Suchergebnisse

The campaign for a federal fleet corporation -- The creation of the federal land banks -- Municipalities struggle to meet new needs -- The truncated career of autonomous federal agencies -- The federal government promotes public authorities -- Public authorities since the Second World War -- Epilogue: The future of public authorities -- Appendix: Federal corporate agencies

"In the late nineteenth century, public officials throughout the United States began to experiment with new methods of managing their local economies and meeting the infrastructure needs of a newly urban, industrial nation. Stymied by legal and financial barriers, they created a new class of quasi-public agencies called public authorities. Today these entities operate at all levels of government, and range from tiny operations like the Springfield Parking Authority in Massachusetts, which runs thirteen parking lots and garages, to mammoth enterprises like the Tennessee Valley Authority, with nearly twelve billion dollars in revenues each year. In The Rise of the Public Authority, Gail Radford recounts the history of these inscrutable agencies, examining how and why they were established, the varied forms they have taken, and how these pervasive but elusive mechanisms have molded our economy and politics over the past hundred years."--Publisher's website

In an era when many decry the failures of federal housing programs, this book introduces us to appealing but largely forgotten alternatives that existed when federal policies were first defined in the New Deal. Led by Catherine Bauer, supporters of the modern housing initiative argued that government should emphasize non-commercial development of imaginatively designed compact neighborhoods with extensive parks and social services. The book explores the question of how Americans might have responded to this option through case studies of experimental developments in Philadelphia and New Y

American government officials experimented with a variety of tools for public administration in the early twentieth century. The regulatory commission became the best known of these new institutional forms, but another Progressive Era innovation with profound and ambiguous implications for U.S. political development was the government-sponsored corporation. Often called "public corporations," these instrumentalities were created to carry out public purposes, but they were established as separate legal entities to function outside the standard departmental structure of government (and its organizational principles and restrictions). Today, these structures are most prolific at the state and municipal level, where they are generally termed "public authorities." Since World War II they have been the fastest growing kind of government unit, with, at present, around ten thousand in existence. While everyone perceives these institutions as important players in local affairs, even well-informed citizens are frequently puzzled when it comes to knowing exactly what they are or what they do.