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"Small Canadian cities confront serious social issues as a result of the neoliberal economic restructuring practiced by both federal and provincial governments since the 1980s. Drastic spending reductions and ongoing restraint in social assistance, income supports, and the provision of affordable housing, combined with the offloading of social responsibilities onto municipalities, has contributed to the generalization of social issues once chiefly associated with Canada's largest urban centres. As the investigations in this volume illustrate, while some communities responded to these issues with inclusionary and progressive actions others were more exclusionary and reactive--revealing forms of discrimination, exclusion, and "othering" in the implementation of practices and policies. Importantly, however their investigations reveal a broad range of responses to the social issues they face. No matter the process and results of the proposed solutions, what the contributors uncovered were distinctive attributes of the small city as it struggles to confront increasingly complex social issues. If local governments accept a social agenda as part of its responsibilities, the contributors to Small Cities, Big Issues believe that small cities can succeed in reconceiving community based on the ideals of acceptance, accommodation, and inclusion."--

In 1995, the English planner Charles Landry and Franco Bianchini published "The Creative City", focusing on three intertwined topics: the cultural, social, and economic impact that arises from creativity in cities; the need to promote integrated urban planning levering on knowledge from other disciplines; and the active inclusion in urban planning processes of ordinary, often marginalized people. A few years later, Landry issues "The Creative City. A Toolkit for Urban Innova- tion", a book in which he challenges and further develops his ideas by proposing them as a "toolbox for urban renaissance." At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the American economist Richard Florida delivers what is considered a milestone on the subject of the creative city: "The Rise of the Creative Class", in which he emphasizes the characteristics of people performing creative activities in cities, as well as the conditions that cities must offer in order for the "creative class" to be attracted and settle in them. The Smart Creative City is a more recent concept. It grew out of economic science, especially the so-called Experience Economy. Regarding specifically the economic development of cities, creativity, art, and culture represent strategic assets in the urban regeneration process, and the socioeconomic feature of smart creative cities can be considered the most evident and critical one. This study thus springs from the recognition of the relevance of smart creative cities, and of an integrated and visionary planning approach to urban regeneration—itself creative. This analysis has been conducted focusing on selected experiences devel- oped by Lyon metropolis, aiming at understanding whether and how the municipality is levering on creativity, art and culture within its urban regeneration programmes. This objective is addressed through a mixed-qualitative methodology that investi- gates the political discourse and adopts a descriptive case study approach to analyse policy processes, drivers, and obstacles that are fostering or limiting that vision in the local context of Lyon. The research responds to the questions posed, showing both the transformative capacity and the trade-offs of explicitly integrating cultural and artistic projects and events, as urban "innovative" regeneration devices, within the "common" planning and design practice of the municipality of Lyon.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of audit findings, recommendations on audit results, and the size of local government on audit opinions on local governments in Indonesia. This research uses quantitative research. Population sampling technique is done by using purposive sampling method. To test the hypothesis in this study using the Multinomial Logistics Regression Analysis test. Based on empirical facts and hypothesis testing in this study, it can be concluded that: 1) audit findings do not affect audit opinion on local governments; 2) audit recommendations influence audit opinions on local governments; and 3) the size of the local government influences the audit opinion on the local government.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role and function of audit committees in public companies in Barbados since the corporate scandals of Enron and WorldCom in the USA.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a mixed‐methods approach of self‐administered questionnaires, interviews with directors, audit committee members and auditors, and a content analysis of the published annual reports.FindingsThere was no full‐scale adoption of audit committees. Membership in audit committees tended to vary between three and four, and audit committees met on average four times a year. There were mixed views on audit committees having broader roles such as business strategy, assessment and management of risks. There were also excellent working relationships among audit committees, internal and external auditors. The independence of audit committees was questionable.Research limitations/implicationsThe concept of audit committee is relatively new in Barbados. Further, there are Boards dominated by directors with major shareholdings. This study also relied heavily on US‐centric literature and the perceptions of audit committee members. These factors are likely to limit its usefulness to other non‐US countries. Future research can measure stakeholders' perceptions of the role of audit committees.Practical implicationsThis study is important to academics and practitioners in understanding the role and function of audit committees in a small country.Originality/valueThis study sets out a best practice model for the adoption of audit committees in small countries like Barbados.