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You've hit the nail on the head with the trust and responsibility. There does need to be overall planning and co-ordination; but solutions cannot be dictated at a large scale. Instead /goals/ must be dictated, strive for X, prevent Y, co-operate with Z to prevent unwanted unintended consequences. Larger governing bodies need to provide a basic framework, the minimum standard and boundary for the system's operation. Possibly a framework for re-adjusting or outright re-initiating failed layers they contain. They should then provide both the goals and responsibilities to their contained units, but not an express direction on how the task is to be handled. This allows for adjusting and reacting at a more finely grained level which also reduces the time needed to reach consensus and adjust. I would like to provide an example. It's true of the metro area that I live in, and I suspect it is true of others as well. There appears to be a complete disconnect between landing sources of jobs, providing places for workers to live, and reliable transit to/from jobs. In particular suburban sprawl from hell exists (yet is confined vaguely within outlying urban growth boundaries); a result that is a misuse of resources and ensures that traffic is a nightmare. What's worse, departments of the government, such as the DoT, are so focused that they can only see trying to use their own specific hammer on the problem, instead of working with other departments to reach an actual solution. In the containers system, the DoT would work with some urban planning / their own measurement to show current and projected traffic needs, as well as the budget required for tolerating them. Their containing layer, reacting to the massive budget shortfall properly, would pass directives that require localities to increase the density of 'quality' housing and lower the housing prices, and 'make the housing attractive to families'. The localities would then react and modify the environment, leading to an actual solution to the issue. Government is a complex system, just like an engineer of any discipline should recognize, and it needs a massive overhaul. |
I don't think it's that simple. The "goals" of a city are the goals of the people living in it, which are as complicated as the city itself. Your example is actually a great illustration of how large-scale decision making can go wrong: the sprawl met someone's goals, or it wouldn't have happened, but it didn't match the needs of the actual people living in the city. In general, how do you know the goals you're dictating are the right ones? A better focus would be on ways for individuals and communities within cities to organize, communicate their needs and get resources to solve their unique problems.