Ideas

A Reservoir for Civic Progress

August 7, 2019 By Otis White

If you want to see how civic projects can move communities forward, take a look at the Bridge Center in Baton Rouge, La. Or, at least, at what it will be when it opens next year.

The Bridge Center will be a place for people suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, and, in particular, an alternative to police and EMTs taking them to jail or an emergency room. This “third option,” as advocates like to call it, should bring a cascade of benefits: relieving overcrowding at emergency rooms and the county jail while dealing with the region’s addiction and mental illness issues more humanely and productively.

It will even be easier for the cops. Processing a prisoner at the county jail can take an hour’s time or more; waiting at an emergency room can take even longer. The Bridge Center’s aim: Complete the handoff in 15 minutes. And did I mention that it will save money? One study estimated that the Bridge Center will save up to $55 million in its first decade over incarceration or emergency room treatment. Little wonder then that nearly every public official, from the mayor to the county coroner, supported it.

But it’s also an example of how hard such things can be. The project began five years ago when a group of law enforcement officials, mental-health advocates, public-health experts, judicial-system leaders, and elected officials met to study Baton Rouge’s problems and identify solutions. Experts from around the country were brought in. There were group visits to a center in San Antonio, Texas, that became the Bridge Center’s model.

A clinical-design team outlined a series of services the Bridge Center could offer and how they could work together. A study suggested how the center might be funded. A nonprofit board was assembled that included the district attorney, the sheriff, mental-health care advocates, physicians, and other stakeholders.

With this mountain of testimonials, documentation, near-unanimous political support, heartrending stories of loved ones lost in the jail, and favorable news coverage, supporters asked voters in December 2016 for a modest tax increase to get the center started. They said no. It took two more years and a massive citizen-engagement effort to get a different result. Last December, voters in East Baton Rouge Parish, where Baton Rouge is located, finally said yes to a 1.5-mil increase in property taxes. Looking back, local officials are convinced the Bridge Center was worth the effort. “It was absolutely a step forward,” says Mayor Sharon Weston Broome.

Then again, local government leaders could afford to be patient with the slow pace. They have an ally, an organization that managed the Bridge Center proposal from first meeting through months of research and two referendums and will stick with it through ribbon-cutting: the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (BRAF), a community foundation that has evolved into a kind of research and development center for civic progress. BRAF’s fingerprints are on numerous projects, from a plan for downtown Baton Rouge to a nature center that takes visitors into a Louisiana swamp. It is trying to launch passenger rail service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. And this is just a partial list.

By managing so many civic projects, BRAF applies the lessons of one initiative to the next. (One lesson: Don’t take referendums for granted.) Along the way, it has gained a reputation for getting things done, which opens even more doors. As foundation President John Davies says, “When the Baton Rouge Area Foundation asks people to come to a meeting, they will usually come.” And these advantages grow over time. While elected leaders come and go, BRAF Executive Vice President John Spain notes, “we are consistently here.”

Mayor Broome is a fan. “We are extremely fortunate to have a strong foundation like BRAF in our community,” she says. Still, she’s careful to add that the foundation doesn’t dictate to local government; it collaborates. As she sees it, the city and the foundation are “co-creators” of civic progress.

I’ve seen other organizations play this R&D role in a community, at least for a while. Typically, it is a business group such as a chamber of commerce. Occasionally, a university will step up. But most communities have no organized way of learning how civic progress works. They depend on extraordinary leaders (some elected, most not) to figure things out. And here’s the problem with that: In a lifetime, an extraordinary leader may take on one or two big civic projects before drifting out of civic work. When she leaves, her knowledge, skills, and relationships leave with her.

So you may want to ask: How does my community pass civic knowledge from one leader to the next? How do leaders build relationships? How do good ideas find funding? How do they survive disappointments?

If there isn’t an organization or at least a process for learning from successful projects and storing civic knowledge, good ideas may come like rain striking parched ground. They make a splash, raise hopes and then evaporate. Is it time to build a reservoir?

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Charley Lhasa 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.

How Odd Couples, Complementary Needs, and Chance Can Change Cities

October 18, 2017 By Otis White

On a Sunday morning a few weeks from now, the 47th running of the New York Marathon will begin on Staten Island as 50,000 runners and wheelchair athletes thunder over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. They’ll loop through Bay Ridge and into Williamsburg, then cross into Queens like an invading army. They’ll begin thinning out in Long Island City before heading into Manhattan across the high-arching Queensboro Bridge (the heartbreak hill of New York marathoners).

In Manhattan they’ll turn right and head north until they reach the Willis Avenue Bridge and cross into the Bronx, where they’ll basically make a U-turn back to Manhattan. The rest of the 26.2-mile run will be, comparatively speaking, a breeze, through Harlem, into the Upper East Side, with a triumphant finish in Central Park. The world’s best runners will finish in under two and a half hours. Mere mortals will take a while longer.

It’s an amazing spectacle. And if you’re lucky enough to see it (or better yet, participate in it), you may wonder: Where did the inspired idea of running a marathon through five boroughs and all these neighborhoods come from? And what does it tell us about how things like this happen in cities?

