Budget Balancing in Difficult Times: The Case of the Two New Yorks

The objective of governments is to efficiently provide essential services and infrastructure to their jurisdictions at a competitive tax rate within the constraint of a balanced budget. In recent years, several states have found it difficult to maintain this standard. This article examines the nature of the problem in the overlapping jurisdictions of New York City and New York State. Specifically, it explains the nature of projected budget gaps that have emerged in New York, and describes how the two New Yorks' political leaders have managed their budgets in recent years. Furthermore, this article demonstrates that expenditures significantly exceed revenues, thus leading to inevitable budget gaps, and that policies designed to close the gap have harmful consequences.     

Editorial

Editorial Introduction

Editorial     

“Meditation is Good for Nothing:” Leisure as a Democratic Practice

Does meditation bring political benefits in the sense of strengthening citizenship or democracy? Taking the Zen phrase “meditation doesn’t work—it’s good for nothing” as my point of departure, and reading Aristotle’s discussion of leisure in relation to citizenship, I argue that meditation can foster significant dimensions of democratic citizenship. This argument focuses particularly on the avowedly anti-instrumental aspect of mindfulness meditation. The connection between meditation and leisure demands a shift in our understanding of leisure, away from relaxation available to the privileged few and toward practices that are open-ended, non-instrumental, and, like democracy and citizenship, due to all. Finally, meditation offers an example of how to appropriate and inhabit excess in ways that support egalitarian citizenship. Meditation needs to be of “no benefit” in order to foster citizenship in these ways.     

The relationship between crime and private security at US shopping centers

This paper uses self-report data from the 1993 National Shopping Center Security Survey to examine the growing problem of crime at shopping centers located in the United States. Security managers from 369 shopping centers provided data on crime incidents, private security measures, and numerous shopping center demographic measures. Data are analyzed via LISREL using bivariate regression modeling. Results show that there is no direct relationship between the private security measures at the shopping center and the occurrence of property, violent, or public order crimes on the premises. Instead, private security presence is shaped by the size of the shopping center. Direct effects were also found between the incidence of crime on the premises and the size of the shopping center and the presence of various “problematic” persons (i.e., gangs and loitering groups of youth). Possible implications for shopping center security are considered.     

现代公共行政的伦理意蕴——基于“新公共服务”范式的分析

本文分析了新公共服务理论因其超越了传统公共行政的效率中心论和新公共管理的市场化和企业化模式等工具性价值的内在矛盾和缺陷,突显了民主、公民权和公共利益等目的性价值在现代公共行政的中心地位,由此使其在人性、公共道德责任、公共道德目的、公共道德准则、公共美德等方面发挥积极作用,产生重大影响,具有重要的伦理价值,为现代公共行政的合法性奠定新的公共道德基础。