Urban decentralisation policies: A cross-national view

HABITATlivTL. Vol. ‘9. No. 3/d. pp 17-38. 19X.5. Printcd in Great Britain.

Urban Decentralisation Policies: A Cross-National View” RAFFAELLA

Uher.cit_y

Y. NANETTIf

of 1ilirwi.s at Chicrrgo, USA

INTRODUCTION

The focus of this inquiry is derived from the observation of two societal pressures - the increased demand for direct political participation on the part of citizens in urban areas and their request for more. a greater variety of. and better quality public social services - and two parallel, but opposing, governmental responses to these pressures: centralisation VC~SZIS decentralisation. In the urban context. urban decentralisation seems to offer the best opportunity of meeting citizens’ demands for a voice in urban affairs by giving them a constructive role in the planning process and the delivery of pubhc social services. The trend has inevitably emphasised the various governmental functions carried out by both civil servants in line units and planners in management and staff units. Among other changes a visible shift is the increased emphasis placed on the expanded definition of the city planning process as well as a pressure to move planning away from the legislative and closer to the executive branch of government. Thus. the planner loses his or her purely technical-advisory role and assumes a more administrative-political function in the overall public policy process and planning becomes a primary governmental function (Spencer. 1979; Altshuler, 1969; Parker, 1971). At the same time, the civil servant is forced to assume a de fucto planning role in devising governmental responses to citizen pressure for specific policies and a share in the decision-making process. The executive branch, therefore, draws on the contribution of planners and civil servants to develop procedures to maintain participatory links with the citizens through some form of structured or unstructured channel - e.g.. neighbourhood government, public hearings on the planning process, advisory community groups etc. It is the opinion of the author that urban decentralisation as an institutional response to the two societal pressures and the administrative changes associated with them has become an important option adopted by urban governments in both the USA and Europe. While the underlying problems and pressures have been the same, some of the characteristics of decentralisation have been different. It is the aim of this article to provide an overview of the thinking and experience in urban decentralisation on two continents in order to establish the basis for cross-national and systematic comparative research in the field. The reason for choosing Europe as one pole of the spectrum is that the functions of planning and administration have traditionally been merged and urban planning has always had a strong political connotation. What has been

27

lacking in ~uropc. ho\vc\ci-. is the tradition of citizen participation in civic and go\~crnmentaI affairs - cspcciall\ in countries like France. Germany. and Italy ~ \vherc ~o\x2rnniental functions-li~i\,e been historically controlled by ccntralised and uniform bureaucratic structures closcl!, tied to the executive branch. The L!SA. on the other side of the spcctruni. has had ;I strong tradition of citizen participation in ci\,ic affairs and has privileged the linkages bctwccn the citizen hod!, and its clectcd rcprcsentativcs. llowe\~cr. the representative model is too fragmentar~~ to satisfy the increasing derna~~i for continuous contacts with local in clecision-rnakiii~. ?c~o\~crnmcnt and direct participation In Europe. the call for institutional change at the local lcvcl for direct particip;ition and better social wr\,iccs draws upon the long-standing tradition of crovernmental function. while in the USA it depends on the planning as ;I ~ strength 01‘ the tradition of citizen invol\,emcnt. These arc some of the diffcrenccs and similarities \j hich encourage the initiation of comparative work to ~11i~11~sc future altcrnatiws and dccclopmcllts in the realm of iii-ban rcorganiwtion through dcccntr~tlis;ltioi~ policies. cw\‘crnment

