Reintegrating disadvantaged communities into the fabric of urban life: The role of community development

Abstract

This article analyzes the extent to which systematic spatial variations in opportunities in metropolitan areas provide a persuasive rationale for three current strategies for stimulating the development of urban communities: enterprise zone programs, community development financial institutions, and community development corporations. It examines whether the strategies are appropriately designed to respond to serious deficiencies in opportunities in distressed inner cities and reviews available evidence about their efficacy in addressing those deficiencies.

A review of the literature reveals that poor inner‐city neighborhoods, particularly communities of color, have unequal access to opportunities in numerous areas, including employment, credit and financial services, housing, neighborhood shopping, and social networks and services that provide access to information and resources. The limited best‐case evidence indicates that the three strategies vary greatly in their ability to address these inequalities.     

‘Them’ and ‘us’: demonising politicians by moral double standards

The distance between politicians and those they are supposed to represent is substantial. Almost invariably, it is politicians themselves who are made to shoulder the responsibility for this ‘gap’, their actions being demonised. This paper assesses some ‘ordinary’ ethical lapses that politicians are often accused of: lying, breaking promises and being self-serving. It is argued that the public tend to apply double standards when it comes to the moral expectations that they have of their representatives, inasmuch as they far more readily accept ethically dubious actions when they apply to other social and public roles. The moral singularity of the political sphere is called into question, with the effect of helping to narrow the gap between the two categories, and encourage more empathy on the part of the public.     

Price v. Time Revisited: The Need For Medium-Neutral Shield Laws In An Age Of Strict Construction

Journalists were alarmed when, in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied shield-law protection to Don Yaeger, an investigative reporter for Sports Illustrated, in a libel suit by fired football coach Mike Price. Yaeger is a journalist, and Alabama's shield law offers absolute protection even when a journalist is a party to a case. The court's decision turned on the fact that Alabama's seventy-three-year-old statute does not include the word “magazine.” This article shows that this hole in the “covered medium” language of Alabama's statute is not uncommon among the nation's thirty-six shield laws and that the Eleventh Circuit's strict reading of the statute's text is not at odds with current trends in statutory interpretation. Those two facts, combined with the rise of the Internet as an important vehicle for journalism, suggest the time is ripe to scrutinize and modernize shield laws, some of which have been on the books for more than a century.     

The European Union’s partnership policy towards Brazil: more than meets the eye

This article focuses on the evolving nature of the foreign policy of the European Union (EU) towards Brazil, which gained momentum and became more dynamic and denser after the establishment of a formal strategic partnership (SP) in 2007. It provides a historical overview of the institutional relations between Brussels and Brasília, before proceeding with an analysis of the main drivers behind this novel development. The study goes on to offer a critical examination of the implementation of the EU–Brazil SP by casting light on both its major achievements and the challenges it has faced. It concludes that the establishment of a formal strategic partnership with Brazil has contributed to the strengthening of the EU’s globally oriented partnership policy and ultimately to the incremental empowerment of the EU necessary to the assertion of its values, objectives and interests on the international stage.