NEWS…NEWS…NEWS…
Annual Forum in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
As you are aware, this year PRCUD’s tenth
Annual Forum was held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on 27-30 September 1998. The
theme of the forum was “Rebuilding City Systems: Conglomeration, Cooperation,
Competition Among Asia-Pacific Cities”. Once again, we would like to thank
PRCUD Kaohsiung Chapter and Kaohsiung City Government for their exceptional
effort in organizing the Annual Forum in Kaohsiung. A comprehensive PRCUD
Report, which provides a summary of Council members’ assessment of the
development constraints and opportunities of Kaohsiung, will be sent to
you soon.
New Format of PRCUD’s Annual Forum
For the first time PRCUD’s Annual Forum
was based around Professional Visits in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, rather than
a conference-type presentation. The Professional Visits were geared to
a smaller group of highly qualified experts, with an emphasis on group
interaction and dialogue between Council members and Kaohsiung’s counterparts.
Here are testimonials from some of the PRCUD Council Members who attended
three days of intensive meetings and professional site visits in Kaohsiung.
* The new PRCUD format is very impressive.
We are able to do work that
communities need and learn both from them
as well as more about our own
cities. PRCUD has taken a very big step
in the right direction by creating a
format that really connects the cities
of the Pacific Rim.
Ed Blakely
* The roundtable format is an innovative
way to exchange information and knowledge. It creates an opportunity for
some professionals who are not interested in purely academic paper presentations.
I think this format has a positive effect in Koahsiung and should be continued
at future PRCUD Conferences.
Cheng-Min Feng
* The PRCUD conference in Kaohsiung bore
fruit for all parties. The intense and candid dialogue between the members
of the Council and the city and business leaders of Kaohsiung was highly
focused on solving “real time” urban development problems. All parties
to this process made positive and meaningful contributions. We all strengthened
our knowledge in the field, applied our experience to new problems and,
most importantly, made many new friends.
Bob Spence
* I found the new Annual Forum and Roundtable
format to be very informative, but also exhausting, as it required attendance
at all the sessions, rather than just presenting a paper in one session.
This new format is much more educational, though, in terms of providing
an intensive look at the city and its region. We were given exceptional
hospitality in Kaohsiung, of course, which greatly added to the pleasure
(and sense of responsibility) of the occasion. I definitely like
this new format, but wonder if it can be duplicated quite as well in successive
sites. Some problems to overcome for the future: (1) participants
must have background info ahead of time, if they are to provide really
constructive advice; (2) keep the schedule to 2.5 days, rather than
3. Moreover, participants should have at least one half day for walking
around the streets and doing omething individually within the city.
Jack Williams
Our President Elect: Paul Hidehiko
Tanimura
It is standard practice in PRCUD to elect
a President-elect one year prior to that person’s becoming President. This
allows the person so elected to prepare in advance for the tasks associated
with the position of President. This year in Kaohsiung Paul Hidehiko Tanimura
was elected by the Council as President Elect of PRCUD, to serve as President
during 1999-2000 term. Paul Tanimura has been a practising urban planner
and architect for more than thirty years. Beginning in April 1998, Mr.
Tanimura started as the Chair of the Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences
at the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
PRCUD’s New Members
As you know, PRCUD seeks to maintain the
highest standards in its aim to provide an effective forum for professional
global dialogue. PRCUD membership is instrumental for that purpose. We
are interested in potential members who seek to interact on a collegial
basis with their counterparts in the private, public and academic sectors
in cities around the Pacific Rim. At this year’s meeting in Kaohsiung,
the following individuals were elected to the Council. More information
about these new members will be available in the PRCUD Membership Directory
to be published in January. Let’s welcome them all.
Ed Weathered, Brisbane
Francis Cheung, Hong Kong
Anthony Ip, Hong Kong
Brian Roberts, Brisbane
John Hong, Los Angeles
Noel Robinson, Brisbane
Sue Holliday, Sydney
Chris McCluskey, Brisbane
Ming-Chu Chen, Taipei
Wayne Petrie, Brisbane
Geeta Mehta, Tokyo
Walter Sommer, Brisbane
Roger Stough, At large
Pham Dinh Tuyen, Hanoi
Wei-Ming Lu, At large
Si-Ming Li, Hong Kong
Budhy Soegijoko, Jakarta
F.Y. Kan, Hong Kong
Chantana Chanond, Bangkok
Next Year’s PRCUD Annual Forum
Next year’s PRCUD Annual Forum will be
held in Southern California. Richard Watson, President of the Los Angeles
chapter of PRCUD, and fellow LA Chapter members Robert Spence, Edward Blakely,
Ehud Mouchly, Koichi Mera, Hugh Evans, and Eric Heikkila will assist in
organizing the Forum.
