Power increase or decrease in the next 50 years?
 

(I am generally talking about the U.S. here, but feel free to draw parallels and vote for your countries)


Which institutions do you think will grow in power/responsibility?

International + or -
As in, do you expect your country to sign more treaties and follow more of them or less?

Federal + or -
Do you expect the federal government to show more supremacy over states or less?

States + or -
Same as the last question one, but reversed

County + or -
Will more counties be filling roles that are traditionally done by states?
Will there be more City-County consolidation?

City + or -
Will cities fill more roles that are traditionally handled by counties or states?

Neighborhood + or -
Will small sections of large cities (which is often not small at all Rochina is small withing the context of Rio, but it is still big enough to be considered a city in many countries) exercise more power?





My opinion -
I think there will be more international integration, Federal government will fill more roles that were traditionally state roles.

States will do two things - In small states there will be more integration for statewide issues and less county responsibility - For example - Delaware phasing out the three county garbage collection for a single statewide company etc. However it seems that in large states the government is providing less services and hence the county governments are having to step up. In general though - because most state are not small this is a net decrease in responsibility for states.

County-City consolidation, as I said above more counties are taking on traditionally state responsibilities, there is also seems to be a large push for more City-County consolidations (In Nevada-California anyway).

City responsibilities will be growing smaller because of pressure from Counties and Neighborhood organizations.

Neighborhoods - I think that now more than ever it is easy to get involved in local area projects. And overall people are more open to getting involved in democracy when they can "see" their vote having an effect. I don't think there can be any doubt that 4 or 500 adults voting on community issues every six weeks will get more done for the community than 9 city council members for a city of 200K + people.




I am considering adding a poll, but since the questions are not all + or - black and white, I don't know what to put.

If any mod wants to have a crack at it, be my guest :)