Archives for 2014

How to Manage a Crisis Before It Happens

October 22, 2014 By Otis White

I like crises. Mind you, I don’t like being in them; I just like reading about them and thinking about how I might manage them. I don’t read Stephen King novels, but I suppose the effect is the same.

You, too, should think about crises because, knock on wood, you are likely to find yourself in one at some point in your public-leadership career if you haven’t already. And these things go better with a little forethought.

So, what is a crisis? You may have your own definition, but mine is that they are unexpected events that seem to defy the standard solutions and must be dealt with immediately. It’s the middle part that makes them so scary: For a time at least, the normal processes don’t work. You can imagine what fits this description: natural disasters, riots, system breakdowns (think back to this summer’s Toledo water crisis), economic disruptions (say, a major local employer shutting down), and scandals.

So what do you do when business as usual breaks down? You work hard to restore order, promise a full inquiry into what went wrong, and speak directly, clearly, and fully to three audiences: those dealing with the crisis, those most affected by it, and everyone else in your community.

This sounds simple but isn’t. That’s because, first, there’s no assurance what you do will work. You may have to try, fail, and try again. Second, you must speak to citizens and those working on the crisis without promising the unknowable (how and when the crisis will end). Finally, people around you will be demanding that you not say anything at all. After all, it’s a crisis. Why are you standing in front of TV microphones? Oh, and by the way, they’ll tell you, there are bound to be legal consequences, so it really is better to keep your mouth shut.

Ignore them. The difference between private management and public management is the public part. As a result, what you say to citizens about the crisis and your efforts to resolve it is every bit as important as what you do. In fact, I would argue that having someone in charge who is thinking about what he or she will say in public an hour later makes for better decision making.

So the first thing you can do to prepare for your first crisis is to think about how order might be restored in a range of calamities. The second thing is to think about how you would communicate these things to a frightened or angry public.

The third thing is to get to know those you’ll depend on in these situations—police, fire, public works, civil defense, key city hall staff (including communications staffers), disaster-relief organizations, and so on. If you’re in a position to do so, suggest mock disaster exercises. (One reason then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was so cool headed on Sept. 11 was that he, his staff, and the police had practiced for disasters.)

Finally, you can build relationships in areas where, if worse comes to worst, you may need help: minority communities, charitable organizations, faith communities, and so on. In almost any major crisis, you’ll need these groups’ support and assistance, but in a particular type of crisis their support will be critical. That’s when government itself is seen as the cause of the crisis (think Ferguson, Missouri or a city hall scandal). In these cases, you’ll need friends in a hurry. Do you have a list of community leaders who’ll stand behind you on a podium as you explain your actions? If not, it’s time to get busy.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Lieven Van Melckebeke licensed under Creative Commons.

Lesson Seven: Process and Results

October 2, 2014 By Otis White

The final lesson is not so much about local government as it is about you, as a reporter or blogger: Will you report on results or just on process?

By process I mean the most public parts of government: city council meetings, press conferences, city hall events, public hearings, campaigns and elections. If you are invited to it or are legally entitled to witness it through open meetings or open records laws, then that’s process.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. Process is important, and you really should cover it. After all, elections hold governments accountable, open meetings cause them to be more inclusive and thoughtful, and fair processes keep them honest. But these things aren’t the sum total of government; they’re more like the visible tip. Most of government lies beneath. If these essays on covering city hall have done anything, I hope they’ve encouraged you to go below from time to time and give things a look.

Before doing so, though, let me ask a question: Why do reporters spend so much time on the process parts of government and so little examining results? Well, let’s be honest: It’s easy. When a council member goes on a rant at a city council meeting or a protest march is staged outside city hall, the stories practically write themselves. (I know. I wrote a lot of these stories myself.) Tracing ideas as they move through local government, mapping the compromises made and collaborations created, and measuring their impact on land use and city services? That’s hard.

And, too, city hall reporting has long suffered from the poor examples set by reporters in Washington and in state capitals. In those places, public policy is often treated as if it were a performance and not a series of decisions with lasting impacts on states and the nation.

