What makes people dissatisfied with their neighborhoods

Walk around the block. It sounds simple, but it is a great way to meet neighbors, and get to know your neighborhood while getting a little exercise.

Walk at night if you are comfortable doing so, and if not, your neighborhood needs more involvement. Chat with neighbors and kids while walking, they will get to know you too.

Drive slowly through your neighborhood. Stop signs, lights and speed bumps can slow traffic down, but so can you. By regularly driving slowly on neighborhood side streets, you encourage those in a hurry to find another rout rather than getting stuck behind a slow poke.

Pick up litter near your home. Even if you didn't put it there. Most people are less likely to litter where they don't see litter already. You can help stop littering in your neighborhood by taking away the litter that attracts it. Pet owners should make sure they pick up after their pets.

Organize a neighborhood watch group or some other type of neighborhood organization. If you are willing, decide what greater contribution you could make. Attend meetings if there is already an association. Keep informed of neighborhood issues. This is a great way to meet other neighbors who are also concerned. Even an evening walking group can help. For more information please contact Officer Brandon Beauvais at Turn on porch light at night.

Spend time in your front yard Stay in one place-long term residents create stability Offer assistance to a neighbor in need-offer help with yard work Ask neighborhood kids for help if you need it-they are always happy to earn a few dollars Be the kind of neighbor you would want to have. Record of Belongings Form. In such a situation, the CPEQ believes it is important to limit the debate to the local level.

The company has nothing to gain in nationalizing such an issue, because it is the local residents who are affected and not the residents of the entire province. The personal information collected by the CPEQ is accessible at its main place of business.

A person concerned by this information can access it on request at info cpeq. Quebec Business Council On the Environment. Home Good neighbor guide 5. Neighborhood tensions: scenarios and treatment of specific cases. Social acceptability, noise and neighborhood disturbances Land use planning and town planning. Neighborhood tensions: scenarios and treatment of specific cases The CPEQ Good Neighbor Guide is primarily a prevention tool, aimed at fostering harmony between companies and their neighboring communities.

Despite the preventive measures a company has put in place, neighborhood tensions can still arise. Examples of specific cases of neighborhood tensions The following list presents some examples of specific cases likely to generate neighborhood tensions. A hypersensitive person may thus complain of an odor when it normally would be acceptable or undetectable for the general public. Gathering the facts: In a case of hypersensitivity, the number of complainants should be extremely limited.

Furthermore, it will be appropriate to meet these residents to assess their level of hypersensitivity and the situations that pose a problem. The complaint resolution approach is the same as the one applicable in Scenario 1; Usually, when a group of residents complains about a repetitive nuisance, the cause should be easy to identify. The military's ascendance can be related in some cases to the instability arising from the action of dissatisfied minority groups.

This further underlines the importance of strengthening the capacity of democratic systems to reconcile competing claims. Societies in which there are deep and expanding social or economic disparities face enormous obstacles, whether in creating or maintaining democracy.

Citizens who must struggle daily to meet basic needs and who see no possibility of improving their circumstances are unlikely to have either the interest, or the ability, to work on behalf of democratization. To be sustainable, democracy must include the continuing prospect of contributing to the prosperity and well- being of citizens.

As a result of the transformations of the past four decades, the participation of people in governance is now more critical than ever. Governments that do not have the active support of their people are finding it more and more difficult to survive. But democracy is not merely a matter of voting. It is a dynamic process, involving a commitment to democratic principles and institutions that meet the needs of citizens routinely and in times of crisis.

Truly democratic institutions continuously engage people directly in a multiplicity of ways. The gap between governments and citizens needs to be narrowed.

A viable democracy requires an active civil society. At its best, civil society is citizens acting in pursuit of a range of interests, many of which have implications for public policy.

There is, at the same time, a need to ensure democratic functioning in the many institutions of civil society. Their leaders should be held to the same standards of accountability as political leaders. Good governance requires good government. And government depends not only on state structures, but on political power. Political parties have key functions in a democracy.

Yet in the debate about democracy and civil organizations, little attention is given to political parties. There is a widespread need to improve the way parties work, to attract more participants to the democratic process. To function, parties need resources; to avoid corruption, they should open their finances to public scrutiny.

