exchange 4: Local Autonomy vs. State Control
Presenters: Edesio Fernandes (Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy), and Gerald Frug (Harvard Law School), USA
Place:Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 113 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (http://www.lincolninst.edu/)
Date: JUne 18, 2009
Printable flyer here.
Presentation by Edesio Fernandes on Brazil available here.
Local Autonomy vs. State Control: In search of Balance in the USA & Brazil
This Exchange discussed local power and local autonomy vis-à-vis state and federal levels and the possible formats of city and metropolitan management, competences and conditions for urban, land and housing policies. The guest speakers agreed on the fundamental importance of the legal-institutional framework to improve the conditions of land, housing and urban governance, and they shared the basic idea that there should be better state-local articulation in their respective countries. However, whereas in the US case there is an argument that local government should be given more legal powers over territorial organization matters, in the Brazilian case it is argued that local government has excessive powers. Is there a right legal structure? What are the challenges and implications? The presenters compared and contrasted the institutional designs in force in their respective countries, with vigorous input from a diverse range of particpants. A summary of the discussion may be seen on the Lincoln Institute of Land Polciy weblog. |
Previous Exchanges: 1: Leading from the Pack: Peer-Group Networks as Change Agents 2: The Community's Role in Complex Urban Redevelopment 3: Lucky You: Dealing with Legacy Inventory 4: Local Autonomy vs. State Controls in Urban Planning |
Global South
Edesio Fernandes, a Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a member of DPU Associates (Development Planning Unit at University College London) is a lawyer specializing in urban planning and management; land reform and informal settlements regularization; constitutional law and human rights in developing countries. He was Director of Land Affairs at the Brazilian Ministry of Cities, and is a member of UN-HABITAT’s Advisory Group on Forced Evictions. Among other publications, he is the author of Law and Urban Change in Brazil (1995) and editor (1998, with Ann Varley) of Illegal Cities – Law and Urban Change in Developing Countries.
Global North
Gerald Frug , is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. His specialty is local government law. Educated at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School, he worked as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and as Health Services Administrator of the City of New York. He is the author of dozens of articles on local government, a casebook on local government law, and two books: City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation (2008, with David Barron) and City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls (1999).
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