Suchergebnisse

Problems -- Tales from six cities -- The politics of paternalism -- Comparative politics

For decades, concerns have been raised about the consequences of relentless suburban expansion in the United States. But so far, government programs to control urban sprawl have had little effect in slowing it down, much less stopping it. In this book, Pietro S. Nivola raises important questions about the continued suburbanization of America: Is suburban growth just the result of market forces, or have government policies helped induce greater sprawl? How much of the government intervention has been undesirable, and what has been beneficial? And, if suburban growth is to be controlled, what changes in public policies would be not only effective, but practical? Nivola addresses these questions by comparing sprawling U.S. metropolitan areas to compact development patterns in Europe. He contrasts the effects of traditional urban programs, as well as "accidental urban policies" that have a profound if commonly unrecognized impact on cities, including national tax systems, energy conservation efforts, agricultural supports, and protection from international commerce. Nivola also takes a hard look at the traditional solutions of U.S. urban policy agenda involving core-area reconstruction projects, mass transit investments, "smart" growth controls, and metropolitan organizational rearrangements, and details the reasons why they often don't work. He concludes by recommending reforms for key U.S. policies--from taxes to transportation to federal regulations--based on the successes and failures of the European experience. Brookings Metropolitan Series.

The American economy is in many ways uniquely unfettered. Nowhere else in the industrial world is it easier to set up a discount store, start a new airline, or shrink a payroll. But extensive economic deregulation has been matched by a burgeoning body of social law cracking down on business. From shareholder litigation and strict product liability to punitive environmental controls and workplace rules, entrepreneurs run a gauntlet of legal perils. The costs of this expanding and contentious agenda often exceed the value of its social benefits. The projected annual costs over benefits of the 1990 Clean Air Act, for instance, surpass the estimated value of U.S. exports blocked by all of Japan's known import restrictions. How sustainable is this situation amid the pressures of globalization? The contributors to this volume explore the question from a variety of perspectives. U.S. policymakers frequently criticize the rest of the world for policies and practices that are said to constrict American commerce. Yet some trade disputes have been ignited by questionable rules made in the United States. Indeed, legal strictures have posed barriers to imports and possibly discouraged foreign investors, as well as interfered with some U.S. exports. At times the social regulatory regime has also stirred abrasive efforts to extend U.S. sanctions to foreign soil. Even if those frictions have been of minor consequences so far, inefficient legal and regulatory conventions exact a toll on U.S. productivity growth. The book concludes that in a global economy the burdensome regulations of foreign countries deserve attention, but increasingly so do the burdens that American "adversarial legalism" imposes on itself and sometimes on others. Ideas and prospects for correcting the problem are discussed throughout. The contributors include Lee Axelrad, Thomas F. Burke,

In the early 1980s, American complaints about unfair trade practices began to intensify. Sunrise industries, such as manufacturers of semiconductors and telecommunications equipment, joined older complainants, including steel and textile producers, in seeking more safeguards against international competitors who priced their products too aggressively or whose governments subsidized exports or protected home markets. In this politically charged atmosphere, the U.S. government has devised increasingly stringent regulatory programs to address the claimed abuses and distortions. In this book, Pietro Nivola examines the strenuous effort to combat the objectionable trading practices of other countries. Through most of the postwar period, Nivola notes, policymakers had deemed it in the nation's economic and strategic interests to tolerate asymmetries and infractions in the international trading order. But that tolerance has been sharply lowered by heightened sensitivity to inequities, and a growing conviction that government should intervene, frequently and forcefully, to ensure a "level playing field." The book maintains that foreign protectionism lower East-West tensions, and alleged American decline in the face of international competition cannot fully explain the stiffening regulation of unfair trade. The world trading system, Nivola contends, is not more restrictive now than it was earlier. Cries about foreign commercial transgressions in recent years have remained shrill despite a formidable U.S. export boom and an improved current account valance. Much of the U.S. regulatory activity has acquired a political momentum of its own. The activity has increased not just because global competitive pressures have generally intensified but because we have developed more ways and inducement to complain about those pressures. Nivola cautions that trade