The SAGE Key Concepts series provides students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding.

Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension.

Key Concepts in Urban Studies:

Clearly and concisely explains the basic ideas in the interdisciplinary field of urban studies; Offers concise discussions of concepts ranging from community, neighbourhood, and the city to globalization, the New Urbanism, feminine space, and urban problems; Constitutes a re-examination of the key ideas in the field; Is illustrated throughout with international examples; Provides an essential reference guide for all students and teachers across the urban disciplines within sociology, political science, planning and geography.

Fiscal Crisis

Fiscal crisis

Decades of population deconcentration and economic decline have cost the US city dearly by weakening its resource base. Many places no longer have enough surplus revenue to pay for basic services. For some time, administrations have relied on the state and federal governments to make up the difference in budget shortfalls. When that gap has become severe, municipal governments suffer from the condition known as ‘fiscal crisis’ (O'Connor, 1973; Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2000). In the UK, the decimation of the fiscal powers of local municipalities by successive governments, and the privatization and contracting out of municipal services to private providers, have been outcomes of the same trajectory. More decentralized systems, such as in France and Germany, have not been immune as center-periphery relations have come under budgetary stress in those countries as well.

The fiscal ...

locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles