Some Typical Situations...

Urban leaders devote most of their time to "keeping cities going", often under very difficult circumstances. Large parts of a city are composed of permanent physical and technical systems and structures... buildings, roads and bridges, energy systems, etc. Urban leaders most often try to shape the new development added to a city in any given year. They also try to ensure that the existing fabric of their city is maintained, and improved if funds permit. They provide services to people on a daily basis, such as running health clinics and schools, and taking away solid waste.

This section of City Solutions Network focuses on knowledge, information and tools to set priorities for making "tough choices" about priorities on a daily basis. It works together with "Solutions for Sectors". It focuses in particular on something almost all municipalities have, and which they need to manage carefully: their budget. This seeks to balance all the competing requests in a city, to balance the past (maintaining existing services and structures) and the future (anticipating and providing for growth).

The first topic addressed here is Municipal Budgeting. This provides basic information about establishing and managing budgets for all types of funds available to a city government.

The second topic is "hidden" costs of building and operating a city that mount up on a daily basis. These are called "hidden" costs because they may not appear directly on municipal budget statements at all, even when they have a major influence on either expenditures or revenues. Go to Sources of Hidden Costs now.