‘I’HE II)EN’I’IFICA’~ION OF ISSUES Althou@ the undcrl\ing characteristics that influence ;I nation’s propensity to dccentralise arc var;ed. there are striking similarities among industrialised nations with respect to issues of urban decenti-alisatioii. In most cases. efforts at decentralising government in urban areas are recent. Thcv reflect a new ;l\varcncss of the limitations of the attempts to centralise at the metro-regional levels which have been typical since World War II (Greater London Group, 1985; Ualdingcr. 1971: Mogulof. 1973; Walsh. I969; Pusic and Walsh, 1968; Greer, lO6.i: Sofcn. 1963: Stokkeland, 19X0: Sabetti. 19SO). It is the effectiveness of go\.crnniental and administi-ati\c structure of local government. especially in larger and older cities. that is again being questioned. Multiple issues make up the new attack upon city government. and four of the lack of representativeness and them are frequently cited. Politically, responsi\,encss of the clccted officials of large-scale local governments is the issue. It is argued that decentralisation furthers the representativeness of govcrnmcnt based on the scale of the deccntralised units. In administrative terms. the issue is the riced to strike ;I balance between the effectiveness and efficicnc\, of scrviccs. Client or user organisations are purported to humanise. the rclcvance of public services without improve- the quality. and strengthen necessarilv increasing their costs. Dcccntralisatioii prwidcs citizens in user organisations with the poucr to change the administration of services in those directions. From an economic standpoint. it is argued that the present structure of local g~~vcrnment is not conducive to the promotion of economic development in all city ncighboulhoods. According to this perspective. decentralisation is \,ie\+cd as an attempt to stop the outflow, of economic resources from the and promote its economic development. attract in\,cstnient. neighhourhoocl. Finall!,. thcrc is the issue of the dominance of the ‘private’ aspect of people’s lives and the desire to decrease the size of the public sector. Decentralisation is seen as the \va> to cast the problem of alienation from the conduct of public at a level - the neighbourhood affairs by promotin S.Jpersonal involvement where the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of life are closely aligned. The relative importance and precise formulation of these issues vary considerably from one country to another, in accordance with the different historical. cultural. and instituiional crJntests. In the LISA. present support for urban decentralisation is generally perceived as distinctlv clifl‘erent from earlier support for home rule. given the basic

awareness of the ongoing urban economic crisis in the midst of claims of an urban renaissance for American cities. As a consequence. the advocacy of decentralisation is part of the move to improve the quality of urban life through the full utilisation of the resources existing in urban communities (Marciniak, 1985: Cassidy, 1980). This debate is directly linked to the pcrccivcd inadequacy of governmental institutions at all levels. Two m;t,lor federal investigations in the mid-1960s had already established the necessity of local government reforms for the future of urban America, Local governmental structures were singled out for their systematic exclusion of great numbers of citizens from the process of 1968) together with their bureacratic ungovernment (Kerner Commission. accountability (Douglas Commission. 196X). Others find that the administrative argument provides stronger reasons for change. Already in 1973 Shalala expressed the view that much of the political conflict in larger cities was produced by discontent with the inadequacy of service delivery systems. A psychological justification for supporting urban deccntralisation policies is advanced by others as a reaction against the centralising legacy of the New Deal or in terms of the high degree of self-awareness in today’s city neighbourhoods (Weiler, 1974; Fainstein. 1976). A line of support for decentralisation which is based on both economic and political justifications was in favour of neighbourhood first offer-cd by Kotler (1969). who argued reassertion of its independence and control over development after years of political subjugation and economic exploitation by urban central areas. The governmental tradition of Great Britain is known to be similar to that of the USA in one major respect: its reliance on local governmental autonomy. For this reason, one would expect urban decentralisation in Great Britain to present characteristics similar to those found in the USA - that is, to originate in the need for the reallocation of power to the grassroots. Instead. the debate surrounding decentralisation in Great Britain developed almost exclusively as a byproduct of the reorganisation of the metropolitan government of London (Sharpe, 1979; Donnison, 1973; Baker and Young, 1971; Greater London Group, 1968). Because of this linkage, a greater emphasis was placed on the political and administrative issues of decentralisation to promote a nationwide system of neighbourhood governmental institutions within a multi-tier local government system. As one student (Donnison, 1973: p. 396) comments on the relations between the administrative and political aspects of decentralisation: “Better services cannot be (provided) unless (they) are adequately staffed by people accountable to the machinery of government”. Far less important appears to be the psychological issue; while the economic self-development thesis is simply not found in British writings on decentralisation. When compared to the USA and Great Britain, Italy’s governmental institutions are fundamentally different. The Napoleonic legacy of minimal local autonomy, uniformity of the local governmental forms. and omni-present civil service bureaucracy leave large and small urban areas in Italy with a whole array of additional institutional problems. However. this very legacy has been important in accounting for the widespread debate on and experimentation in urban decentralisation which has characterised Italy in the last fifteen years. One of the distinguishing features of the sources of support for dccentralisation in Italy is its link with the general problem of the reform of the state apparatus to achieve greater local autonomy. Accordingly, from the beginning urban decentraltsation was discussed together with ministerial. regional, and area-wide reorganisation (Modica, 1967; Carini, 1972; Nanni, 1972). Decentralisation was valued because it was equated with freedom to experiment with different political and administrative structures that could more precisely reflect local administrative/political preferences (Meo and Bonazzi, 1972). Thus very often the criterion of governmental efficiency in delivering public services has been

30

Rtr//iw//tr Y. .VofrcJrr/

considered together M,ith the two political objectives it ha5 to SCI-ye: ttiosc of ttic redistribution of political control over scr\,iccs and of the incrcasect share 01‘ power among citizens (Gori. 1971). The argument in fa\rouiof decentratisation brought forward in Italian thinking is ;I political OIIC: decentralisution is justified if it redistributes political po\ver and promotes citizen participation.

