Contenu du sommaire

John GARRARD, The Salford gas scandal of 1887. This article recounts what was basically a very simple event. At the end of the 19th century, the director of the Salford gasworks, judging himself the victim of libel, brought suit against a coal manufacturer, who in turn accused him of taking bribes. The affair ricocheted several times, and revealed corrupt practices not only for the city of Salford, but for the entire gas industry and in numerous other economic activities, and in the end extended to a national level. In order to understand this event, the author provides the following explanations: 1) the increasing importance of urban technical networks; were made clear by the affair; 2) labor relations in local administrations functioned primarily in terms of individual principles; 3) the affair was not limited to the gas industry, and perhaps only reflected standard business practices of the times; 4) the whole thing was made possible in the first place because the distinction between speculative industrial activities and service activities - in particular public service - had not yet been clearly defined.

Hartmut HAUSSERMANN, The urban infrastructure of Germany before 1945. In his introduction, the author describes the public nature of the production of urban services in Germany today. He then examines the period 1850-1945, a time during which city councils were considered public corporations. 1) Municipal companies can be taken as a pillar of free local administration. 2) This type of administration, during the 19th century, was the exclusive political domain of a rising bourgeois class, which strongly oriented its direction. 3) This was true to such an extent that public management resulted more from pragmatism - one should always manage profit-making activities oneself - than from any political project termed municipal socialism. 4) The Weimar Republic merely kept up the tradition of a-political city management, which remained an important characteristic in the overall German scheme of things. However, with the economic depression, and the rise of National-Socialism, the power of the municipal councils-corporations was called into question. Cities had to come to terms with the Lander, the Reich, and the large regional companies of city services. The idea that local administration could be considered as a public corporation lost credibility. companies of city services. The idea that local administration could be considered as a public corporation lost credibility.

Tania FISCHER and Florence HEBER, The transformation of urban services in Salvador de Bahia. This article discusses how the Brazilian city of Salvador de Bahia has dealt with the problems of managing urban technical networks. The former system of public administration, a legacy from the period right after the war, proved to be incapable of dealing with a situation which rapidly evolved over the past twenty years. The city has become more spread out, the population has become more polarized, and the structure of the city is a combination of networked zones with completely unzoned, illegally developed areas. The city has thus turned to private companies. The authors of the article describe the changes in three key sectors: water utilities, garbage removal and transportation. They show that the public authories must create new, stable relationships with their partners and with customers, which touches on problems of the level of responsibility, forms of controls, and payment.

Tamás FLEISCHER, Infrastructures and networks in Hungary's economic development. Technical networks and service infrastructures represent a major obstacle in the development of Hungary, according to the author. Studies have revealed lack of equipment and functional incapacity. This situation is partly the result of a long-term crisis. But it is also the reflection of the structure of centralized authority, set up after WWII, which could neither imagine nor maintain independent networks. The recent political changes, as well as expansion towards a market economy, has raised new, contradictory questions: the role of the State, methods for establishing real costs, the respective place of self-regulation and public intervention. The author feels that the solution is not to restructure the country according to the models imported from the West; rather, the public authorities still have a role to play in the control and regulation of these sectors.