A nice picture–check it out.

The world’s mega-cities are merging to form vast “mega-regions” which may stretch hundreds of kilometres across countries and be home to more than 100 million people, according to a major new UN report.

The phenomenon of the so-called “endless city” could be one of the most significant developments – and problems – in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years, says UN-Habitat, the agency for human settlements, which identifies the trend of developing mega-regions in its biannual State of World Cities report.

The largest of these, says the report – launched today at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro – is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, west Africa and elsewhere.

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The city has had a dismal stretch, even by its standards. But harsh realities have produced radical thinking. For the first time, dramatic steps are being discussed seriously, including plans to close dozens of schools, cut services and transform the landscape. The speech was a chance for Mr Bing to chart the way forward.

Mr Bing did describe his vision, but for now it remains hazy. The most urgent tasks are to create jobs, cut crime and clean up a fiscal mess. His long-term plan is less clear. The city, he said, would demolish 3,000 homes this year and 7,000 more by the end of his term. This would be only the first step toward re-imagining Detroit. Already, however, local groups are working on plans for broad change. Their premise was once politically unthinkable: before Detroit can thrive, it must shrink. Mr Bing supports this. But executing it will be difficult.

For years, reviving Detroit meant recreating a bustling metropolis. This has changed, thanks to a string of devastating events. Detroit was ailing before the downturn, but foreclosures have weakened the city’s few healthy pockets: Rosedale Park, a lovely neighbourhood in the north-west, now has boarded-up houses beside its pretty brick ones. The collapse of America’s carmakers, meanwhile, has helped push unemployment close to 30%. Economic disaster has coincided with political chaos. In 2008 the then-mayor was indicted. Mr Bing, a 66-year-old former basketball star turned businessman, took over last May before winning a full term last November. The budget deficit is now $325m.

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OVER the past few years, a growing number of America’s parentless children have found homes. In 2008 there were 463,000 children in foster care, a system where the government places orphans and children with parents who are abusive or unable to take care of them in the care of guardians. That is 11% down since 2002, and great news. But experts worry the trend might now go into reverse.

Some welfare advocates fear that the bad economy may cause parents with frayed nerves to abuse and neglect their children, and even cause some to abandon them. Already, several hospitals across the country have reported an increase in the frequency and severity of injuries from child abuse.

The most recent national data on child welfare available dates from September 2008, before the recession was in full throttle; data from 2009 won’t be reported until later this year. But there is some question about whether the data, when reported, will even be accurate. Many states and counties, in an attempt to cope with their fiscal straits, are considering cutting down on child-welfare services, such as benefits for foster parents and the number of social workers they employ.

Read the whole article.

OVER the past few years, a growing number of America’s parentless children have found homes. In 2008 there were 463,000 children in foster care, a system where the government places orphans and children with parents who are abusive or unable to take care of them in the care of guardians. That is 11% down since 2002, and great news. But experts worry the trend might now go into reverse.

Some welfare advocates fear that the bad economy may cause parents with frayed nerves to abuse and neglect their children, and even cause some to abandon them. Already, several hospitals across the country have reported an increase in the frequency and severity of injuries from child abuse.

The most recent national data on child welfare available dates from September 2008, before the recession was in full throttle; data from 2009 won’t be reported until later this year. But there is some question about whether the data, when reported, will even be accurate. Many states and counties, in an attempt to cope with their fiscal straits, are considering cutting down on child-welfare services, such as benefits for foster parents and the number of social workers they employ.

Read the whole article.

While President Obama’s push to raise federal income taxes for the wealthy gets lots of attention, the continuing upward creep in the sales tax rates imposed by state and local governments has gotten less notice.

But Vertex Inc., which calculates sales tax for Internet sellers, reports that the average general sales tax rate nationwide reached 8.629% at the end of 2009, the highest since the Berwyn, Pa., company started tracking data in 1982. That was up a nickel on a taxable $100 purchase from a year earlier and up nearly 40 cents for the decade. The highest sales tax rate in the country now stands at 12%.

During 2009 seven states and the District of Columbia raised sales tax rates, with one jurisdiction — North Carolina — actually doing it twice. Only four states hiked rates in 2008 and only one in 2007. Given state budget problems, the 2009 state sales tax increases aren’t surprising. States have also been raising income tax rates on the wealthy and on corporations and boosting excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. With states now facing record budget shortfalls, more tax increases seem likely.

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In the pantheon of unpopular moves by school superintendents, perhaps none rivals what John Covington wants to do.