Am I being too hard on your colleagues? Well, think back to the torrent of reporting on health care reform in 2009 and 2010, the vast majority of which was about political maneuvers. Far less attention was paid to the reforms themselves: the ideas behind President Obama’s plans, where they originated, and their likelihood of success. Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, there has been even less attention paid to how the reforms are working. No wonder we were so surprised in 2013 when the health care website crashed. Once the political drama had moved on, few reporters were still paying attention.

You can do better than this—and you should. For one thing, local government isn’t nearly as large in scale or ambitions as federal or state governments. Want to meet the people implementing your city’s projects and policies? That’s easy. The results, too, can be seen and measured without much trouble. If you want to know how the downtown is doing, start with the business improvement district director, interview merchants and shoppers along Main Street, talk with a developer or two, and check a few statistics at the city planning department. You can do all of this in a day or two.

Not sure you know enough to judge a city’s performance? The things local government is concerned with aren’t hard to understand. (In fairness to those covering the Affordable Care Act, health care economics is harder.) Keep in mind the difference between strategy and services. As I’ve written, the big decisions in local government are about land use. But this is a subject you can master with a little reading and some time spent with city planners and urban studies professors. The other part of local government is service delivery. This, too, can be mastered by asking simple questions: What is the problem or need in this area? How have you tried to solve the problem or answer the need? What have been the results?

Whether it’s public safety, sanitation, transportation, or water supply, those questions will usually get you started. Check what you hear with independent observers and experts (take advantage of a nearby university), find citizens affected by the issue, and then ask to see the numbers. You can do this.

Here’s a final reason for taking the harder path of focusing on results. Process journalism, the kind that skims the surface of public policy, is rapidly becoming a commodity. Reporting that digs deeper and looks for results is, I believe, the journalism of the future. If you want a preview, check out news websites like Vox, FiveThirtyEight, and Slate’s Metropolis. These sites don’t just report what politicians say is going on; they use data and other indicators to show us what’s actually happening. At the local level, you can find similar results-focused reporting on websites in San Diego, St. Louis, Denver, and Washington, D.C.

To repeat: Please continue covering city council meetings. That’s important. But don’t stop there. Examine how government works and what it produces. If you pay attention, it’ll make for better government and a better city. And who knows? It might also make you a better reporter with a brighter future.

This is the last in a series of postings about better ways of understanding local government and writing about local politics. To read the introduction, please click here.

Photo by Thomas Claveirole licensed under Creative Commons.

Lesson Six: The Secret of Government Success

September 16, 2014 By Otis White

It is often said that Americans don’t like government. While that may be true in the singular, we certainly like it in the plural. That is, we like governments—and lots of them. There are more than 90,000 local governments in the United States: 38,910 “general purpose” governments (cities, counties, towns), 12,880 school districts, and 38,266 “special purpose” governments.

If you dig around in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census of Governments, you’ll find some interesting trends. After World War II, the number of local governments declined, due mostly to school-district consolidations. (Believe it or not, we have one-fifth the number of school districts we had in the early 1950s.) Then, in the 1970s, the trend reversed itself and the number of local governments grew, slowly but steadily. The largest number of new governments were special purpose governments (things like sewer, parks, and transit districts), but there was also growth in municipalities.

I’ve seen it in Atlanta, where I live, which in recently years has sprouted cities in unincorporated suburban areas, brand new cities with names like Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Peachtree Corners, and so on. Atlanta has a lot of governments, but we are by no means the most fragmented region in the country. That title belongs to St. Louis, where there are 90 municipal governments in St. Louis County alone—not including the actual city of St. Louis. These are mostly small places, anonymous even to those a short distance away. One, the town of Champ, has somewhere between 12 and 14 residents, depending on who’s counting. Not kidding.

If you look around your own region and start counting the governments, you may be surprised by how many you find. Keep in mind: It isn’t just cities and counties, but those rapidly multiplying special districts as well. And don’t forget the federal and state governments. Almost any big issue—transportation, economic development, public safety—will involve multiple governments. As a test, next time your district attorney announces the results of a major drug bust, count the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies represented on the podium behind her. You’ll need a tally sheet to keep track.

Point is, we live in a country that believes power is best exercised by a herd and not a shepherd. And while your city may be the largest member of the herd, it is still dependent on others—and most likely lots of others—if it wants to do anything important. The word we use for this cooperation by interests not compelled to cooperate is collaboration. If you want to take your reporting to a higher level, try seeing this cooperation (or its absence) and reporting on it. In doing so, you’ll find yourself at the heart of what makes governments successful, which is their ability to work together.