Answer: It came from a meeting in 1975, where two people found a way of connecting their entirely different needs in a way that created not just a common solution but a sensation. The central figures were Percy Sutton, the Manhattan borough president, and Fred Lebow, head of the New York Road Runners.

The two could not have been more different. Sutton was a polished lawyer and politician. Lebow was a Romanian refugee who made money in New York’s garment district before falling in love with long-distance running. Sutton knew power; Lebow knew showmanship. In short, they were the odd couple.

Their needs, too, were completely different. During one of New York’s worst years ever, Sutton was looking to change the narrative about his city, to give it something hopeful in the Bicentennial year of 1976. (He also hoped to become New York’s first black mayor.) Lebow wanted something to distinguish New York’s marathon from the much older and better known Boston Marathon. At the time, New York’s race was run entirely inside Central Park, with runners dodging cyclists and families pushing strollers.

What brought them together was a misunderstanding. Lebow and others were talking about running the marathon in the streets (as Boston’s was). By the time the idea reached Sutton, it had somehow become a race through every one of New York’s boroughs. Sutton was intrigued by the idea; Lebow, once he heard what was on the table, was horrified. (The cost, the logistics, the likelihood that something would go wrong . . . this was a crazy idea.)

And here’s where the magic happened. Once they sat down and started talking, the two men found answers to every objection. And more: They found greatness in the idea. This wasn’t just a partial answer to New York’s image problems or a way to make the New York Marathon distinctive. This was a way of creating a spectacle that could rival 1945’s V-J celebrations in Times Square . . . and, if successful, could be held every year.

Their relationship held Sutton and Lebow together as they worked through the security, logistics, organizational, and cost issues. But the opportunity of a great civic spectacle became their driving force.

If anything, the New York Marathon has grown beyond anything Sutton and Lebow could have imagined: it’s a showcase of great runners (and tens of thousands of average ones) and great urban neighborhoods, an economic and tourism boost for the city, an irresistible draw for the news media, and a civic celebration. But it also is an illustration of how legendary civic projects come about: when odd-couple leaders find ways of connecting their needs and creating solutions that become greater than the problems they began with. You see it in the origins of Atlanta’s Beltline project and the reinvention of Denver’s Union Station.

There is no way to plan for these things. Having an open door and lots of relationships helps. So does having a creative mind that can connect needs in creating solutions. But luck plays a role. How else can you account for the fact that, had Percy Sutton not misunderstood Fred Lebow’s original idea, we would not today have one of the world’s greatest athletic events and urban celebrations?

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Peter Miller licensed under Creative Commons.

Leadership as “a Kind of Genius”

May 14, 2015 By Otis White

Twenty-five years ago, as I was growing interested in how cities produce leaders and leaders shape cities, I heard a state business association president define leadership. A leader, he said, “is someone who helps people get where they want to go.”

He was speaking to a community leadership class, and I could sense the audience deflate. That’s it? Help people go somewhere? Like a bus driver? What about organizing constituencies, offering a vision, and persuading the public? What about standing up for people—or standing up to the powerful? What about holding office?

And, yet, I had to admit he was on to something. Organization and persuasion are skills. Visions can be supplied by others. Standing up to the powerful and holding office are roles. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that helping people get where they want to go (and, one hopes, need to go) isn’t a bad definition of what leaders do. It’s just . . . incomplete.

So allow me to complete the definition. A leader is someone who helps people get where they want to go . . . by seeing the opportunity for getting there.

Seeing the opportunity—the narrow, sometimes temporary passage through which change can happen—is the genius of leadership. And herding people through that passage is the practice of leadership. What the genius and the practice require is a sense of how things fit together, a tactical vision, a willingness to learn from experience, and a saintly patience with people—but a patience that’s bounded by the resolve to do something meaningful.

If this sounds abstract, trust me; there are examples all around you. Here in Atlanta, I’ve seen these traits in people who nurtured projects great and small, from the creation of the BeltLine, a circle of parks and trails that’s transforming entire neighborhoods, to the building of a roundabout that fixed an impossible intersection at the gates of Emory University and breathed life into a small retail district.

In both cases, the leader was someone who recognized the value of these projects, sized up the difficulties, figured out the path forward, and patiently guided others along it. (Interested? You can hear the BeltLine story here and the roundabout story here.)

But how exactly did they do it? What are the steps in seeing and seizing opportunities? And how can you become one of these everyday geniuses?

You can find some of the answers in a book called “A Kind of Genius” by Sam Roberts, the New York Times’ urban affairs reporter. It’s about a man who took on some of New York’s toughest problems in the 1960s and 1970s, figured out practical, even elegant solutions, and got them implemented. His name was Herb Sturz.

Herb who? Roberts’ point exactly. Sturz was an “unsung hero, shrewd social engineer and social entrepreneur” who had an impressive but largely unnoticed impact on New York, first by reforming New York’s bail bond system (and inspiring similar reforms around the country), then pioneering ways of dealing with substance abuse. His final challenge was the one most apparent to residents and visitors today, the cleanup of Times Square.