Managing Asia-Pacific Mega-Cities:
Policies to Promote Sustainable Urban Development in 21st Century
The Association of Development Research
and Training Institutes of Asia and the Pacific (ADIPA) will hold its 13th
General Meeting in 1999 in Sydney, Australia, at the Institute for Administration,
University of New South Wales. The theme for the meeting will be Mega-City
Management and Development in the Twenty-First Century in the Asia Pacific
Region. A wide range of topics will be discussed in the meeting including:
Mega-City Management; Rural Urban Migration; National Planning and Urban
Development; Decentralization; Provision of Urban Physical and Social Infrastructure;
Sustainable Development; Urban Land Development and Housing Policies; and
Transportation Management.
Under its host institution, the Asian and Pacific Development Centre (APDC), ADIPA aims at providing a forum for interaction among social scientists in the Asia Pacific Region engaged in development research and training activities. For more information, please contact: Executive Secretary ADIPA Secretariat c/o Asian and Pacific Development Centre Pesiaran Duta P.O. Box 12224 50770 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. TEL: 603-651-1088 FACSIMILE: 603-651-0389.
Seoul Development Institute
Since its establishment in 1992, Seoul
Development Institute (SDI) has dedicated itself to carrying out research
and exchanging information on urban policies and urban administration for
the city of Seoul. SDI has published more than three hundred and forty
reports in the past five years and acquired a nationwide reputation as
a leading research agency for urban planning and policy development in
Korea. We would like to inform you that SDI provides an English version
of abstracts and tables of contents of its publications free of charge,
and invites all members to exchange materials on similar urban issues and
urban administration. For more information, please contact: Seoul Development
Institute, San 4-5, Yejang-dong, Chung-gu, Seoul, 100-250, Korea.
Michael Harcourt’s visit to the University
of Southern California
Michael Harcourt, a keynote speaker at
PRCUD’s 1996 Seoul Conference, has recently been appointed Honorary Chairman
of the Pacific Rim Council for Urban Development (PRCUD). Michael Harcourt
is former Mayor of Vancouver and former Premier of British Columbia, Canada.
He is currently Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia
and a board member of the Asian Pacific Foundation and the National Round
Table of the Environment and the Economy. He remains active in urban and
regional development issues and, in his current position at the Sustainable
Development Research Institute at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, is a highly visible spokesperson on behalf of sustainable development
principles that translate into practical policy initiatives. As Vancouver
Mayor and British Columbia Premier, Professor Harcourt has consistently
been leading public awareness of the importance of maintaining active business
and professional ties between the Vancouver region and other major Pacific
Rim centers.
Michael Harcourt has also been awarded
by the Provost of the University of Southern California (USC) a “Distinguished
Visitor” position for this academic year. He will visit USC to meet with
faculty and students from January 25th to February 5th, 1999.
Tom Bradley (1917-1998): Former Mayor
of Los Angeles
It is with regret that we inform you that
former mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, died in September 1998. Bradley
became Los Angeles' first black mayor in 1973 and launched an unprecedented
20-year tenure as head of Los Angeles. He spent a lifetime bridging racial
barriers and building coalitions, most notably between blacks and Jews
and between labor and business. He presided over a period of enormous growth
in Los Angeles. He positioned the emerging metropolis to take its place
as an international trade center. He brought the city a glowing spot on
the world's center stage with its smooth and lucrative hosting of the Olympic
Games in the summer of 1984. He changed the appearance of downtown, the
Westside and parts of the San Fernando Valley.
Former Mayor Bradley was a good friend to the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development. He gave the inaugural address to our organization on August 8, 1989, and continued to support us in many ways large and small throughout the years. PRCUD recognized his important role by awarding him with the PRCUD Medal of Honor at our 1993 Conference in San Francisco. We will miss him.
AN ARTICLE
Understanding Corruption and how
it can be Curbed (by Nathaniel Von Einsiedel)*
Corruption is a problem of policy and
management and not one of ethics or even better laws. Tackling corruption
needs a proper understanding of what it is. Most broadly, corruption means
the misuse of office for personal gain. The office is a position of trust,
where one receives authority in order to act on behalf of an institution,
be it private, public, or non-profit. More specifically, corruption means
charging an illicit price for a service or using the power of office to
further illicit aims. It can entail acts of omission or commission. It
can involve legal activities or illegal ones. It can be internal to the
organization or external to it.