‘fHE .L\DOPI‘ION OF URBAN DECEN’I’R:tl,IS~~‘I’ION I’OI,I(‘IE:S The inquiry into urban deccntratis~itit,n policies from ;I cross-national txi-spcctive requires an analytical franicwork capabtc of incorporating ;I \k ide \,arietv of diffcrcnt issues. Considering the history of urban dcccntralis~ltion experiments in both capitalist and socialist socio-economic s!‘stenis. such ;I t‘ranic\vork contains five analytical dimensions. l‘he ui-han d~centr~itis~ition politics of ctc\cn industriat~sed countries are anatysed xxordingty (Fig. I ).

Canada

Sweden Swtrerland

USA Feder;, Repubk cf Germany

L

A first dimension is the levels of government involved in the administration ol ;I decentrulisation potiq: and the nature and strength of their relationship. As with all the other dimcnslons, the range of possible alternatives has hecn ~-educed to ;I dichotomous classification for purposes of simplifyin, 0 the anatvsis. In this those urban decenti-atisatit,n to distinguish bctwcen CZlS;e L , it is important experiments in which the municipal levct of government to which rcsponsibitit> for implementing policy is attributed. and others. in which there arc ;I numhcr ot governmental levels responsible for policies. The latter include the instances in which urban decentralisation has taken place in conjunction with moves to\vard metro-regional centratisation. A second dimension is policy promotion: the locus of initiative for the policy of decentratis~ltion. It is important to distinguish whether the initiative comes from Eovernment (public) OI grassroot (private) organisutions. The dimension highlights the relative weight of public officials IYI:SIU citizen groups in the successful devetopmcnt of dccentl-alisatic,n policy. A third dimension involves the geo~raphicat extension or tcrritoriat COWI-age ot the policy - within and across indlvlduat municipalities. It focuses on the degree of which is minimal when its homogeneity that the policy dispta!3 spatially,

Urban Decentralisation

Policies:

A Cross-Natiord

View

31

coverage is restricted to individual cities and at a maximum when it applies to an entire country. Fourthly, there is the dimension of a country’s administrative tradition, stressing either a strong central administration or municipal autonomy in local decision-making. It gives an indication of the relative autonomy that is u’e facto enjoyed by the municipal bureaucracy in the implementation of the whether or not higher levels of government are decentralisation policy, institutionally involved. Finally, what needs to be considered is the dimension of the nature of legitimisation of the ‘managers’ - that is, the decision-makers of the policy at the neighbourhood level. The line is drawn between the cases in which the neighbourhood level managers are not elected and those in which they are elected by the neighbourhood residents and exercise a degree of control over the policy. The former grouping is by far the most numerous and includes decentrahsation experiments in which the neighbourhood level decision-makers are appointed in a quasi-representative-capacity by the municipality or they are self-appointed; it also includes the cases whereby ctty agency staff are reassigned to neighbourhood locations. In the USA, decentralisation policies have largely consisted of forms not involving local political reorganisation and the delegation of deliberative power to elected neighbourhood level managers (Washnis, 1971). An early study aimed at inventorying existing policies, by type and geographical location, looked in 1971 at all cities and counties with a population above 25.000 (US. ACIR, 1972). While no city had established sub-units of government with elected neighbourhood councils (which is still true today), larger cities had, at times, attempted to move from limited forms of decentralisation - where few decision-making powers were delegated to agency staff - to others that provide for quasirepresentative ncighbourhood bodies and the application of the policy on a citywide basis. The efforts have remained very limited in number and results. An especially popular form of decentralisation in inner-city areas has been the private, non-profit corporation chartered under state law, funded by federal and governed by community residents. While it provides for an grants, independent source of money, and therefore allows for substantial local control, it has been shown that it does not affect the structure of city government in the remainder of the city. In addition, with federal government as the primary fundraiser, the fortunes of these local initiatives have tended to follow the swing of the pendulum as the allocation of federal money to local government has sharply diminished in the 1980s. Canada has long displayed a concern with the political reorganisation of urban government and her policies are of particular interest because of their variety. Well known for her early efforts in pursuing communal amalgamation and Canada experienced in the 1960s an upturn in metropolitan government, administrative and political activities in urban decentralisation (Higgins, 1977: Bureau of Municipal Research, 1975; Gabeline and Lanken, 1975). The variation of policies covers a full gamut, from government-promoted urban decentralisation within an existing metropolitan framework (Head, 1970: Bureau of Municipal Research. 1968) to citizen-promoted forms of neighbourhood organisation as vehicle for social change (Gold and Tremblay. 1973; Sewell. 1972). The latter can be illustrated by Quebec’s experimentation with nnitnutiotz sociufe or ‘social animation’ - a French-originated concept of which focuses on the role of the ‘animateurs’ community participation (Blondin, 1971). These are activists and representatives of groups who want to bring about changes in their environment by mobilising the residents into participatory forms of behaviour. In Quebec, the citizen committees are consulted by city agencies while, at the same time, they fulfil the role of socialisation agents, channels of information, and mobilising agents of participation for local residents.

