Archives for 2018

What Smart Mayors Can Learn from the Turnaround of Central Park

December 12, 2018 By Otis White

Of all the urban turnaround stories of the past 50 years, none is more impressive to me than the restoration of New York’s Central Park. When I got to know Central Park in 1973, it was sliding into urban wasteland. Vandals had wrecked its buildings and defaced its statues. Every surface was covered in graffiti, even its rocks. Trails were overgrown with invasive shrubs, and the park’s magnificent meadows had been trampled into dust bowls.

And, then, of course, there was crime. In 1981, police recorded 781 robberies in Central Park, but that was surely only a fraction of what took place there. Many victims did not bother to report crimes. Even the cops who patrolled the park did so only in the safety of two-officer cars.

If this is still your image of Central Park, then you owe it a visit. The 840-acre park, whose first section opened to the public in 1858, has been returned to its original beauty. People are using it in record numbers (there were 43 million visitors last year), but no longer abusing it. The trails are inviting and the grass is lush and green again. And as one who has walked across it recently, I can report it is as safe as any place in the city.

So how did this great turnaround happen? There were many factors, but the most important was that New York found a way of managing public spaces through shared responsibility. Founded in 1980, the Central Park Conservancy was the first nonprofit to take the lead in restoring and managing a major city-owned park. Since then, scores of similar organizations have sprung up around the country, from the Balboa Park Conservancy in San Diego to the Piedmont Park Conservancy in Atlanta.

If you’re thinking of starting a nonprofit like this in your city, I have good news. The founder of the Central Park Conservancy, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, recently published a memoir, “Saving Central Park,” that will take you inside the Conservancy’s amazing success. You’ll learn Rogers’ “three Ps”: “patience, passion, persistence.” You’ll discover the value of a vision. In her case, it was a desire to return the park to its 19^th-century design. And you’ll learn why a detailed plan of restoration is important for guiding staff and raising money. (It gave the Conservancy, Rogers explains, “the equivalent of a donor shopping list.”)

These are valuable things to know if you’re starting such a group. But I’d like to turn things around and ask what local-government officials could learn from the Central Park experience. If a group of citizens wanted to form a group to restore a park in your city, what should a smart mayor do?

The first thing is to recognize what nonprofits are good at and where they are weak. Their strengths are their focus, inventiveness, and ability to raise money and muster volunteers.

And weaknesses? They’re not good at managing public perceptions. At one point or another, it seems, the Central Park Conservancy angered nearly every group claiming an interest in the park, from birdwatchers to tennis players. And when it did, it was vulnerable to the “who appointed you?” charge. Lesson: A smart mayor will coach nonprofits on politics and occasionally bail them out of controversies.

Not surprisingly, in the case of Central Park’s renaissance one group with a high level of suspicion was city parks employees. Had the Central Park Conservancy not started when it did, as the city was still on the edge of bankruptcy, it is hard to imagine that the parks department would have ever welcomed the nonprofit’s help. Lesson: A smart mayor will spend time counseling city employees on the value of strong outside partners, because all they will see at first are threats.

Finally, a smart mayor will be patient because strong nonprofits aren’t born that way. They become strong over time, as they accomplish things, learn from their mistakes, recruit a strong board and staff, and find their vision and voice.

So a smart mayor will give a fledgling conservancy some space to grow. The Central Park Conservancy worked for 17 years with nothing more than a handshake agreement with three mayors. Only in 1997 did the city feel confident enough to turn the keys of the park over to its staff. Today, every worker in Central Park, including city employees and Conservancy staff, reports to the Central Park administrator, who happens to be the president of the Conservancy. (Important to note: The Conservancy also supplies three-quarters of the park’s budget.)

That level of competence, public trust, and institutional strength isn’t built overnight. And a smart mayor doesn’t just give power away. But when she finds the right partners, she’ll trade power for results.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by gigi_nyc licensed under Creative Commons.

How Communities Can Thrive in a Post-Newspaper World

August 29, 2018 By Otis White

I understand why most local-government officials and many other civic leaders don’t like reporters. Some journalists can be uninformed, easily distracted by the sensational, or strangely uninterested in the bigger and better stories that are happening around them. But, man, are you going to miss these folks when they are gone.

That’s because the void left by the loss of independent, professional reporters will be filled by far less reliable sources of news and other information: rumor, gossip and particularly social media, which so often are dominated by angry or frightened people with little interest in facts. And this will be much, much worse.

This isn’t a warning about the future. It’s happening now as newspapers reduce coverage or simply close up shop, so that local governments that were once covered daily are left in silence. The situation is so dire in New Jersey that the state legislature recently put up $5 million to encourage somebody, anybody, to start covering these “news deserts.”

But assuming no one starts a professional news organization in your community, what can a local government do to connect with its citizens in a post-newspaper world?