Political parties, a crucial part of national civil society, also have a role in the growing global civil society. Politics is vital for transforming values into action. There is a symbiotic relationship between state, civil society, individual citizens, and democratic structures; together they set the framework and provide the substance of democratic governance. Not all democracies look alike, however. The form that a democracy takes is determined by a country's governing traditions and experience, by the economic and social conditions of its citizens, and by the nature of the democratic institutions that exist or emerge.

Nevertheless, there is a consensus that democracy, whatever form it may take, is a global entitlement, a right that should be available and protected for all. At the same time, some international standards are emerging with respect to democracy and to the systematic monitoring of compliance with democratic norms.

The development of international human rights law and of procedures for international monitoring of elections underscores the links between national and international efforts to promote democracy.

The emergence of a global civil society is an important precondition of democracy at the global level, although it cannot guarantee it. More and more people are making connections across borders and developing relationships based on common concerns and issues: the environment, human rights, peace, women's roles, and many others. Advances in communications have greatly facilitated the process. The information and communication revolutions are helping to diffuse power throughout society, often transferring it from hierarchical structures to small groups, and increasing the ability of dispersed groups to communicate.

Indeed, computer- based networking capabilities are giving new form and strength to civil society and facilitating partnerships with intergovernmental institutions.

It is easy to exaggerate the impact of these revolutions, however. An infinitely smaller percentage of the people in developing countries than in industrial ones is currently included in this process of interaction. The vast majority are currently left out. More significant, perhaps, this partial democratization of communications and information has been accompanied by the concentration of telecommunications and media power in the hands of a small number of private firms.

Technological advance seldom unambiguously or permanently favours democracy over tyranny any more than it favours defence against attack. Yet the spread of the new technology has been so rapid that it is hard not to conclude that it will be generally used before long and that the net effect will be to favour democracy. Combating Corruption. Corruption is a world- wide phenomenon affecting both the public and private sectors, compromising the processes of legislation and administration, regulation, and privatization.

Corrupt dealings between the worlds of business and politics at very high levels have come to light in recent years in dozens of countries, both industrial and developing. The widening operations of international drug rings have been a fertile source of corruption in both drug- producing and consuming countries. The expansion in organized criminal activity, particularly evident in some former socialist countries, has been another.

The Mafia's role in corruption on both sides of the Atlantic has been legendary. In a number of developing countries, corruption flourished under despotic rulers as well as under democratic regimes.

Vast sums that should have been in government treasuries to be spent on national objectives were siphoned off to be invested or banked abroad. The people of these countries were effectively robbed. The great powers that supported corrupt rulers in the full knowledge of their venality must share the blame.

So must the banks that help stash away ill- gotten funds and launder the money of drug dealers and other criminals. Most opportunities for significant corruption in developing countries arise in interactions between their politicians and officials and the business sector in industrial countries.

The latter, which includes arms manufacturers, is too often ready to offer sweeteners to secure contracts and orders. The business community of the industrial world has not lived up to its responsibility for ensuring that its members follow ethical business practices.

The strengthening of democracy and accountability is an antidote to corruption. While they are no guarantees against corrupt practices, as so many democracies confirm, a free society with vigorous, independent media and a watchful civil society raises the chances of the detection, exposure, and punishment of corruption. Public servants who respect the highest traditions of service to the public are another defence against the spread of corrupt practices.

While action within countries remains critical, there is much scope for co- operation among national law enforcement agencies, not only in such specific areas as drug trafficking but more generally in the fight against corruption world- wide.

The need for early action against criminal syndicates, before they have time to entrench themselves, has been underlined by recent experience. It is also important that the privatization of state- owned companies should be carried out without any taint of irregularity, so that the process of economic reform, of which privatization forms a part, is not discredited.

We endorse the points made there:. In the South, the excessive concentration of economic power in the hands of the government and the corporate sector, poverty, insecurity, and the underpayment of public personnel also account for some of these undesirable practices. So do corrupting influences from Northern sources related, but not confined, to obtaining profitable contracts and to the trade in arms and the illicit traffic in drugs.

Regardless of these factors, governments must bear a large part of the responsibility for corruption in the South. By and large they have not regarded its eradication as a priority, despite its acknowledged economic, social, and political costs. Higher standards of integrity in public life could do much to strengthen the people's confidence in governments and the sense of community and civic responsibility.

The issue bears not solely on venality in the public sector, but on encouragement and facilitation of corruption within society through governmental mismanagement, authoritarianism, inadequate systems of control and public accountability, and militarization. The genuine democratization of political structures can go a long way to arresting these harmful activities. Sustained progress must rely on the effective functioning of democratic processes. It is also necessary to minimize the scope for discretionary controls in the management of the economy, thereby reducing the temptations for arbitrariness.