Corrupt acts differ in extent as well as type. Some corruption is “freelance”, as individual officers or small groups of them try to take advantage of their monopoly powers to generate bribes. Sometimes, corruption is systematic which is like the breakdown of rules defining and enforcing fouls in sports leading to the virtual collapse of the sports contest. For sure, systematic corruption generates economic costs by distorting incentives, political costs by undermining institutions and social costs by redistributing wealth and power toward the undeserving. Corruption exists in all countries but it is more damaging to poor countries.
Why many anti-corruption efforts fail?
Efforts to combat corruption in many countries are not new although they
have not met with much success. Many anti-corruption efforts fail because
they take an exclusively legalistic approach, or worse, rely on appeals
to morality. Sometimes anti-corruption efforts themselves become corrupt
actions to vilify or imprison the opposition. In many cases, anti-corruption
efforts are pursued only half-heartedly, because of excuses such as:
* Corruption is everywhere. There is nothing
you can do about something endemic.
* Corruption has always existed. Like
sin, it is part of human nature.
* The concept of corruption is vague and
culturally determined. In some cultures, the behavior that bothers you
is not considered corrupt. Fighting corruption smacks of cultural imperialism.
* Cleansing our society of corruption
would require a wholesale change of attitudes and values. This can only
take place after a hundred years of education.
* In many countries, corruption is not
harmful at all. It is the grease for the wheels of the economy and the
glue of the political system.
* There is nothing that can be done if
the person on top is corrupt, or if corruption is systematic.
* Worrying about corruption is superfluous.
With free markets and multi-party democracies, corruption will gradually
disappear.
Lessons from Successful Efforts: Fortunately, there are successful anti-corruption initiatives from which we can learn, such as the case of Hong Kong Police in the 1970s, Bangalore’s (India) Report Card on Municipal Services, New York City’s School Construction Authority in the late 1980s, La Paz’s (Bolivia) initiatives in streamlining municipal functions with the help of citizens, and the Philippines’ former Justice Efren Plana who successfully overcame corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the 1980s.These initiatives teach us that a key to success is to have a strategy to prevent corruption. This may sound obvious, but anti-corruption campaigns often lack just that. Some of the key elements of a successful strategy are as follows:
* It targets changing policies and systems
(especially the ones regarding the salaries without rewarding performance
and the penalties against the corrupt), rather than perennially hunt for
isolated culprits or call for more renovation.
* It focuses on corrupt systems, not just
corrupt individuals.
* It provides incentives for corrupt officials
and citizens in order to prevent corruption.
* It does not attack all forms of corruption
at once. It recognizes various types of corruption, and develops a clear
idea of end and means in the short, medium and long terms.
* It separates what might be called “economic”
from “implementation” issues in preventing corruption.
What can be done? In more specific
terms, implementing reforms to prevent corruption needs to consider the
following:
* Improve the positive incentives facing
public officials (i.e. through increasing the pay levels, and/or strengthening
the linkages between pay and performance, and promotion and performance).
* Increase the effective penalties for
corruption (i.e. through improving corrupt investigatory, prosecutory,
and judicial systems).
* Limit monopoly both in the public and
private sectors (i.e. through avoiding monopoly-granting regulations when
possible).
* Clarify official discretion (i.e. through
simplifying rules and regulations, helping citizens learn how public systems
are supposed to work, improving citizens’ oversight of what government
agencies are doing).
* Enhance accountability and transparency
(i.e. through clear standards of conduct and rules of the game, citizen
oversight boards, hot lines, external audits, inquiry commissions, and
so forth).
Among the various elements of an effective
corruption preventation strategy, citizen and private sector involvement
is particularly important. Citizens and the private sector can help in
supplying information about transgressions, by diagnosing inefficiencies
and corrupt systems, and by helping police their own behavior. To be sure,
government has an important role too but, as we have seen, it can not do
it alone. In fact, it should not do it alone.
---------------
Nathaniel Von Einsiedel, a member of PRCUD,
is the Regional Coordinator for Asia Pacific of the UNDP/UNCIIS Urban Management
Programme. He has recently accepted an appointment at prestigious Asia
Institute of Technology in Bangkok. Prior to his current engagements, He
worked as chief housing planner in the Presidents’ Office in his native
Philippines.