Faced with declining enrollment and a $50 million budget shortfall, the Kansas City, Mo., schools chief wants the school board to close as many as 31 of the city’s 61 schools and lay off one-fourth of its employees ”” including 285 teachers.

Covington wants it done by the time school starts in fall. A vote could come in March.

“The bottom line is the quality of education we’re offering children in Kansas City is not good enough,” he says. “One reason it’s not good enough is that we’ve tried to spread our resources over far too many schools.”

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Under the threat of a credit rating downgrade, the Los Angeles City Council on Thursday instructed agency heads to eliminate 3,000 additional city jobs “by any means necessary, including layoffs” by July 1.

The reduction ”” aimed in part a wresting further concessions from the city’s unions ”” would be in addition to 1,000 job cuts already in the works. Those alone are expected to lead to 250 to 350 workers receiving pink slips, officials said.

The council vote comes a day after Moody’s Investment Services, one of the nation’s top financial credit rating agencies, issued a negative outlook for Los Angeles because of the city’s struggles with a $212-million deficit. It also comes a week after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for an additional 1,200 and 2,000 job cuts ”” or wage reductions for city workers ”” to help balance the city’s books.

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Westerners are happier people, if a new survey is to be believed. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index just completed a huge survey of over 350,000 Americans, and they found that folks who live in Western cities are some of the happiest and healthiest in the nation.

Read it all and check the list to find out where the nearest major area to you ranks (for me it is #56).

Q: Your book implies that authenticity is what cities should strive for, yet it also seems a somewhat elusive concept. For instance, is a Starbucks in a renovated building authentic? Aren’t cities always evolving in authentic ways ”” it’s just that some find certain forms of authenticity more marketable or desirable than others?

A: ‘Absolutely, and this is the tragic part of authenticity. It’s a very uncertain idea, and authenticity can mean different things to different people. ”¦ What I’m arguing for is that we think about authenticity in terms of social diversity, ethnic diversity, and cultural diversity. It may be in a neighborhood that has been in a sorry state, Starbucks is a sign of renewal but in another neighborhood, Starbucks might be a sign of cursed homogenization.’

Q: What would you hope mayors and City Council members take away from the book? What encourages you about what you’ve seen from municipal government?

A: ‘What’s positive is any kind of law that encourages residents to hold onto their homes, that encourages new people to set up small businesses in places where they already have been trying to put down roots. I want local officials to take away the idea that we have to protect the cities that we have with the people that we have and the buildings that we have for the most part rather than to run after the goal of constant growth and constant tearing down and rebuilding.’

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I have been exploring the funeral and burial customs of impoverished people in the Latino community of upstate South Carolina. I began doing this recently after considering the high cost of funerals in general.

Some impoverished Latinos could not claim the bodies of their deceased because they could not pay for a burial or have the loved one returned to the home country.

Horror stories from the field made me uncomfortable. As an educator, my mind scanned “disenfranchised grief” sections of my textbooks and workshop handouts.

Not being able to grieve and mourn according to custom is a great loss to bear. The mourning is made worse in environments where the grievers are not recognized by the larger society as people entitled to experience their grief.

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Rebuffing the concerns of church leaders over the fate of shuttered church buildings, the city’s Landmarks Commission is recommending that six more Catholic churches be designated as historical city landmarks.

The designation, which would give the buildings some protection against demolition or structural changes, is opposed by the Diocese of Cleveland, which is in the midst of closing some 50 parishes.

The City Council would need to adopt legislation to implement the Commission’s recommendations, and in a letter sent to the commission and council members, the diocese called the proposals “extremely offensive.”

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Anote of gratitude is due Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe for ordering the immediate firing of Matthew Kim after a tortuous seven-year saga. This wasn’t the first time that Yaffe tried to inject common sense into the absurdly difficult and expensive task of ridding classrooms of teachers who don’t belong there. His previous decision to allow the Los Angeles Unified School District to fire Kim, issued in July, was ignored by the panel that has authority over contested teacher dismissals.

The Kim fiasco is a reminder of just how many thousands of dollars and costly lawyers and innumerable court appearances are currently required to fire incompetent or otherwise troublesome teachers. And, adding insult to injury, Kim has been paid his full salary and benefits since 2003 while doing no work for the district.