I put this question to a former mayor of a city known for its tight bond with citizens. Decatur is a close-in suburb of Atlanta that’s beloved by urbanists for its walkable, transit-oriented downtown and pleasant neighborhoods. It has a well-run local government and was recently named an All-America City by the National Civic League.

Call a meeting in Decatur and the citizens will turn out. I know this because I was involved in a planning effort there in 2010 that began with a large-scale citizen engagement effort. Hundreds of people participated in long meetings about what the city could be. Many of their ideas are being realized today.

Not that you would know any of this if you lived elsewhere in the Atlanta area. That’s because the daily newspapers stopped covering Decatur’s city commission meetings long ago. The only time reporters show up at Decatur City Hall today is when something bad happens, which is blessedly infrequent.

So how has Decatur maintained such a tight bond with its citizens in a post-newspaper era? That’s what I wanted to know from Bill Floyd, who was a city commissioner for 22 years and mayor for most of that time.

I started by asking about a colorful monthly newsletter called Decatur Focus that the city mails to every household. Was this the way Decatur kept citizens informed, basically by starting its own publication?

Well, Floyd said in his polite way, Decatur Focus was useful for communicating the city’s plans. “You have to stay in touch with people,” he said. And he was amazed by how many people read the newsletter and commented on it.

But, no, it wasn’t the newsletter alone. In fact, Floyd went on, there is no single way cities can communicate in a social media world. Nor would a single communicator be effective, even one at city hall. Rather, he said, you need an army of communicators in the social media, most of them residents. And Decatur has built just such an army through its endless citizen-engagement efforts.

The bedrocks are Decatur 101 and the Citizens Police Academy. Decatur 101 is what it sounds like, two-hour classes on how the city works, delivered over a seven-week period. Other cities have programs like this; this one is simply done better. Started in 2000, Decatur 101 became so popular that in 2006 the city began running two classes, with morning and evening sessions. There’s a waiting list of citizens who want a spot. Later, Decatur 101 inspired the Citizens Police Academy, a 10-week course on the local police and criminal-justice systems. (There’s even a Junior Police Academy for 11-to-14-year-olds.)

The result of these and other city programs, Floyd said, is that there are hundreds of citizens who know how to get information from the city. So, if a rumor starts on a neighborhood website about, say, car break-ins, or if someone spreads falsehoods about a rezoning case, a citizen who has been through Decatur 101 or the Police Academy is bound to see it, call a city official and have the facts in short order. “And when somebody says, ‘Here’s what the city says,’ it just stops the rumors cold,” Floyd added.

Decatur did not create its citizen-engagement programs in response to social media. There were no social media in 2000. It started them because it believed that informed, involved citizens made it a better place. That the city discovered a way to thrive in a post-newspaper world was a happy, unintended benefit. Wouldn’t accomplishing the same thing be good news for your community?

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Felix63 licensed under Creative Commons.

Seven Habits of Highly Successful Civic Projects

May 9, 2018 By Otis White

Incremental change is change by the inch, and it’s what wise leaders do over long periods. In his 12 years in office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg remade huge swaths of New York, rezoning 40 percent of the city, but he did it so quietly that few noticed at the time.

In his 31 years in office, Charleston, S.C. Mayor Joseph Riley had an even subtler impact on his city. Yes, there were big things he facilitated—the launching of the Spoleto arts festival, for one—but Riley’s true legacy is in the fabric of the city, the way streets were tended, buildings cared for, and parks placed. Under Riley’s long watch, Charleston became a national treasure.

Other longtime mayors have had that kind of impact on cities. Boston’s late mayor, Thomas Menino, once declared that “visionaries don’t get things done” and denied that he had a vision for his city. He preferred the term “urban mechanic.” But Menino’s steady tinkering with services and amenities made Boston gleam as never before.

So, yes, we need steady, incremental change. But, with apologies to Mayor Menino, sometimes we also need great leaps, the kind of visionary projects he disdained. This is especially so in cities that are depressed or dispirited, that need a change of direction or attitude.

So what is a great project? It can be anything that signals a new direction: a stylish convention center, a 21st century transit system, a signature downtown park, a beautiful riverwalk, an exciting arts center. One mayor described these things as “man on the moon” projects–efforts that are bold, visible, a clear break from the past, and undeniably successful.