A

city

which

has

carried

out

on

;I

city-Lvide

basis

;I

polic\,

of

urban

dccentralis~ltiori through the use of ;I two-tier system of metro-are;1 government is Winnipeg. In 1970. the Manitoba pr~j\incial government became concerned with the widespread Greater

disx1tisfxtion

with the Metro

(Metropolitan

Corporation

ot

Winnipeg)

cspcricncc. Despite Metro’s record in the impro\a~cnt ot local services. rn:iii~~ citizens rescntecl its raiiotcncss. The pro\,incial government proposal u,hich initiatcci a public debate of the issue tlv publishin, (1 ;I reoreanising c

called for the unification adniinisrratioii ward svstcm

of a11 m:1,ior scr\,iccs and fiscal rcsourccs under ;I Metro t 070). The plan also foresan the cs;tablishment of ;1

(Manitoba. and ;I grouping

of \+xrds in Community

Committee

Arcas

that could

cffecti\,ely ciecentralise the political pixxxss. l‘he appropriate base for pop~~lai representation was to he one councillor per ward lhal is, for everv 10.000 to 12.000 people. The ities OL’C’I- scr\.ice5 assumption

unified

of others

of ciec~ntralis~1tion

which

identified

(Grcatcr

Winnipeg

adopted

The

hy

Winnipeg

under

related

policy

and

Greater

already

lo planning.

j11risdiction. Metro

at the

Ic\,el hy ;I

1071 )_

plan allocatcci to the Community budgeting.

the protection

of persons

and delivering and property.

Committees

responsibilities

a range of local services health

and social

power

in the foriii

of reconinienciing

Provisions

here

committees

ni;icic

in their

t>\, the Greater

Winnipeg

designated

ncighhourhood

for the election

of resident

include

development,

public

Council

existing

ation schemes the increased

shown

hood organisations. mittee

and

or initiated

action

advisory

?I-OLI~S to assist

the

delihcrations.

go\~crnnicnt. visibility

arcas. such as Committees

arcas for improvement.

Great Britain presents ;I sharp contrast to Canada. Efforts have been \<.idespreaci and spontaneous. hut they also have bq; the

in

which

works and their maintenance. and culture and rccrcation. In other land-use controls and ncighhoiirhot,cl planning. the Communitv delegated

commission

recommendeci the new \j al-d-hased electoral boundaries Electoral Boundaries Kc\icMj C’ommission, 107 1) and \V;IS

progi-amming.

exercised

&ponsibil-

in addition to the 2nd fiscal niattcrs. The

clcvelopnient.

v+as enclo~-sed

city (C’it!, of Winnipeg,

the

Winnipeg

C‘ouncil was to retain

Metro’s

In the 1970s the srowing

by higher

le\,cls of government political ‘clout’ acquired

and

such

as the Li\,crpoot

the Goldborne

Nt’i~hhoLII-hoo~t

Sherman. 107.3) as it \\‘;I\ of efforts Neighbourhood C’ouncils (Donnison.

receptivity

I?>, the 107.3)

to

LIP

to dccentrulis-

\v;is as much ;I byproduct of hy pri\.atc local ncighbour-

NeiFhbouI-hood Council

at dccentralisation

not been hacked

Organisation

(Hcywood.

