No description available.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-104).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-104). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-215). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Paul Stockton. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-52). Also available online.

CHDS State/Local / Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / It has been thirty-three months since the United States was attacked by terrorists on September 11th 2001. Yet, in distributing grants to States and localities to build their capacity for homeland security, the Nation continues to rely on funding formulae that are deeply flawed. Many grants are distributed in ways that ignore need-driven criteria, such as where terrorists are most likely to strike and which targets are most critical. This thesis develops an alternative formula that takes need into account (and therefore is much more likely to send funds where they are required). After reviewing need-driven formulae from a range of fields that might be applied to homeland security, I use the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to break the objectives of homeland security capacity-building into discreet, measurable components. Then, I analyze the criteria that should be used to build a grant allocation process to accomplish those objectives, including population density, criticality of infrastructure, the threat to a municipality, vulnerability to that threat, and terrorism prevention. The resulting formula is far better structured than the current system to put homeland security grant funds where the Nation most needs them. / Civilian, Assistant Chief Fire Department City of New York

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Also available in print.

No description available.

This study investigated the impact of the ECIA Chapter 2 Block Grant program and the extent to which the legislative intent was realized in a sample of eight local education agencies (LEAs) in Virginia. Specifically, three research questions were investigated: Did the implementation of ECIA Chapter 2 affect formerly funded categorical programs in the LEAs?; Did the implementation of ECIA Chapter 2 result in the reduction of administrative costs and paperwork burden for the LEAs?; and, Did the implementation of ECIA Chapter 2 provide increased LEA responsibility for the design and implementation of local education programs? The study included data collection at eight Virginia LEAs, Amelia, Arlington, Charlottesville City, King George, Powhatan, Rappahannock, Richmond City and Suffolk City. Administrative, programmatic and fiscal effects associated with ECIA Chapter 2 implementation for the 1982-83 school year were examined with the aid of a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analyzed through the use of the constant comparative method developed by Glaser and Strauss. Data were analyzed across study sites and in case study format. Study findings indicated that the implementation of ECIA Chapter 2 had a detrimental effect on the local programs previously supported with federal categorical program funds. Seventy-six percent of the local programs in study sites were diminished in some way with the implementation of Chapter 2. New local programs supported with Chapter 2 funds in study sites differed from those supported with categorical funds in significant ways. Second, the study found that three study sites experienced reduced administrative costs and paperwork, one experienced no difference, and one-half of the study sites experienced increased administrative costs and paperwork under Chapter 2. Finally, across all study sites, it was found that the implementation of ECIA Chapter 2 did not result in an increase of LEA involvement in program planning and development activities. / Ed. D.

In 1974, the Housing and Community Development Act replaced traditional antipoverty programs with block grants, decentralizing decisions about federal funding, ostensibly to give more control to local administrators. Despite the pretense of providing greater flexibility, the focus of block grants on developing the city's physical environment circumscribed the options of local planners hoping to pursue comprehensive community development. Community Underdevelopment traces the struggle of government officials in New Orleans to fulfill the dual aims of alleviating poverty and spurring economic growth in a time of fiscal crisis. Armed with new social science techniques, planners believed that with accurate data collection and systematic planning, they could achieve these ends simultaneously. However, coping with an increasingly regressive tax regime and an anemic economy, they soon discarded this vision. Instead, block grants were used as stopgap measures in low-income communities while the city pursued economic development strategies that administrators acknowledged would do little to improve conditions in those neighborhoods. By the end of the decade, the hope that the private sector could achieve what the public sector could not led the city to shift federal funds away from antipoverty measures and toward boosting private-sector involvement. Low-income communities in New Orleans struggled to resist this movement, but their efforts to do so went unsupported by local officials who feared that supporting resource redistribution would jeopardize relationships with private developers. Consequently, by the end of the 1970s, local urban development strategies had largely abandoned antipoverty aims. Rather than read this period solely as the precursor to President Ronald Reagan's unprecedented cuts to urban aid, Community Underdevelopment explores a steady shift in policy and ideology that created a political climate conducive to such dramatic reductions. Moreover, my focus on this period reveals that the movement to undercut antipoverty programs did not originate with the rise of the Reagan Revolution. Instead, it was from its inception a bipartisan assault.