Since discretionary controls cannot be dispensed with altogether, built- in safeguards must be provided to avoid their misuse by the authorities. Democracy and Legitimacy.

While a global civic ethic is needed to improve the quality of life in the global neighbourhood, effective governance also requires democratic and accountable institutions and the rule of law. In the past, governance and law used to be almost entirely national concerns. Democracy was defined primarily in terms of the role of national and regional governments, and the enforcement of the rule of law was seen as the responsibility of national courts.

Today, this is no longer adequate. As at the national level, so in the global neighbourhood: the democratic principle must be ascendant. The need for greater democracy arises out of the close linkage between legitimacy and effectiveness. Institutions that lack legitimacy are seldom effective over the long run. Hence, as the role of international institutions in global governance grows, the need to ensure that they are democratic also increases.

It is time to make a larger reality of that 'sovereign equality' of states that the UN Charter spoke of in , but that it compromised in a later article in allowing a superior status to a few nations. Particularly in the context of the moral underpinnings of a new world order, nation- states and their people cannot but question the double standards that demand democracy at the national level but uphold its curtailment at the international level.

There will always be differences of size and strength between countries, as there are between individuals within countries. But the principle of equality of status as members of the body politic is as important in the community of states as it is in any national or local community. The ethic of equality before the law is essential to guard against the temptation to authoritarianism--the predilection of the strong to impose their will and exercise dominion over the weak. We do not imply that there is a need at the global level for a carbon copy of national democratic systems.

There are differences between the two levels, but the norms of democracy must be pursued in both. The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations is an appropriate time to reassert the primacy of the democratic principle. We address this question in Chapter Five when discussing the Security Council, and put forward there proposals for its reform.

It arises as well in other institutional arrangements, such as the voting structures of the Bretton Woods institutions, for which we also recommend a more democratic basis. Democracy has to do with the exercise of power and the recognition that imposition and coercion, however contrived, are unacceptable and in the end unworkable. Fifty years after the end of the conflict whose victors saw the need to assume special privileges and special responsibilities, the time has come for the world to advance towards more contemporary norms.

As we approach the twenty- first century, there is no ideal more dominant than that of democracy. In many ways, the UN is a custodian of our highest ideals. We do a great disservice to its standing, and ultimately its capacities, if we make it an exception to that most basic principle, or if beyond the system itself we acquiesce in arrangements that diminish democracy at the level of the global neighbourhood. The rule of law has been the ethical cornerstone of every free society; respect for it is at least as essential to the global neighbourhood as to the national one.

Global governance without law would be a contradiction in terms. Its primacy is a precondition of effective global governance. In Chapter Six, we make recommendations for strengthening the rule of law world- wide. Adapting Old Norms. Countries are having to accept that in certain fields sovereignty has to be exercised collectively.

Despite the use of the words 'we the peoples' in the opening line of the UN Charter, the post- war order was designed primarily to serve a world of states.

Its architects assumed that states were the principal international forces. This assumption is reflected in the institutions they created and the norms they articulated.

In this respect, creating the UN system was simply a development in the continuing evolution of the system of international relations based on the sovereign rights of territorial states. This system was influenced most heavily by the development of the European state system, symbolized by the Peace of Westphalia.

It took a long time to shift gradually from a Eurocentric order based on the primacy of great powers to a world- wide order supported by universal norms. The post-World War I Versailles Peace Conference of represented one phase in this shift, and the San Francisco conference in was a further step.

Even now the shift is not wholly complete, but at least a system based on universal norms is in place. Over the years, a large number of these norms have been defined, elaborated, and reiterated by a stream of declarations, conventions, and treaties. Two of central importance are sovereignty and self- determination. Sovereignty--the principle that a state has supreme authority over all matters that fall within its territorial domain--is the cornerstone of the modern interstate system.

Three other important norms stem from this central principle. First, that all sovereign states, large and small, have equal rights. Second, that the territorial integrity and political independence of all sovereign states are inviolable. And third, that intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states is not permissible. Throughout the post- war era, these three norms provided a crucial source of international stability.

Because they were widely accepted, overt aggression against sovereign states was remarkably rare. And when it occurred, the international balance was heavily tilted against the aggressor. These norms, and the claim that only the state could legitimately use force within its territory, also strengthened the ability of states to suppress dissenting voices. They served to increase the resources and support at the disposal of incumbent governments, while denying resources and support to dissidents.