Caution: I’m not talking about, well, talk. Government leaders are good at praising cooperation. After all, most of us have had it drilled into our heads since kindergarten that we should play well together. Words, though, are one thing, actions another, and your job is to find where your city hall is doing important things with others, where it should be working with others but isn’t, how the effective collaborations work, and who’s behind them.

To understand the mechanics of collaboration, you might begin with a couple of things I’ve written. One is on how collaborations get started (and, yes, talk is a first step but only a step); the other is about the central skill involved in putting collaborations together. (You have to ask the right way.)

Then just start looking around. You may be surprised by the number of collaborations at work in your region and their importance in getting things done. I wrote a book a few years ago about how one civic project changed a city; what I discovered was it was created by a web of collaborations involving state and local governments, a public university, a host of elected officials, and numerous interests outside of government. My challenge in writing the book was to figure out who put these collaborations together and how they did it.

That’s yours, as well: See the collaboration, then figure out why it works and who made it happen. The result, I promise you, will be some of the most insightful reporting of your career—and probably the first of its kind for your news organization.

So, how do you find collaborations? I suggest two ways. First is the way I suggested in Lessons Two, Three, and Four (on where civic ideas come from, the role of city councils, and the art of compromise): Identify some big civic improvements of the last few years and reverse engineer them. This time, instead of looking for the idea path, the deal brokers, and the key compromises, ask: Who was involved in this effort? Why did they cooperate? And how were they persuaded to join in? To make the reporting interesting, look for those who did the persuading and ask: What did they say and why did it work?

This will work for big civic projects, but you’ll also learn there are everyday collaborations in your region. To find these, you’ll have to ask around. Start with the city planner’s office (planners have a good eye for these things). If your city has a downtown business improvement district, ask the BID’s director. (Like planners, BIDs are usually good at collaboration.) And, of course, pay a visit to your region’s council of governments. (Don’t know what that is? Read this.)

Then just look in some likely places for collaboration. Does your school system work with the local government on issues like pedestrian safety or recreation? Does your mayor ever meet with mayors from nearby cities? What comes from these meetings? If your region has more than one transit system, how do they manage transfers, and how do they manage fare-sharing? As you ask around, you may find that there are organizations that help with collaborations. The most obvious are the councils of governments, but you may find that civic leagues, professional organizations, and municipal associations also help introduce government leaders to one another.

Then ask this question: Where should governments be working together—but aren’t? You can interview public administration professors at a nearby university for their suggestions, but the answers may be obvious as you look around. Transit systems, for example, need to work with city planners so they can anticipate demand. Well . . . does yours? If so, how? As children walk to schools, they need safe passages. How does your school system work with the city to be sure they have them? How do your city’s public works officials coordinate with nearby cities on things like snow removal and street resurfacing projects? What kinds of mutual-assistance agreements are there between your city’s police and fire departments and those in cities nearby? How well have these worked in crises?

As you get into these stories, you’ll see the hidden structure of government, the way things actually work day to day, for better or worse. What you’ll discover is that this world is different from what is discussed at city council meetings—and radically different from what is talked about in campaigns. And during the next election cycle this will present you with a challenge: Do you bring this new understanding to your political coverage? And if so, how?

A postscript: Every region needs collaboration, even places like North Carolina and Texas where city governments tend to be big and powerful. After all, there are multiple governments even in those places, from school systems and transit authorities to state and federal agencies. But in places with lots of smaller governments, as in the Atlanta and St. Louis areas, collaboration isn’t just a good thing, it’s critical.

Because it is so fragmented, St. Louis has worried about its government structure for more than a half-century. Over that period, it has made numerous attempts at doing something about it, including full-scale government consolidation referendums. In fact, it’s still at it, through an organization called Better Together, which appears to be mounting yet another attempt at municipal merger. Good luck, since every other effort has failed, usually overwhelmingly.

