Excerpt from City Government for Young People: A Study of the American City, Adapted for School Use and for Home, Reading for Children The National Municipal League and many writers on municipal topics have repeatedly urged that a study of city government rather than that of the national and state governments be used as the basis of the teaching in citizenship. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The myth of generations of disengaged youth has been shattered by increases in youth turnout in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 primaries. Young Americans are responsive to effective outreach efforts, and this collection addresses how to best provide opportunities for enhancing civic learning and forming lasting civic identities. The thirteen original essays are based on research in schools and in settings beyond the schoolyard where civic life is experienced. One focus is on programs for those schools in poor communities that tend to overlook civic education. Another chapter reports on how two city governments--Hampton, Virginia, and San Francisco--have invited youth to participate on boards and in agencies. A cluster of chapters focuses on the civic education programs in Canada and Western Europe, where, as in the United States, immigration and income inequality raise challenges to civic life.

Introduces the purpose and function of local governments, explores the three branches of government at the city and county level, and presents the relationships between city and suburban governments and between various governments and schools.

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The process of youth development, or an adolescent's pathway to young adulthood, spans multiple domains -- cognitive, physical, social, and emotional -- and calls for an equally comprehensive approach to framing and addressing youth issues. Community-level stakeholders and systems are ideally positioned to deliver the holistic, coordinated resources that positive youth development requires; it is here, in these local settings, that young people can access the kind of services, supports, and opportunities that promote long-term wellbeing. In the ideal, young people growing up in a community supportive of youth development would benefit from educational opportunities, health and human services, recreational activities, and other resources that were both comprehensive and integrated. However, the core concepts of positive youth development can be difficult to communicate in a clear and succinct manner. Also, the systems that serve young people tend to function independently of each other. And, in the policy arena, young people are disadvantaged by negative stereotypes and the fact that they wield no political power, especially if they are poor. As a result, most communities provide limited or unaligned resources for youth and focus instead on addressing specific youth problems or deficits. In this study, I focused on community collaboratives and their potential to reshape local attitudes and approaches to youth. A structured and intentional process of collaboration can build civic capacity to support a comprehensive array of resources for young people by introducing a shared vision that emphasizes youth development as a critical dimension of community well being, securing political will for communitywide reforms that enhance youth development, and reinforcing collective decision-making to coordinate the delivery of supportive services. I asked: How did aspects of community context facilitate the emergence of community collaboratives? To what extent and under what conditions did community collaboratives generate civic capacity to support youth development? Did community collaboratives mobilize community support in ways that contributed to their own sustainability? Interviews, observations, and record data from California collaboratives in Daly City, Redwood City, and the South Coast region informed my analysis and highlighted three critical inputs for collaborative work: structural support from a local institution, local stakeholders who are willing to lead collaborative work, and pre-existing interagency relationships. I also found that embedding the collaborative structure within public agencies, asking public leaders to own collaborative work, and facilitating multi-sector dialogue helped to build civic capacity for youth development. And I saw that civic capacity contributed to sustainability by establishing a broad leadership base, creating a clear succession plan, facilitating joint budgeting, and providing a way to engage key stakeholders in redefining collaborative priorities. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how collaboratives can change the way that communities frame and address youth issues, opportunities and resources. They also have practical implications for practitioners, policymakers, and funders who wish to support collaborative work. First, new or emerging collaboratives may benefit from organizational capacity-building, leadership development, and efforts to secure organizational-level commitments during the early stages of collaborative work. Also, this study underscores the need to maximize the particular contributions of different stakeholder groups: public stakeholders wield influence and resources while grassroots involvement confers legitimacy. And, the cases suggest that collaborative founders or funders should anticipate sustainability issues from the outset and use civic capacity to their advantage by structuring their work in a way that renews and reinforces the elements of civic capacity over time.

The prevalence of childhood obesity is so high in the United States that it may reduce the life expectancy of today's generation of children. While parents and other adult caregivers play a fundamental role in teaching children about healthy behaviors, even the most positive efforts can be undermined by local environments that are poorly suited to supporting healthy behaviors. For example, many communities lack ready sources of healthy food choices, such as supermarkets and grocery stores. Or they may not provide safe places for children to walk or play. In such communities, even the most motivated child or adolescent may find it difficult to act in healthy ways. Local governments-with jurisdiction over many aspects of land use, food marketing, community planning, transportation, health and nutrition programs, and other community issues-are ideally positioned to promote behaviors that will help children and adolescents reach and maintain healthy weights. Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity presents a number of recommendations that touch on the vital role of government actions on all levels-federal, state, and local-in childhood obesity prevention. The book offers healthy eating and physical activity strategies for local governments to consider, making it an excellent resource for mayors, managers, commissioners, council members, county board members, and administrators.

Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.