They have also restricted overt intervention by big powers in the internal affairs of small states, though they have failed to provide complete protection against intervention, much less subversion. Without these norms, the world would be much more insecure and less peaceful. Aggression and subversion would be far more common, and the small and weak constantly at the mercy of the big and powerful.

Sovereignty ultimately derives from the people. It is a power to be exercised by, for, and on behalf of the people of a state. Too often, however, this principle has been misused. In some cases, powerful countries have used their claimed sovereign right as a sword against weaker countries. In other cases, rulers have exercised their control of the instruments of government to usurp the prerogatives that flow from it. They have monopolized the benefits that derive from membership in the international community.

They have used sovereignty to shield themselves against international criticism of brutal and unjust policies. And in its name they have denied their citizens free and open access to the world.

For these reasons, existing norms regarding sovereign equality, territorial independence, and non- intervention need to be strengthened in two ways. First, efforts must be made to ensure that they are universally enforced. Double standards must be eliminated: states should not be free to seek the protection that sovereignty affords at one moment and then ignore the limits it imposes at another.

Second, ways must be found to ensure that those in power do not abuse sovereignty. The exercise of sovereign power must be linked to the will of the people. Unless the abuse of sovereignty is stopped, it will be impossible to increase respect for the norms that flow from it. In an increasingly interdependent world, old notions of territoriality, independence, and non- intervention lose some of their meaning. National boundaries are increasingly permeable--and, in some important respects, less relevant.

A global flood of money, threats, images, and ideas has overflowed the old system of national dikes that preserved state autonomy and control. The movement of people is still subject to rigid frontier controls, though these may sometimes be relaxed or overwhelmed when wars, famines, and other emergencies provoke people to seek safety.

Territorial sovereignty is, however, under pressure from illicit crossborder movements, and there is concern in many countries that political or economic developments could add to these flows. It is now more difficult to separate actions that solely affect a nation's internal affairs from those that have an impact on the internal affairs of other states, and hence to define the legitimate boundaries of sovereign authority.

For example, changes in the interest rate policies of Germany, Japan, or the United States can have immediate effects on the national debt and employment prospects of countries all around the world; turmoil in Haiti and Russia can create economic, social, and political tensions in Miami and Berlin; environmental policies made in Washington can affect employment and pollution levels in Rio de Janeiro.

Increasingly, countries are having to accept that in certain fields sovereignty has to be exercised collectively, particularly in respect of the global commons. Moreover, in today's world, most serious threats to national sovereignty and territorial integrity often have internal roots, and there is often criticism of other governments for wanting to stay aloof rather than for intervening. For all these reasons, the principle of sovereignty and the norms that derive from it must be further adapted to recognize changing realities.

States continue to perform important functions, and must have the powers to fulfil these functions effectively. But these must rest on the continuing consent and democratic representation of the people. They are also limited by the fundamental interests of humanity, which in certain severe circumstances must prevail over the ordinary rights of particular states.

Nothing brings this issue more forcefully to the fore than the question of 'humanitarian intervention'. Most threats to the physical security of people now arise from deteriorating situations within countries, from civil war and ethnic conflict, from humanitarian emergencies--natural or caused by humans--and, in extreme cases, from the collapse of civil order.

Sometimes more than one of these factors could be present, or one could lead to another. When there is human suffering on a large scale as a result of such factors, it inevitably provokes demands for UN action, notwithstanding the fact that such action would constitute external interference in the affairs of sovereign states.

Small and less powerful states in particular have seen sovereignty and territorial inviolability as their main defence against more powerful, predatory countries, and they have looked to the world community to uphold these norms.

Where people are subjected to massive suffering and distress, however, there is a need to weigh a state's right to autonomy against its people's right to security. Recent history shows that extreme circumstances can arise within countries when the security of people is so extensively imperilled that external collective action under international law becomes justified.

Such action should be taken as far as possible with the consent of the authorities in the country; but this will not always be possible, and we have put forward in Chapter Three proposals in this regard.

It is important that any such action should be a genuinely collective undertaking by the world community--that is, that it should be undertaken by the United Nations or authorized by it and carried out under its control, as the UN so vigorously tried to ensure in the former Yugoslavia. The United Nations may stumble and even fail from time to time, but so has every country that has ever assumed a role of leadership.