Local government yet to discover Paypal.
One of Terry Heaton’s criticisms of municipalities is that a lack of competition has kept them from adopting all those convenient little innovations that make internet commerce a relative breeze. It’s very difficult to find an online vendor asking you to use anything but your internet connection and a credit card to complete a transaction. Local governments, on the other hand, often request that you fax, mail, call or drive something to an office somewhere.
This same inability to innovate holds true for communicating with their citizens. Almost daily, old firms embrace new tools allowing them to better communicate with increasingly sophisticated consumers. Why not local government?
photo credit: Danielle Scott
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High quality service provision is an economic development tool
“The most important economic development tool in a municipal government’s toolbox is to do what you’re supposed to do: provide public services and do it well.” - Dr. John Matthews, in class tonight.
Forget tax incentives and selling your city’s soul for a Mercedes plant; firms are increasingly attracted by good roads, good police, good schools, good sewerage, and good anything else that makes for a well-run city.
Atlanta suburb elects white Republican to city council! Trust me, it’s newsworthy.
Doraville [map, official, wiki], a suburb of Atlanta, has elected Brian Bates to city council. He meets three of the criteria for being a suburban politician in our state: he’s 1) white, 2) male, and 3) a Republican.
He’s also gay.
I’ve suspected real social progress would occur in Atlanta’s suburbs over the next decade, I just never expected it to happen this soon. I’ll try not to read too much into Brian Bates’ victory; at the very least, however, it tells me that Republican voters in Doraville are adults.
David Axe, on urban life in Mogadishu
David Axe, a good friend and fellow blogger, recently sent me the following guest post from Mogadishu [map, wiki].
Imagine a city with all the usual gripes: a growing population, ethnic tension, strained utilities, crime. Now cut off essentially all spending for 17 years. That’s right: no meaningful investment of any kind. No road repair. No new power plants. No sewerage. No garbage collection. Oh – and fire off a couple million bullets and shells, too.
You’d think such a place would be unlivable, but you’d be wrong.
Welcome to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, still teeming with people despite being the main battleground in a string of conflicts stretching back to 1990. It’s a ghost town that just happens to have a lot of people in it.
There’s no glass in the windows. There are potholes in the roads the depth of moon craters. There are mountainous heaps of garbage where goats and children scavenge for food. And in every former house, apartment, shop and government building, there are squatters that, over time, have more or less become legitimate tenants.
Who’s going to argue with them, anyways? All those buildings’ former owners are dead or living abroad. Beginning in 1990, everyone with money or a marketable skill who could get out of the country left. Meanwhile, drought and economic collapse hit rural communities hard, driving former farmers into a city that, despite being this close to Hellish, is still better than the countryside.
The old Mogadishu was a fairly cosmopolitan place, with hotels and restaurants, industry and nightlife and foreign embassies with their diverse staffs. The new Mogadishu is a sprawling farming village dropped atop a couple hundred square miles of rubble.
There are islands of order and relative luxury: a handful of hotels cowering near the headquarters of an African Union peacekeeping force. They provide most of their own services: generators, cars, heavily armed security guards. All the food is flown in from Ethiopia. One night on a king-size bed, plus three meals and laundry will set you back $100. At night the hotels seal their gates and post the night watch. And that’s when the shooting starts, gunshots echoing off the ruined walls of a city that looks like it’s ten thousand years old, but isn’t.
Medellín is the new Bogota
It seems that common sense solutions are usually completely ignored by governments in Latin American cities, and it is refreshing to see that this isn´t the case with Medellín. The government is rebuilding its city for the inhabitants: they have discovered that when people have public spaces they can enjoy and where they can relax, breathe in clean air, and stretch their legs, they work harder, better, and are generally happier. The poorer inhabitants of the city don’t have time or money to take vacations to the rural areas; they don’t have the means to visit beaches and certainly don’t have membership to country clubs…so the city decided to give them spaces where they could take their families, where they could lay on the grass, sit on a bench and kick back on a Sunday.
Today’s Where blog post on Medellín reminds me of similar successes enjoyed by Bogota a few years back (and still enjoyed, as far as I know):
“Every Sunday, we close 120 kilometers of main arteries to motor vehicles for seven hours,” [former Bogota mayor] Penalosa explained. “A million and a half people of all ages and conditions come out to ride bicycles, jog, see others, to appropriate their city. During Christmas, we close those streets one night and more than 3 million people come out just to see the Christmas lights, to be with the others as a community.”
Seattle cyclist shot in the lung by motorist
As Seattle grows and gas prices escalate, the city’s residents look for alternative ways to commute. Unfortunately for those who’ve discovered biking, the drivers are fighting back; one cyclist was recently shot in the lung with a BB gun. Now things are beginning to swing the cyclists’ way:
An expected City Council vote Monday on a bicycle master plan would add millions of dollars in improvements, including 19 miles of cycling trails and a 230-mile system of marked routes for riders.
“I think it will cut down on accidents,” said Councilwoman Jan Drago, the plan sponsor. “When we have more bike lanes and trails, it will help.”
The beautiful design for the new Prague library is under attack by the Czech president and the mayor of Prague
Jan Kaplicky’s beautiful design for the new Prague library is under attack by both the Czech president and the mayor of Prague, reports Building Design Online.
But speaking to BD this week, Kaplicky — who last week took part in a head-to-head televised debate with the mayor — said that a forthcoming settlement between the warring parties would not see the design altered.
Hopes of realising the 50,000 sq m building, dubbed “the octopus” and set to hold 10 million books, were also boosted by a 3,000-name petition of support and by backing from competition jurors including architect Eva Jiricna.
Peter Levine rounds up his favorite civic blogs
Peter Levine, dean of deliberative democracy, rounds up his favorite civic blogs.
Atlanta: ready to secede?
We’ve tried and we’ve tried to be a loyal part of Georgia. Maybe the solution, though, is to set ourselves apart. To secede – at least in spirit, if not in body. Raise the bold banner of rebellion. Creative Loafing asks local leaders if and how Atlanta should secede.
Otis White suggests metro-Atlantans build a better regional government to overcome what he sees as the problem:
Regions outgrow their physical infrastructures, government arrangements and tax structures. Atlanta has crossed that point. What once worked in metro Atlanta doesn’t work anymore. Our state leaders – and some of our regional ones – haven’t grasped this yet.
I’d give this more thought, but I’m thirsty…need…water…
Reason Magazine names Jackson, Mississippi’s Frank Melton “The Worst Mayor in America.”
Reason Magazine names Jackson, Mississippi’s Frank Melton “The Worst Mayor in America.”
A handy list of Atlanta’s recent plans and studies
The city of Atlanta offers a handy (and fairly comprehensive) list of its recent plans and studies.
Italy’s slow city movement
Small cities across Italy aspire to be granted cittáslow status:
To a certain extent, a “slow city” tries to preserve the civic structures from medieval or Renaissance times, while at the same time incorporating the most recent scientific findings of ecology and sustainability. Even modern technology is allowed if it helps to meet the city’s goals. For example, Cimicchi is hoping to install electronically controlled access gates in Orvieto, which would grant entrance exclusively to city residents. Pisa already has a similar system: If the camera catches you letting the parking meter run out — whether it’s for a single minute or an entire day — you can expect to receive a parking ticket.
Last year USA Today profiled Virginia’s own cittáslow, the town of Floyd (population 434).