I’ve studied great projects for years, tracing how they came to be, who supported them and at what point, the obstacles they faced and overcame, and why they ultimately succeeded. And I’ve noticed some common elements among these otherwise very different undertakings. Here are seven:

Most great projects start outside city hall. That is, they begin with a citizens group or nonprofit that brings its idea to city hall. Smart elected officials aren’t threatened by these outside ideas; they welcome them.
They depend on collaborations to succeed. This may be why so many successful projects start outside city hall. By the time the government is involved, partners are already in place.
There’s something in the project that resonates with the public, even if it isn’t apparent why. This is why elected officials should ask those advancing a big project to take their idea to the public before asking for city hall’s support. After all, who knew New York needed a linear park 30 feet above street level before the organizers of the High Line project created a demand for it?
The turning point is when a leader sees the way forward. This is where political leadership becomes crucial. A great project can grow organically but only to a point. For the project to succeed, someone in power has to figure out how to overcome its obstacles and structure the project for success. This can involve a small group, but in most cases it’s the work of a single experienced leader.
In the structure that emerges, the city’s role remains limited. Average leaders seize control of projects, but great ones are comfortable sharing the wheel. That’s because they know that, if you lose the collaboration, you lose the energy, creativity, and resources that partnerships bring.
As the project advances, other interests will support the project for reasons that are wholly unrelated to yours. This doesn’t mean the project has lost focus. It’s usually a result of the excitement the project is generating. So take this as a sign of success.
When the project is completed, a whole new set of challenges will present themselves, and smart leaders will anticipate them as well. Nothing is sadder than yesterday’s great project that has fallen on hard times (say, New York’s Central Park in the 1970s). The time to think about long-term support is before the project is finished. Here again, collaboration is the key. After all, mayors come and go, and their interest in parks may wax and wane, but the Central Park Conservancy remains focused—and is here to stay.

Can a leader be both an incrementalist and a visionary? Well, yes, but it may be the wrong question to ask. A better question is, what does your city need at this time—a great project or steady progress? If the wind is at your city’s back, incremental change may be all it needs. But if the wind shifts, you may need something big and bold. When that happens, keep an eye out for ideas from the outside that arrive with a few good habits.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen licensed under Creative Commons.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Governments

February 7, 2018 By Otis White

When we talk about good management, we’re really talking about two things: Doing the right things and doing them in the right way. The vast majority of management advice is about the second part, doing things in the right way.

But what about the first? How does a government know the right things to do? And what can you do if a government loses its way?

It isn’t a hypothetical question. I’ve seen governments that were lost. Many cities staggered through the 1960s and 1970s, attempting one half-hearted solution after another as their middle classes fled, downtowns declined, and businesses moved to the suburbs. It took decades to find a set of strategies for turning things around.

And today, it seems to me, it is states that are most at risk, due not so much to overwhelming problems as to divide-and-conquer politics and ideology. We’ve seen it recently in places like Kansas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, where narrowly elected legislative majorities rammed through laws punishing labor unions or gay citizens, recklessly outsourcing public services, or cutting taxes to the point that education funding was in jeopardy.

I’ve detailed elsewhere why some states have lost their way. But a more interesting question is, what can we do now? How do you put a government back on track once its elected officials have jumped the track?

My answer: Take a page from what local governments learned about turning to the citizens. Starting in the 1980s, some cities started convening residents in open-ended discussions about what they needed and wanted, using a process known as “visioning.”

It was based on two principles. First, you ask citizens things they know from their own experiences, such as the kind of city or neighborhood they want to live in. Second, you let them talk about these things first in small groups, and then report out their ideas. The process tends to refine the ideas and ground them in reality.

Out of this process came demands for many of the things that make cities work today: walkable neighborhoods, lively downtowns, new investments in parks and trails, greater collaboration between schools and local government, transit improvements, and bike lanes. In recent years, these conversations have turned up a new concern, that urban success is depriving cities of the human diversity that fuels them.

Could such conversations be held across an entire state? And if so, who should hold them? State legislatures would hardly be the ones to ask citizens how to fix the problems they’ve played such a large role in creating.

The answer to the first question is yes, there’s no reason we can’t scale visioning to the size of a state. As for the second question, I would like to nominate a surprising convener: state political parties.

My reason is simple. Bad politics are at the heart of what ails state governments today. And the way to fix bad politics is with good politics. If one party (probably the minority party) listens to citizens in a systematic way, reports honestly what they say, and builds its legislative agenda around those desires, it will change politics for the better . . . and possibly make a majority out of the minority party. Warning: Running a dishonest visioning process, one in which you stack the meetings with partisans or report only the ideas you like, is worse than running no process at all. My advice: Trust the process.

But trust it to do what? What is it that citizens are likely to say in these meetings? Well, no one can know for sure until the meetings are held, but based on my experience at the local level, they’ll ask for things that can make their lives and communities better. Sensible things like better public schools, greater access to vocational and higher education, more transportation options, help with economic development, and amenities that might help their cities or towns hold on to their young people. For the most part, they won’t demand things that punish other citizens, satisfy extremist groups, or reward special interests.

In this way, citizens can help focus states once more on their serious work in human development, economic development, and infrastructure. This won’t thrill the ideologues. But it’ll delight the citizens.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Josh Graciano licensed under Creative Commons.

What Smart Mayors Can Learn from the Turnaround of Central Park

How Communities Can Thrive in a Post-Newspaper World

Seven Habits of Highly Successful Civic Projects

When Bad Things Happen to Good Governments

About Otis White

The Great Project

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