Talk:Civics

"a city has the most complex government problems" -- This may be true, but I would think many people would argue that national governments are more complex. Comments? -- RJwiki

A point of view problem. National governments have more diverse dispute resolution problems, since they must deal with other national governments in other languages, other cultures. Trade disputes are very nasty. However, one does not deal with these same issues on a small petty scale every day as one does in a large multi-cultural city. So perhaps we can say it is these cities, like London, England, New York City, New York, Toronto, Canada, Paris, France, etc., that have the worst problems. Less diverse cities have probably less problems that more resemble those the national government sees. Looking just at Toronto, there is 2.5 million people with 100 languages and 40 religions. And a national government sucking money out of the city, so only 7 cents of each dollar in tax are spent in the city. Now you tell me, who has a harder problem to deal with? The Mayor of Toronto or the Prime Minister of Canada, who makes this decision? So maybe municipal government has a worse time of it because of constraints put on it by nations.

Jane Jacobs wrote a lot about this, she was important in NYC urban planning in the 1960s and in Toronto in the 1970s to present. I think it's her belief that cities are the most complex. She argues they need their own region/state/province powers, and must secede politically from their surrounding regions to survive. Interesting contrast to ecological footprint arguments which stress the inter-dependence of city and countryside.