1073:

Frost

Comand

private Association for create ;I national s\‘steni ol

also

iieighhourhood representative hodies. Of the scvcral go~x2rnnicntal -inquiries that were conducted to study the issues of local government reorganisation and render local planning inore participatory. none rccommendcd any governnicntal reorganisation organised, ~icl~~isor\: pressure

iit the subcif! groups (Let\vin.

level beyond rhc creation of 1971: Kcdcliffe and Wood. 197-l).

Opposition to mo\‘e hc!.ond that le\,cl also C:IIIIC from some local authorities a limited range of h~inian ser\,ice agencies which supported decentralising (National Association of Local Councils. 1973%l97h). The mo\‘cment to creare ncighhourhood rcprcscntativc institutions grew during the dccadc. and it picked

up the endorsement of aII three maJor parties through sponsored Icgislation. Help was also forthcoming from the Dcparlment of EnCronment. which provided sOme financial assistance and sponsored ;I nationwide sur\cy of votuntaq ncighbourhood councils to preparc legislative proposals for the creation of a new Icvel of government at the sub-city level (INL_OGOV. 1977). With the fall of the Lahour government in 1979 this trend in national policy disappeared completely (Ashford. 19X2) In

maior

France. where highly qualified planning and administrative staff play ;I directi\,es into the decision-1iiaking process. role in feeding technical

Urhun Decentrulisutiot~ Policies: A Cross-,~~ttiorlul View

33

urban decentralisation policies have not made very much headway. The outstanding concerns are still with the reorganisation of government and planning at the metro-regional level and the task of balancing the weight of the Paris region (Walsh, 1969; Gremion and Worms, 1975; Meny, 1974). The recent proposal of the Socialist government to create regional government goes in this direction (Meny, 1984). Neighbourhood organisation efforts. whether they be against government-promoted urban renewal policies in the inner city of Paris (Castells. 1972) or to call government attention to the plight of public service poor and smaller cities (Meister. 1972), have been sporadic and aimed at developing a movement for social change. In the process. questions about new institutional and administrative arrangements have received a low priority, Alternatively, there has been a second development in France, that of voluntary citizen associations. In Grenoble, they are called the Unions de Quartiers, cover all areas of the city, and operate as voluntary associations applying pressure on city government. The city has long acknowledged their existence and has, in fact, catered to them in the formulation of local policies. In the 1970s the Unions increased their influence when the new city administration instituted a policy of regular consultations in the areas of urban, recreational, and socio-cultural planning (Ratel, 1974). Steps were taken to formalise the relationship through the creation of a city-run, city-neighbourhood relations office (Boulais, 1974) and the adoption of the principle of co-management of neighbourhood services between the city and local users (Ville de Grenoble, 1973). Urban decentralisation policies in West Germany are. in the view of some, not necessarily a post-War phenomenon. They originated in the medieval tradition of strong small-town autonomy which has remained a factor in the policies of territorial annexations and/or metro reorganisation pursued by the larger cities. A study of three cities (Weiler. 1971) points to varying degrees of autonomy and territorial extension of today’s Bezirke (neighbourhood control organisations) that range from appointed to elected neighbourhood representatives. from limited administrative decentralisation to fiscal autonomy. and from a city-wide network to a few outlying neighbourhoods. In the inner cities. ncighbourhood organisational efforts have attempted to fill in the gaps between the areas covered by these formalised arrangements. A case in point is that of Munich where citizen groups have been active since the late 1960s in trying to achieve control over planning decisions affecting their neighbourhoods. Akth Mtrs~wrstadt. for example was founded in 1970 (Dantscher, 1973) for the purpose of preserving the residential character of the Maxvorstadt neighbourhood. Thcsc groups operate as organised lobbies but, unlike Grenoble’s Uniorls, they have not taken steps to formalise and change their relationship with city hall. Rather. technical help and inter-neighbourhood cooperation is sought through the Muncher Fon4n2, a private society founded in 196S by chambers of commerce. professional associations. trade unions. and university groups whose objective is to democratise the city planning process (Muncher Forum. 1977: Nanctti, 19X0). Italy has adopted the most widespread city-wide decentralisation policies of any Western Europe country (Dragone, 1975). Just prior to the enactment of the 1976 legislation which made Italy the first country to institutionalise neighbourhood level government on a national scale, up to two-thirds of all provincial capitals had ordinances creating sub-city quasi-representative bodies and various citizen advisory groups (Dente et al., 1978). Following the lead of the city of Bologna. which created neighbourhood councils and initiated the decentralisation of many city services to its neighbourhoods back in 1964. the majority of northern cities adopted decentralisation policies within a few years. In the I’sXOs, these local government sponsored initiatives - which had catered primarily to the issue of administrative rcorganisation of services to increase

