatory costs. Infrastructure projects often stretch across jurisdictions and localities with different regulatory processes, creating an overlapping thicket of regulations through which infrastructure projects must pass.

This can present challenges for financing, regulation, and coordination purposes Gillette , while adding to overall costs Long Examples of these problems abound. For water infrastructure repair, regulations sometimes restrict the kinds of materials that can be used, limiting procurement competition and raising costs Anderson Partly as a result of state and federal regulations, public buses are more expensive to procure and their fuel economy is unresponsive to price changes Li, Kahn, and Nickelsburg And a New York Times report on the Second Avenue Subway Rosenthal noted both how work rules raised labor costs and contracting rules pushed costs well above typical rates.

It is important to note that though these regulatory and bureaucratic barriers can add to the costs of infrastructure projects, many still play a crucial role in ensuring that the public is protected from potentially unsafe construction practices or from environmental damages DeGood Nevertheless, a more-streamlined process that incorporates some elements of evidence-based policymaking, including cost-benefit analysis, could help lower costs while also protecting workers and the public, especially when different regulations aimed at similar goals may impose overlapping burdens.

Transportation infrastructure is used in different ways by low- and high-income workers, as shown in figure 6. The vast majority of workers—84 percent—commute to work by car. Traditionally, middle- and high-income people have taken advantage of more-expensive, faster transportation technologies to be able to live further from city centers Glaeser, Kahn, and Rappaport ; LeRoy and Sonstelie They are also more likely to use rail light green bars in figure 6.

Low-income workers are more likely than others to 1 walk or ride a bicycle or 2 ride a bus to work respectively, the purple and dark green bars in figure 6. Nevertheless, commuting by car is still the dominant mode of commuting, even for workers in the bottom quintile of earnings 77 percent of whom commute by car.

Public policy could assist low-income workers in accessing economic opportunity by improving the functioning of the bus system, as described in a Hamilton Project policy memo by Matthew Turner Transportation infrastructure has always been at the center of the evolving economic landscape of the United States. Innovations like canals, railroads, and the Interstate Highway System have continually reduced the costs of moving people and goods between places Baum-Snow ; Donaldson and Hornbeck Transportation infrastructure underlies the development of large, dense hubs of economic activity like Chicago, whose population density in and is shown in the left and right panels, respectively, of figure 7.

In , before construction began on the Interstate Highway System, the population of Chicago and the surrounding areas was concentrated closer to the center of the city. However, with the introduction of seven major interstate highways in the subsequent decades, which also correspond to preexisting railroads, the population was able to spread out into the Chicago suburbs and exurbs.

In addition to population, transportation infrastructure shifts economic activity from one place to another; an interstate highway connection placed in a county increases output there but lowers it by a similar amount in adjacent counties Chandra and Thompson Highway connections also facilitate enhanced specialization by raising demand for either low- or high-skilled labor, depending on the original skill mix in the county Michaels The construction of the Interstate Highway System, which began in the late s, had profound consequences for the overall distribution of work and population in the United States.

In spite of the economic benefits that came with the expansion of the Interstate Highway System, choices about highway routes have also had pernicious effects on low-income and minority communities. For example, the construction of interstate highways in Chicago facilitated white flight and segregation as well as seizures of residential property, resulting in socially and economically isolated communities Connerly ; Hardy, Logan, and Parman ; Semuels In most of the United States, housing prices follow the rule of thumb often suggested for homebuyers: homes in the typical neighborhood are valued at less than three times household income Murray and Schuetz But in a collection of places—for example, New York City and San Francisco—housing is much more expensive.

Land in the centers of these cities is especially expensive; center-city prices are 21 times the prices only 10 miles away. By contrast, for all U.