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Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane celebrated the Washington D.C. City Council’s passage of a same-gender marriage bill Dec. 15

Like some other Episcopal Church bishops, Chane permits the clergy in his diocese to bless same-sex relationships. He had previously said that the diocese had begun studying the church’s canons to determine whether diocesan priests will be allowed to solemnize same-gender marriages and sign marriage licenses if same-gender marriage became legal in the district. In the Dec. 15 statement, Chane said an announcement would be forthcoming.

He said in the statement that was e-mailed to ENS and posted here that he “support[s] and celebrate[s]” the council’s decision “because it ends discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.”

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The killing of five British soldiers in Afghanistan by a police officer has raised questions over security progress in the country. The British army has been training Afghan security and police forces to enforce the rule of law for the long-term future of the country. Mark Grant-Jones, padre with 2 Rifles Battle Group, and Mark Christian a padre serving with British soldiers in Helmand, comment on the implications of the killings on the British cause in Afghanistan, and Afghan journalist Nadene Ghouri discusses the Afghan reaction to the incident.

Go here and scroll down to the 8:10 segment and listen to it all.

County expenses have been growing at about 6 percent annually, but revenue has grown only about 2 percent a year.

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If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we’d know a lot more about it. If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we’d see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it ”” if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice. (See pictures of the remains of Detroit.)

But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making.

By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit’s treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services. The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers’ union to reject a philanthropist’s offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That’s worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.

If, like me, you’re a Detroit native who recently went home to find out what went wrong, your first instinct is to weep. If you live there still, that’s not the response you’re looking for. Old friends and new acquaintances, people who confront the city’s agony every day, told me, “I hope this isn’t going to be another article about how terrible things are in Detroit.”

It is ”” and it isn’t.

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An increased presence on the streets has helped North Charleston police seize hundreds of illegal guns.

With gun arrests now slowing, police wonder if they have finally made a dent in the firearms pipeline that drove violence to record heights.

After recording a total of 55 killings in 2006 and 2007, police launched a number of efforts to get a handle on crime, including a boost in patrols and traffic stops. Police conducted nearly 49,000 traffic stops last year, compared with about 30,300 just two years earlier.

Police Chief Jon Zumalt said he doesn’t think it’s any coincidence that gun arrests and violent crime fell last year during this blitz. That trend continues. Through July, the number of shootings in the city was down 17 percent, following an 18 percent drop in 2008, police said.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Regarding Steve Bailey’s column in the Aug. 21 Press-Banner, I would like to know why he found it necessary to make a disparaging remark about cops in his praise for firefighters. It is remarks like this that put a policeman’s life in peril….

I suggest Mr. Bailey go on a ride-along with a local police officer or deputy sheriff, and maybe he will get a new perspective of what a cop’s duties entail. They do not view the public as enemies.

God bless them for all the important work they do. Read it all.

Watch this whole great story to find the answer–but please guess first.

To meet their fiscal challenges, the report found that 67 percent of cities have cut jobs or enacted a hiring freeze while 62 percent have delayed or canceled capital projects. Only 14 percent have cut public safety so far, the report found.

To boost revenue, 27 percent of cities reported raising fees on services like water use and garbage collection; 25 percent hiked property taxes; and five percent raised their sales tax.

Even as city revenues have dropped, their wage, pension and health care costs have steadily climbed and will continue to do so even without an economic recovery, the report found.

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The disconnection between public treasuries and local domestic needs drawing upon them does not exist within taxpayers’ pockets or bank accounts. The same taxpayers supply money for all layers of government. Rather, the disconnection is purely administrative and governmental. It is a political artifact with the strength of bureaucratic tradition. That being so, the dumbed-down result should be simple to mend but, if experience in Canada is a guide, it can’t be mended.

–Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 105-106

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

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[Houston] Mayor Bill White yanked a controversial plan Tuesday that called for the city to use taxpayer funds to pay off some personal debts for first-time homebuyers, following a flood of outrage and criticism from across the city and beyond.

“I don’t think we ought to be in the business of paying off someone’s debt so they can buy a house,” White conceded during an impassioned City Council meeting. “Paying off people’s credit cards is ridiculous.”

Many council members expressed “embarrassment” over the idea, which received national media attention after the Chronicle wrote about it in Tuesday’s editions. The story appeared to strike a nerve among taxpayers already angry over the recession, the housing meltdown, and federal bailouts of banks and automobile companies.

“Everybody’s outraged about this,” said Councilman Ron Greene, adding that a constituent e-mailed him a copy of a bill and asked him to pay it. “This was not well reasoned.”

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