If I could advise St. Louis leaders, I’d tell them to stop putting so much effort into consolidation and invest instead in collaboration. There are two reasons: First, this is likely to be much more successful in the short run. Second, in the long run, collaboration may be the best route to consolidation. That’s because as long as local leaders don’t know one another or the strengths and weaknesses of the city next door, they’re going to resist combining anything. But if their police and fire departments start coordinating activities and their planning departments work together, they’ll build the familiarity and trust that opens the door to combining services. And when there are enough combined services, who knows? The voters may decide it’s time to take the final step and just merge the cities.

This is one of a series of postings about better ways of understanding local government and writing about local politics. To read the introduction, please click here.

Photo by Vu Nguyen licensed under Creative Commons.

The Magicians of Main Street

August 20, 2014 By Otis White

If you know nothing else about cities, know this: City governments don’t really run them. They police, regulate, and plan cities; they facilitate their growth and tend their needs; they supply some services. But run cities? No more than the National Park Service “runs” national parks. The parks run themselves. Park rangers make sure humans don’t do anything so bad that it interferes with nature’s order.

So who runs cities? Well, they run themselves. But their direction is set by a multitude of interests working together, from neighborhood groups and nonprofits to local businesses and foundations—with governments playing an important but not exclusive role. This has always been true, but as I’ve written, it is growing even more so today. Some of the interests that have a say in a city’s direction are relatively new, like neighborhood groups and business improvement districts, but others have been around a long, long time.

One that has endured is the local chamber of commerce. Chambers have been so central to civic leadership for so long, it’s amazing that a serious history of these organizations hasn’t been written. Until now.

Chris Mead, senior vice president of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, is the author of “The Magicians of Main Street: America and its Chambers of Commerce, 1768-1945.” I found the book fascinating—and you may too. (Full disclosure: Chris sent me an early draft, and I made some small suggestions. He was wise enough not to follow all of them.)

Among the things I learned from reading “The Magicians of Main Street”:

Where chambers of commerce came from and why they’re called chambers as opposed to, say, associations. Answer: The first chamber was organized in France in 1599, where it was called a chamber de commerce. The idea and name jumped the English Channel to Great Britain, then the Atlantic to North America, where chambers caught on almost immediately among the sociable, business-minded Americans.
How far back in American history they go, and how resilient they are. By the time of the American Revolution, there were fully functioning chambers in cities like New York and Charleston. Alas, these two chose the wrong side in the war, which caused them to fold after independence—only to be revived almost immediately, this time with business people in charge whose loyalty was unquestioned.
How the focus of chambers shifted in the mid-1800s. In the early years, chambers were focused on, well, commerce—specifically, international trade. But in time, they moved toward the things we associate with chambers today: improving and promoting their cities and regions.

And here’s where I found Chris’ book especially interesting: Turns out that nearly every important civic improvement of the 19th and early 20th centuries (canal-building, railroads, highway construction, air travel, industrial development, tourism, anti-corruption efforts, city planning) were either helped along by chambers or outright invented by them.

Along the way chambers did surprising things. Charles Lindbergh’s history-making flight across the Atlantic? St. Louis’ chamber of commerce raised money for it and got an early version of naming rights in return. (That’s why Lindbergh’s plane was called “The Spirit of St. Louis.”) Al Capone, the gangster who terrorized Chicago in the 1920s? The Chicago chamber played a role in putting him in prison. (That Eliot Ness guy got the credit, of course.) The Miss America Pageant? That was a chamber of commerce invention, along with a string of world’s fairs and college bowl games. Even Punxsutawney Phil, the star of Groundhog Day, was created by a chamber of commerce.

This is not to say chambers were always on the right side of history. Some were supportive of segregation and unconcerned about bigotry. Chris points these things out, too.

But there’s much to learn from studying these enduring civic organizations. One thing is how consistent they’ve been over the years. After the Civil War, chambers everywhere created a kind of civic agenda around transportation, education, good government (or, at least, a business person’s definition of good government), economic development, and community image. They’re still focused on these things.

Another is how effective they’ve been—sometimes spectacularly so. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was in the news not long ago for a bridge scandal. But all the attention made me wonder: Who thought up this government agency, which owns and operates airports, seaports, bridges, tunnels, and transit in the New York area, and then sold the idea to two governors, two state legislatures, and Congress? Chris’ book gave me the answer: A chamber did.

