I am currently a student at the University of Southern
California's Price School of Policy, Planning, and Development. I have worked
in real estate brokerage and property management for 4 years. Local ordinances,
laws, associations, and politics have been knowledge of necessity through my
work. While adapting to wildly varied regulations can be frustrating, I have
come to respect the acknowledgment of power in local governments through vital
policy making that includes planning, building codes, development ordinances,
assessments, and environmental protections. Local governments, while far from
perfect, most closely represent what government should embody; a normal person
who might actually return your calls and who has to work for a living. Not to
mention, citizens actually PARTICIAPTE in local governments because they are
empowered to do so and politicians are ACCOUNTABLE because Joe Shmoe can scream
at them at a public hearing. That being said, power should be skewed more
heavily to local and state governments, while more limited on a federal
level because of the varied demands and economic atmospheres within and across states lines.
