Summery of audio lecture - Assignment Example

Summary of Audio Lecture The speaker, Rebecca, provided previous experiences ranging from being an assistant to the city manager; being a director of asset management in 2006 and as City Manager of San Antonio, Texas. She was also introduced as being a teacher for a budget class at UTSA beginning fall of the current year. As such, she noted that she had 25 years working in public service. Her discussion focused on the budgeting area of city management. Her lecture begun through noting the developments in a city location usually started with mixing small and big houses and the great migration from central cities to suburbs but still ensuring safety and privacy.

Summed in a single word, Rebecca emphasized that the factor contributing to development is ‘sprawl’: the rapid growth and spread of big cities where there are apparent faster consumption of lands more than the population growth. With growth in population comes various environmental concerns such as loss of farmland, increase in traffic and pollution, need for increased water usage, and increased energy consumption, among others. She also discussed the factors that energized sprawl and the effect to the performance of businesses and industries.

Accordingly, in the old days, she reminisced that people used to walk to downtown areas where they work or shop and where there are bus lines within the distance. With sprawl, buildings are created and through these developments, city governments are left thinking what happens to the cities. There would be strain for businesses in terms of resources and the need to deliver other services outside the area. In the 1980s, there was apparently enhanced public awareness on the negative attributes of sprawl, especially in sustaining growth.

There was a reported desire to go back the traditional neighborhood and city developers and policymakers acknowledge preferences for new developments which should be integrated within the existing communities. As indicated, city developers want decisions that are predictable, fair and cost efficient. She cited the experience of Oregon during a phase in planning and development were city developers were asked what they thought about restrictions. Accordingly, restrictions provide clear cut rules and once these were laid out, these guidelines provide directions for implementation.

Rebecca likewise noted that effectively designed developments are beneficial in terms of improving the quality of life of the community; businesses generating more profits; traffic flow can be redirected and eased; there would be increase in tax revenues; there are less crimes in terms of more eye on the street and faster responses in urbanized areas and well as the progress of public transportation. Eventually, when recession happened, the impact was noted by Rebecca as helping in the development process through preventing people from moving out.

As emphasized, with careful planning, resources, including funds, are allocated appropriately across various programs and projects that ensure that the well-being of local communities is addressed. Her responsibilities focused on serving the needs of the population through effective budget management and being proactive in keeping abreast with the changing influences of environmental and economic factors. Work Cited Rebecca. “Audio Lecture.” April 2012. 4shared.com. 24 April 2012.