Finally, “The Magicians of Main Street” left me with an even deeper appreciation for civic volunteerism. You would think if there were a group that would be indifferent to civic work, it would be business owners and executives. After all, they celebrate competition and individual accomplishment, not collective action, and an executive’s time is so valuable, why should you expect her to give it away? But, it turns out, business people are among the easiest to organize in most cities, as chambers have shown us time and again.

I’m not sure why that is so, but it is. And, as I learned from reading “The Magicians of Main Street,” it has been this way since businessmen wore tricorne hats.

Footnote: You can buy the book on Amazon by going here.

Photo by Adam Fagen licensed under Creative Commons.

Lesson Five: Vision and Demographics

August 5, 2014 By Otis White

My aim in these postings is to help you, as a reporter or blogger, understand local government and avoid some of the problems I had as a city hall reporter. As I said in the introduction, I never truly “got” local government when I covered city hall. I kept looking for what I’d learned in college political science classes—that government decision making was about interests clashing over public policy. I was disappointed to find city councils focused instead on things that seemed smaller and less interesting: arbitrating zoning disputes, moving small amounts of money among city departments, listening to neighborhood complaints, voting on construction projects. Where were the interest groups, I wondered, the lobbyists, the committee hearings, the position papers, the public policies?

It wasn’t until much later that I understood local governments weren’t smaller versions of federal and state governments; they were focused on something different—not public policy but people and places, how these elements interact, and how they could be made to interact better. Land use, I learned, was the central concern of city and county governments, and it is local governments’ ability to place infrastructure and regulate land uses (not only on public streets and spaces but private property) that gives them power and importance.

A city council’s debate, then, about locating a civic center isn’t a boring discussion about another construction project—it’s a bet on where and how the city will grow. Guess right, and the area around it could be transformed. Guess wrong, and it could be a drain on government revenues and a huge missed opportunity.

And you can go down the list: Where transit stops are placed, sidewalks built, parks located, schools situated; whether to build a performing arts center, start a bike-sharing program, or help the local college expand; how to regulate food trucks and ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft; whether to give economic development incentives to businesses or help a small-business incubator get off the ground. These decisions don’t look like much close up, but collectively they add up to a vision of the city, with each a step toward that vision.

One of your most important jobs as city hall reporter, then, should be to figure out the vision. If your city has been through a full-scale planning process recently, this may be easy. Many will know the city’s intended destination and how it aims to get there. Your task is to put these things into words and explain what they mean, why they are important, and what alternative visions were considered.

If the city hasn’t been through a visioning process or comprehensive planning effort, the vision could be known only to a few. So your first task is to piece together the vision by interviewing those with a say in city decisions and comparing it with the decisions they’ve made and the plans that guide them. (Hint: Talk to the city planning director and the local chamber of commerce president before interviewing the mayor and council members.)

It’s possible, of course, that there is no broadly shared vision, that the city council is feeling its way through important decisions. But trust me on this: Having no direction doesn’t mean the city isn’t going somewhere. It just isn’t going there by design. In these cases, your job is to see where the drift is taking the city, tell your readers what that place is likely to be, and ask leaders if they’re comfortable with the destination.

All of this brings up some questions: What does a vision look like? How would you know if your city is achieving it? And if the city is just drifting along, how can you see where it’s headed?

Actually, it’s pretty simple. Look at the demographics.

Go back to the central issue for cities: People and places, how they interact, and how they can be made to interact better. The tools that a city has are the “places” part of that statement—how it develops public places, regulates private ones, and serves all with infrastructure. The results are the people and what they do with those places. Remember the famous Watergate adage, “follow the money”? If you want to know where your city is headed, follow the demographics.

A vision, then, is an effort to picture who will live in, work in, and visit your city in the future, what they will do for entertainment, how they will relate to one another and the city’s physical assets, how they will move around, and what impressions newcomers will form. And behind the vision should be a plan: In order to make this ideal future become a reality, here are the things we must do.

Describing the vision is important, but you need to know more. Is the vision obtainable? Can the city truly attract those it wants and needs in order to be successful? To answer this, you’ll have to take a deep dive into demographics, starting with where the city is today and how it is changing.

