Immigration and the Remaking of New York

Abstract

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas that favored European immigrants, and for the first time placed all countries on an equal footing. The law resulted in increased overall immigration, and altered the sources of immigrants to the U.S. Since 1970, New York City has absorbed 2.6 million immigrants, primarily from non-European sources, who have dramatically altered the City's racial/Hispanic mix. Using immigration and birth records, as well as data from decennial censuses, this paper examines immigration to New York and assesses the demographic impact of these flows on the City's population.

Current immigrant flows have noticeably increased the ethnic diversity within the major race/Hispanic groups. This is largely due to increases in refugee flows, and to recent changes in immigration law that allow for “diversity” visas, which are aimed at countries that are under-represented in immigration flows to the U.S. Diversity immigration has provided New York with a continuing flow of new groups, most recently from Bangladesh, Mexico, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, who have established enclaves in many of the City's neighborhoods. The increasing diversity poses serious challenges for social service and health care professionals, who need to devise new strategies to deal with the disparate socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems of new ethnic groups. This is especially important given that New York's ethnic mix will continue to be churned, especially by way of diversity immigration and refugee flows from all parts of the globe.     

Sketching and validating the location-based services (LBS) regulatory framework in Australia

Location-based services (LBS) are defined as those applications that combine the location of a mobile device associated with a given entity (individual or object) together with contextual information to offer a value-added service. LBS solutions are being deployed globally, and in some markets like Australia, without appropriate regulatory provisions in place. Recent debates in Australia have addressed the need to bridge the gap between technological developments and legal/regulatory provisions. This requires an assessment of the regulatory environment within a given social context such as Australia. The core components of such an investigation include: (a) composing a conceptual framework for analysing regulation of technologies such as LBS, one that is sensitive to public policy themes and challenges, and (b) applying this conceptual framework to the Australian setting in order to sketch and define the components of the present framework, and identify areas for improvement through a process of validation. This paper addresses these aims, demonstrating how the current regulatory framework in Australia is bound by legislation with respect to privacy, telecommunications, surveillance, and national security (that is, anti-terrorism), in addition to a set of industry guidelines for location-service providers (LSPs). The existing Australian framework, however, is lacking in its coverage and treatment of LBS and location data, and does not adequately address the themes and challenges in the defined conceptual framework.     

The Relationship Between Use of Specific Services,Parental Problems,and Reunification With Children Placed in Foster Care

Research studies have found that for parents with children in foster care, use of problem-targeted services increases the likelihood of reunification. However, available research focuses almost entirely on substance abusing mothers, and rarely considers parents' use of parenting classes and counseling, services that are commonly ordered for most reunifying parents. This study examined the effects of parents' use of specific services on reunification. Findings suggest that in addition to parents' use of problem-targeted services, use or compliance with parenting classes and counseling services is also heavily weighted in reunification decision-making. Further research is needed to identify factors associated with service use and advance our understanding of the effectiveness of reunification services.     

Synthetic Performance Indicators for Residential Housing Agencies

Many public administrations produce and distribute public services through a number of similar local autonomous organizations, or institutions, operating in different parts of the territory assigned to them under a centralized authority. Examples of this are the public residential housing institutions, the institutions for waste disposal, health care institutions, and education institutions. The problem arises regarding the evaluation of the performance of these local organizations and institutions not in absolute but in relative terms, in order to determine what incentives or sanctions should be meted out to them. This study presents the methodological problems, the data analysis, and the initial results of the method adopted by the Lombardy Region to create a system of performance indicators that will permit an automatic ranking of the Residential Housing Agencies in Lombardy （ALER） according to their performance, based on information from their balance sheets. A performance index was devised by rationally combining the results of three different analyses： position analysis, ranking analysis, and scoring analysis. The results allowed the central administration to： （1） motivate the managers of the local units through a system of performance-based incentives; （2） aggregate poorly performing local units or outsource inefficient functions; and （3） create competition among local units and raise overall performance levels.     

经济法公平观在当代中国的现实阐释——以基本公共服务均等化为对象的解读

经济法视域中的权利公平、机会公平、规则公平、效率公平、分配公平、社会保障公平相互联系,互为一体,构成一个完整的社会公平体系。基本公共服务均等化的内涵包括全体公民享有基本公共服务的机会均等、结果大体相等,同时尊重社会成员的自由选择权,其外延包括基本民生性服务、公共事业性服务、公益基础性服务、公共安全性服务逐步实现均等化。     

服务贸易补贴的多边规则

鉴于补贴对服务贸易可能产生的扭曲作用,建立和完善服务贸易补贴的多边规则无疑是十分重要的。GATS有关服务贸易补贴的现行规定主要体现为第15条,另外,GATS第2条、第17条等也对其有间接规范作用。这些规定均存在缺陷与不足,所以,服务贸易的多边谈判仍将服务贸易补贴作为其项下一个重要议题。但是,截至目前为止,谈判还未取得重要进展。我国应积极关注和参与谈判,并以适当的方式设置我国的服务贸易补贴。     

浅谈我国警察服务职能的建设——以构建服务型政府为背景

在构建服务型政府的执政理念指导下,作为政府的重要职能部门之一的公安机关在新时期理应凸显其服务职能。然而一直以来理论界对警察的服务职能缺乏权威准确的界定,更在服务理念上存在着一些误区。当前我国警察服务职能的建设要在廓清警察服务职能的基础上,对警察服务职能的理念予以提升,法制予以完善,警察素质予以提高,公安管理体制上予以理顺。     

Political accountability,fiscal conditions and local government performance—cross‐sectional evidence from Indonesia

Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralisation and local governance. It shows–both theoretically and empirically–that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non‐compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behaviour and improve performance. Using a cross‐sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision‐making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

企业经营中的品牌战略

:随着市场经济的发展 ,品牌战略在企业经营管理中的地位逐渐凸现出来。品牌战略取得成功的关键 ,在于提高企业的营销水平和产品本身的素质 ,进行科学的品牌定位 ,并不断推动牌品的升级成长