Restructuring Local Government

Special Projects

National and State Trends: Professor Warner's research on national and New York state trends in local government restructuring.
Contracting Back In: While privatization is the most popular form of alternative local government service delivery, longitudinal analysis shows these contracts are not stable over time.
Free Trade and State and Local Government: An overview of state and local government concerns about free trade. Case studies, resolutions and letters illustrate how state and local governments are asking for a balance between free trade objectives and local government authority.
Options for County Nursing Homes in New York State: This web page is the product of several months of collaborative research between County Nursing Facilities of New York, Inc. (CNFNY), the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), and the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Our goal in carrying out this research was to develop a better understanding of the current status of New York's county homes.
Transfer of Development Rights: Local governments undertake transfer of development rights (TDR) programs to use the market to implement and pay for development density and location decisions. TDR programs allow landowners to sever development rights from properties in government-designated low-density areas, and sell them to purchasers who want to increase the density of development in areas that local governments have selected as higher density areas.
Business Improvement Districts: While effective in promoting economic development, BIDs also raise important issues about governance and control over public space.
Prison Privatization: The movement towards the privatization of corrections in the United States is a result of the convergence of two factors: the unprecedented growth of the US prison population since 1970 and the emergence out of the Reagan era of a political environment favorable to free-market solutions.
Corruption: Corruption has been identified as a major barrier to economic and social development in developing countries, and considerable research as been done into the causes of and the solutions to corruption in these countries.
Labor-Management Cooperation: As local governments nationwide struggle with demands for quality service delivery and fiscal constraints, they are employing a number of strategies. While these include privatization and intermunicipal cooperation, another technique that can lead to greater efficiency and cost savings is labor-management cooperation. Background articles and a special report examine some of the critical issues surrounding effective implementation of cooperative labor-management practices.