34

K(
their relevance and efficiency have acquired ;I new thrust: through the election of neighbourhood councils responsible for the planning of neighbourhood services (Nanetti. 19S5). The variety of expcrirnentation with urban dcccntralisatioli policies that is found in Western countries is by no means unique to capitalist systems. Both patterns of reorganising local governmental units into metro systems and downwards into sub-city areas arc also present in Eastern European countries. In 1064, Warsaw’s council created a system of locally-elected conimunit!, councils. The purpose was to promote citizen participation 111physical and social planning rather than to stress the role of the councils as service management agcncics for their arca. This choice is rcflectcd in the very small size of the communities; for a city of the size of Warsaw. an average of a few thousand residents was adopted (Gorynski and Kybicki. 1970). A similar pattern of small participatory groups is reported in Cracow (Zikmund. 1977) and. more generally. throughout Poland followin g the 1071 local government reform which created city-wide networks of community councils (Zawadzki and Dzicciolawska. 1075). Since World War II, Yugoslavia has intrigued students of local government due to its development and claborntion of new social and political principles: those of self-government and self-management (Barbie, 1975: Vcrba and Shabad. l975; Singleton, 1976: Vanck. 1970). It is cvithin Yugoslavia’% highly decentraliscd federal system that urban deccntralisation policies ought to bc considered. Thcq’ consist of a m,cak city Ic\,el go\‘crnmcnt with no taxing poM’cr_ and corrcspondlngly, policy-making bodies which include ;I chamber of the urban neighbourhoods and communes that make up the citv. While urban ncighbourhoods do not have governmental status, ncighbourhood groups play an Important political role in mobilising and aggregating support around community and city issues. In addition. through neigllbourhood-hased agencies. the neighbourhood groups provide and administer a \,aricty of scr\ices of local interest.

POLICY 1’KENDS What arc the policy patterns which have cmergcd in each country following the adoption of decentralisation policies‘? In the USA, the early federally-induced decentralisation efforts - from Urban Kcnewal to Model Cities - displayed ;III orientation toward selected and undcrpriiileged target areas and were aimed at promoting citizen participation at the neighbourhood level. I’obvcr conflicts often arose between the neighbourhood boards and the city over the control of outside funds. thus contributing to having neighbourhood boards singled out in the minds of many 21s inappropriate, impractical. and incffectivc. These de\,clopments served to kill them politically and financially. Today. a second pattern of locally-stimul~~tcd cieccntralisation is prc\,alcnt. It is one in which the initiative taken by well organised private groups is crucial in obtaining the establishment of a decentralisation policy from local government. Two gcncral features charactcrisc this new pattern. First. dccentralisation of services and programmes is most common. NcighhoLlrhooci managers arc appointed to their posts and establish u:orking relationship \\,ith selcctcd neighbourhood groups that, in turn. act in 2111advisory capacity. Second. the scope ot these decelitralis~ltiori efforts tends to bc limited IO one functional area at a time - for example. education or park and recreation facilities. The preferred relationship remains that bctwecn the city and the ncighbourhood level.

Urhm

Lkcmtrulisution

Palick:

