The American City Volume 1-3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 Excerpt: ...now. This article tells how to get to work, and its illustrations help in the telling. True Representation of the People The April issue of Equity contains an article by William Hoag on "The Scientific Method of Electing the City Council." The author believes that the main reason that our cities are not governed in the interests of all the people is that city councils are not really representative of the best interests and thought of the community. By a simple illustration he compares the "block" and "ward" systems of electing city councils and the system of the "single untransferable vote," by which each voter expresses his choice of one candidate for an office, and the ten (or whatever the number of places to be filled may be) who stand highest in the poll are declared elected. The two defects of this system are that the one who stands first in the list could have been elected by a smaller number of votes and is no more elected than the tenth in the list; and that those who voted for the eleventh and all the other candidates have no influence in the election. By the system of the single "transferable" vote, in use in Tasmania and South Africa, the voter numbers the names of the candidates in the order of his preference. In the resulting count, if a candidate is the first choice of more voters than are needed to elect him, the second choices of those whose first choices are not needed are counted, until another candidate receives the required number of votes, and so on, until all the places are filled. The elected officers will then be fully representative of their separat constituencies. The Health of Our Municipalities The February issue of the American Journal of Public Hygiene has a number of articles o...