*A much longer version of this article was published in the Bangkok Post, October 25, 1998.
NEW APPOINTMENTS/ CHANGING ADDRESSES
Zacharia Ahmad
Mr. Zacharia Ahmad has recently accepted
an appointment as the Chief Administrative Officer of Asian and Pacific
Development Centre (APDC). He previously was a Programme Co-ordinator,
from 1 April 1996 to September 1997 at APDC. Prior to his appointment at
APDC, he was the Director-General at the Department of National unity,
Ministry of National Unity and Social Development, Malaysia (1993-96).
He is at present on secondment from the Malaysian Administrative and Diplomatic
Service. He graduated with BA Hons (1972) majoring in Malay Studies from
University Malaya and Masters of Science (1982) majoring in Industrial
Relations from Iowa State University, USA.
He has held various positions. He was Administrator at the Ministry of Education from 1973 to 1980. From 1982 to 1993 he was attached to National Institute of Public Administration (INTAN) as Senior Programme Co-ordinator (1982-85); Head of Research and Publication Bureau 91990-91); Head of Productivity and Quality Centre 91991-92); Head of Management Development Centre (1992-93) and Senior Quality Programme Co-ordinator (1993).
During his service with the Malaysian Government, he had published a number of books, participated at various Seminars as paper presenters and attended many courses and seminars. He has also served as major consultant to organizations utilizing strategic management approach for the purpose of restructuring organizations including KEJORA (land Development Scheme for Southeast Johor), Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice, Department of Information Service, Malaysian Universities and BAHEIS (Division of Islamic Affairs, Prime Minister’s Department). His main areas of interest include training and human resources development particularly in strategic management, Quality Control Circle, Total Quality Management and ISO 9000. For his services to the nation, he was bestowed the Award Kesatria Mangku Negara (KMN) in 1996.
Contact Information: Zacharia Ahmad
Chief Administrative Officer
Asian and Pacific Development Centre
Pesiaran Duta
P.O. Box 12224
50770 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
TEL: 603-651-1088
FAX: 603-651-0316
E-MAIL: cao@apdc.po.my
Ehud G. Mouchly
Ehud G. Mouchly has recently joined the
Real Estate Consulting Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a Managing
Director. Mouchly is an expert in financial planning and operating management,
debt and equity financing for projects and portfolios. He has specific
expertise at the national and international levels in large-scale mixed-use
development and redevelopment projects; master planned communities, public/private
joint ventures, new towns and mixed-product portfolios. He is also
a nationally recognized expert in financial modelling and computer-ized
management systems.
Prior to joining PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), from 1980 to 1998 Mouchly was a founder and principal of KMG Consulting (Kotin Mouchly Group) and its predecessors, SKMG and KRM. During the 1970s he was a developer and served in senior management positions with the Larwin Group and Leisure Technology, Inc., two national home building and active-adult / assisted living community development companies. In the mid-1970s he served as the chief economist of a new town project in Colombia. During the 1960s, he served in the diplomatic corps.
Mouchly has held many leadership positions in the industry. A 22-year member of the ULI, he is currently chairman of the ULI Community Development Council (Silver flight) and serves on the ULI Program Committee. He is a governing board member of the International Urban Development Association (INTA), faculty member of the Lusk Center at USC, and a member of numerous other organizations including the CRE, ARES, PRCUD and Lambda Alpha.
Contact Information: Ehud G. Mouchly,
CRE
Managing Director, Real Estate Consulting
Group
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
400 South Hope Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071-2889, USA
TEL: 213-236-3200
FAX: 213-452-7808
WEBSITE: http://www.pwcglobal.com
E-MAIL: emouchly@pipeline.com
OTHER BUSINESS
Save the Date: May 1st 1999
Edward Blakely, past PRCUD President,
will be celebrating a milestone birthday on May 1st at Berkeley and will
be inviting many of his PRCUD friends to join in the celebration. If you
can arrange your calendar to be in the Bay Area on around May 1st, please
do so.
Contact Information: Edward Blakely,
Professor
School Policy, Planning, and Development
University of Southern California
Los Angeles
CA 90089-0626
TEL: 213-740-1776
FAX: 213-740-0001
E-MAIL: edusc@aol.com
New Area Code for Mission Viejo
FYI: The area code for Mission Viejo in
California, US, has been changed from 714 to 949. Thanks to Richard Watson
for this information.