A Cross-Nationd

View

35

The Canadian approach to urban decentralisation policies, unlike that of the USA. has moved away from identifying neighbourhoods as service and administrative areas with related responsibilities toward stressing them as political units. A review of the decentralisation policy in Winnipeg assessed the limitations of community committees in acting as service delivery units by pointing out the problems of overlapping authority and the ambiguity of responsibility which impairs management. A consequence has been the strengthening of a centralised system of service delivery with the exception of the area of culture and recreation. In the 1976 Winnipeg report, recommendations were made that the focus of activity of community committees become “the preparation and implementation of city plans and, in particular, the district plans and action plans” (Committee of Review. 1976: p. 89). The responsibility of producing the action plans was to rest solely with the community committees. The recommendations have since been adopted by the city (City of Winnipeg. 1977). Two perceivable but incompatible trends are at work in Great Britain. One derives from the tradition of small town and village autonomy in public affairs which is being carried out through the creation, in rural areas, of parish councils with statutory standing (National Association of Parish Councils, 1966). While this tradition provides only limited functional responsibility, it has been extended now to suburban areas (Local Govemmenr Act, 1972). Some argue that the parish council is also a suitable model for urban neighbourhoods (National Association of Local Councils, 1976). On the other hand, the legislation which is still advocated by the Association of Neighbourhood Councils - the spokesman for urban neighbourhoods - opposes altogether the idea that neighbourhood councils be burdened with the provision of service duties while it supports a key political role for the councils as representative and decision-making bodies. At the moment it is highly unlikely that such legislation could ever be passed in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, an application of the first trend has been carried out in Scotland through the implementation of the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1973, which called for the establishment by 1976 throughout the region of community councils with service delivery responsibilities. The effect of the Italian urban decentralisation law has been to legitimise preexisting neighbourhood experiences through the creation of a new level of government that is. it institutionalises political representation at the neighbourhood level and identifies a distinct realm of functions for it. A feature of the Italian model remains the focus on the neighbourhoods as providers of services. In Yugoslavia the 1973 Constitution (Kasoff. 1976) highlights the decentralisation of locally significant public services: their planning and management and resource allocation instruments are the self-management groups encompassing users and producers. Thus, the political decision-making and the administrative implementation are juxtaposed within neighbourhoods. The most striking difference between the Yugoslav model and the decentralisation trends in the West is the relatively strong position that the neighbourhoods have in the former and, relatedly, the relative weakness of the city in the balance of power between the two levels. Even the most optimistic assessment of further development in decentralisation does not acknowledge the relative superiority of the neighbourhood level over the city level, primarily because in no western system has the basic structure of service delivery been changed to establish a relationship of equality between users and producers of services.

CONCLUSION

This article set out to achieve two goals: inform the reader about the crossnational dcvelopmcnts that have taken place in the adoption of urban decentralisation policies by local governments and identify. from these lines of areas of research. City-wide deccntralisation experiments arc developments. increasing in number and arc found in a variety of political and administrative settings. This work has concentrated on the trequcncy \vith which different decentralisation policies have been adopted and then. looking for common underlining features among them. The policy type which involves the election of ncighbourhood-level decisionmaking bodies remains limited. This form of deccntralisation has been less successful where the locus of initiative has been with private groups of citizens. Correspondingly, the greater success in instituting this type of policy has occurred when the effort was initiated by public officials as part of a major overhaul of local policies and structure. The cases of Yugoslavia and Italy arc illustrative even though they differ in the incentives that they have provided for the adoption of the policy. The Yugoslav federal system stipulated in its constitution the existence of govcrnmcntal functions and responsibilities at the neighbourhood level. In Italy. the establishment of ncighbollrhood-level representative organs was an integral part of the ongoing attempt, by a coalition to reform the centralised state. The policy was of major political parties. introduced from the top by local government administrations. Private groups were organised after the experiments with urban deccntralisation had alread> been established. In an attempt to identify conditions which are associated with different types of urban decentralisation policies, the article points out the need to pursue two different lines of research: the refinement of analytical categories for crossnational comparisons of cases and research into the dynamics of individual cases. An important question is whether there exists a temporal distinction within and across cases: that is, whether or not each type of decentralisation policy has the tendency to evolve in a particular direction and under which conditions this can and Norwegian experiences suggest the take place. For example, Canadian possibility that the assumption of service delivery responsibilities by advisory neighbourhood bodies, is a burden and a handicap to their participation in policy-making. In time, they could reverse those experiences back to centralised control of services and stall movements toward further involvement. In this eventuality, it would be the first instance of such a change being initiated by private groups and with sufficient pressure forced upon the major political parties and higher levels of government. Students of public policy and public administration have long suggested that decentralisation policies be aligned along a scale which starts with the physical decentralisation of offices and ends with a new level of government below the municipal one. More intriguing, however, is the question which we have raised here of the movement up and down the scale. Empirical work has to be done. especially in-depth case studies and panel studies. of diverse neighbourhood decentralisation experiences. REFERENCES

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