Here are some questions to begin with: Who lives in your city by age, income, educational attainment, and ethnicity? How are these numbers changing over, say, the last 10 years? How do these changes compare with cities of similar size and type? How do they compare with nearby jurisdictions, such as suburbs? (You can find these things from U.S. Census data but call your regional planning agency. It may have additional data and even projections.)

Now drill down a bit: Where in your city are the greatest changes taking place today? If the city is investing in some areas or services (such as transit), how is that affecting the demographics in those neighborhoods? (Again, look not just at population numbers in those tracts but age, income, and education.)

All of this will give you some idea of how realistic your city’s vision is. If the city is aging rapidly and wants to attract more young people and you can’t find a single neighborhood where young people are replacing older families, it’ll be a tough slog—and you can say so. If, though, there are several neighborhoods that millennials are moving to, then there’s your lede. Interview the newcomers, explain the neighborhood’s attraction, and give readers a glimpse of the future.

As you’re getting used to demographics, don’t forget that cities serve more than residents. They’re also centers for work, entertainment, and tourism. Employee demographics aren’t as easily obtained as residential demographics, but governments do track the types of jobs being created as well as the number. I suggest starting with a federal database called County Business Patterns. Be patient: You’ll have to immerse yourself in things like NAICS codes and learn some basic spreadsheet techniques, but pretty soon you’ll be able to figure out how employment is changing in your city. And the same guidelines apply: If your city wants to be a center of technology and can’t show any growth in that area, then you can be properly skeptical.

Tourism and entertainment statistics will be harder still to come by; they’re kept locally and some are sketchy. But it’s worth the effort to learn who comes to your city and for what purposes. You may, for instance, be able to track restaurant sales figures over time, which will tell you whether city efforts to build an entertainment economy are working. If your city has invested in a convention center, the statistics on its use should be revealing.

Armed with a little curiosity and a few spreadsheet skills, then, you’ll quickly master the changing demographics of your city and turn out some great stories. But remember: You’re a city hall reporter, so your aim isn’t just to report what’s happening but to compare the government’s intentions and actions to the results. If there’s a vision, is it obtainable? If the city is drifting, where is it headed? If the city is making investments, are they working? Demographics will give you the answers.

Three cautions about fairness. First, be aware of the lag effect. Depending on economic conditions, a city can wait years after opening a transit station before developers start building transit-oriented buildings, and even more time before it’s reflected in the population changes. Ask independent experts, like academics and consultants, how long the lag should be.

Be aware too that government census reports are backward looking. They can tell you what happened but not what’s happening right now or what is yet to come. That was a big reason so many were surprised by the great urban turnaround of the 1990s. It had been underway for years before the 2000 Census awoke us to it. So if the demographics don’t reflect what you’re seeing in the neighborhoods, it may be because no one has collected the statistics or run the numbers yet.

Second, luck and circumstance play bigger roles in cities than we sometimes acknowledge. Local governments can do all the right things and yet see little return. Or they can do only a little and see huge changes. Williston, North Dakota, for example, was a sleepy little prairie town for most of its history. Then oil was discovered, its population doubled, and rents soared to levels approaching those in Manhattan. How much credit does the city government deserve for Williston’s growth? Probably not much. In the opposite way, we ought to give some credit to cities like Cleveland that have worked mightily to make themselves more appealing. Despite progress (it was named the site of the 2016 Republican National Convention and some of its neighborhoods are reviving) Cleveland hasn’t stemmed its population losses yet. Is it fair, then, to compare Cleveland to fast-growing cities like Miami or Houston—or would it be fairer to compare it to other cities trying to reverse a growth spiral? I think the latter is fairer.

Third, be smart as well as fair with demographics on ethnicity and income. These are politically sensitive subjects—for good reason. All cities that are successful over the long haul are diverse ones. So don’t let your reporting be an excuse for excluding some, as the city seeks others.

This is one of a series of postings about better ways of understanding local government and writing about local politics. To read the introduction, please click here.

Photo by Corey Templeton licensed under Creative Commons.

How to Manage a Crisis Before It Happens

Lesson Seven: Process and Results

Lesson Six: The Secret of Government Success

The Magicians of Main Street

Lesson Five: Vision and Demographics

About Otis White

The Great Project

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