This book discusses local area planning in the Lombardy region of Italy. The book provides valuable insights about the development of local welfare systems and the territorial organization of social services through the analysis of the evolution of the Local Area Plan, which lies at the...

Set up by the Italian central government and implemented in the areas of the country that are lagging behind, Obiettivi di Servizio is an innovative scheme designed to encourage local authorities to reach given targets for public service provision in the areas of education, childcare and elderly...

This short paper is fundamentally a reflection on the subject, a medium size Italian municipality, that one of Terni, with about 110.000 inhabitants (number rather stable from 2000), about 1.000 employees and a budget (2008) of €370 million. This municipality has 3 fully owned corporations,...

The study addresses governance challenges in public service delivery in China. It builds on the citizen scorecard survey conducted in five Chinese cities in 2006 to gauge citizens? experience with public services, and demonstrates the usefulness of citizens? feedback for policy development and...

In the Netherlands, electronic service delivery has become an important issue in many municipalities. Using the Internet for service delivery is seen as an important element of e-government. Based on 2014-2016 panel-data of ICT service delivery for all Dutch municipalities, we show that there is...

This econometric study contributes to the ongoing debate about the costs and benefits of urban form by employing interdisciplinary means-urban planning, econometrics and public administration-to explore the relationship between urban form and urban public services expenditure. In China,...