Court rulings on local efforts to manage growth by initiative and referendum in California
unusually broad and well-entrenched in California. As a result of that right, residents of that state have employed both of these tools of direct democracy to manage local growth. In this article the initiative will be treated as the power of voters to draft and implement growth control measures within local governmental settings. The local growth control referendum will, in turn, represent their power to rescind local governmental actions that fail to promote a desired level of growth control. This article describes how courts in California have developed a body of case law governing such local efforts to control growth by direct legislation.
Determining land use policy via the ballot box: The growth initiative blitz in California
Abstract Californians are afforded the opportunity to participate in the planning process and to voice their opinions to their elected officials in a variety of ways. However, for various reasons citizens have taken the opportunity to develop local legislation designed to manage or control growth. Once passed by the electorate, this legislation becomes law and must be enforced by the municipality. The use of direct democracy and ballot box planning in California is increasing and is expected to increase in the future. This paper examines how and why Californians have turned to the ballot box to decide land use matters. Examples of recent ballot measures and implications of ballot box planning are provided.
Urban Identities and Catastrophe: Izmir and Salonica at the End of the Ottoman Empire*
Two huge fires dramatically influenced the urban development of Salonica and Izmir, in 1917 and in 1922, respectively. These catastrophes occurred after the Ottoman Empire fell, and Salonica and Izmir had shifted into new national contexts. The fires mainly destroyed the districts that were transformed during the late‐Ottoman period. These districts became the cosmopolitan façades of modern Izmir and Salonica. The post‐fires' tabula rasa provided an opportunity for Greek and Turkish politicians and European planners to change the urban identity of both cities. Moreover, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 transformed their multicultural societies also. Reconstruction plans had been thought to de‐Ottomanize and remove the previous idea of the towns and their multiplicity, interpreting new cultural and nationalist feeling. Here, I emphasize how modernity was interpreted before and after the fires, and point out contradictions between ideological aspects of planning and how the first urban districts were built during the 1920s.