You’ll be impressed by these stories. But the real reason for reading Roberts’ book is to learn how Sturz worked: by listening carefully, studying systems, proposing small-scale experiments, quantifying the results, answering objections, and winning over even the most skeptical officeholders. You won’t be surprised to learn that, as a child, Sturz spent a long illness learning to play chess and could see six moves ahead in his mind.

Here’s how Roberts explains the Sturz approach: “He spotted things other people hadn’t seen, even things that had been staring them in the face every day. He would pose questions that they hadn’t asked, even when those questions seemed mundane. And by peppering participants at every level with even more questions, by meticulously dissecting the responses, by crafting hypothetical fixes and subjecting them to challenging testing and experimentation, he tried his hand at transforming illusions into practical answers.”

Herb Sturz was a remarkable leader, but I’ve seen similar traits in others who’ve accomplished big things in public life. They ask good questions. They listen intently. They experiment, observe, and quantify. They see how systems respond. They answer objections. They’re patient. But when an opportunity presents itself and the way forward opens, they are decisive and relentless.

At the end of the day, these leaders get people where they want to go, but often by a road no one else could have imagined. And that’s what makes them a kind of genius.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Steven Fettig licensed under Creative Commons.

Lesson One: It’s All About Land Use

May 28, 2014 By Otis White

OK, that’s an exaggeration. Some things about local government aren’t about land use—public education, for example, and some local services, such as sanitation and public health. But it’s astonishing how many things in local governments do touch on land use.

Some of these things are obvious, like zoning and building permits, downtown renewal efforts and neighborhood development. But others are not so obvious, such as transportation, parks, sports arenas, and festivals.

Transportation is a good example. During my years as a city hall reporter, I never heard city officials talk about the connection between transportation and land use, except in a broad, economic development context. Oh, sure, they talked at length about highways, sidewalks, roads, and transit on the one hand, and the need to turn around parts of the city on the other—but not once (in my presence, at least) did a mayor, city council member, or even a planning director connect the two. It wasn’t until the 1990s that I heard local officials talk about using transportation to shape the places they passed through.

Today you can hardly avoid the subject if you’re a reasonably perceptive reporter talking with reasonably cognizant local officials. The growing awareness of how transportation shapes land use is why there’s such interest these days in bike lanes, walking, and transit. These forms of transportation concentrate land uses, as opposed to cars, which spread them out. Denser land uses create livelier urban environments. And livelier urban environments change how people interact with place—my description of the central issue for local governments.

And transportation is just one of those things whose connection to land use is more appreciated today. Take parks. Until the 1990s, most local officials saw them as urban amenities. And if you go further back in urban history to the 1800s, they were seen as beneficial to public health. (That’s one reason Central Park has long been described as “the lungs of New York City.”) But shapers of land use? That’s a more recent understanding, dating to the building of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in 1996 and Millennium Park in Chicago in 2004, both of which dramatically raised property values and the density of land uses around them. (And, not to put too fine a point on it, created new interactions between people and places.)

I could go on. Even schools and sanitation have a land-use aspect. Ask any residential real estate agent what effect a good neighborhood school has on nearby property values. And sewer line extensions are, along with transportation improvements, the greatest predictors of future land uses.

So how are land-use stories played out in local government, and how could you cover them in new and interesting ways? Well, you know the traditional stories: “NIMBYs” vs. “greedy developers.” You have the neighbors in bright T-shirts at zoning board or city council meetings, waving signs, and complaining loudly about being overrun with traffic. And on the other side, lawyers in blue suits with architectural renderings, property tax projections, and the promise of lawsuits if things don’t go their way.

Who is right here? The side that promises the best possible interactions for people and place—which could be the neighbors or the developer . . . but is likely neither. That’s because neighborhood associations too often stand for the status quo. They don’t want to improve their neighborhoods; they want to preserve them in amber. And while developers favor change, their changes are often the wrong ones, ones that will diminish the interactions of people and place by creating parking lots, inward-looking buildings, and streets with no sidewalks.

So if NIMBYs and build-and-run developers are the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of change in your city—almost equally wrongheaded—who then is rightheaded?

Ah, there are your stories: Who in your city is talking about and working toward a more interesting and attractive urban environment? What are the elements of their vision? What have cities or suburbs similar to yours done to create these environments? What were the obstacles they faced? Who in local government shares the vision? Who opposes it and why? What is the government doing today to create livelier places? What is it doing that hinders such places from developing? (Hint: Check city parking requirements for new retail, office, and residential properties.)

Other story ideas: What is the state of transit in your city? Do transit officials work alongside city officials in planning denser environments? If so, how? If not, why not? Are there developers who want to create walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented developments? (Hint: There almost surely are.) What do they see as the barriers to livelier streets and neighborhoods? What do local architects say?

Are there business improvement districts in your city? (If you don’t know what they are, Google the term.) If so, which have been successful, which have not had much impact, and why? If there aren’t BIDs, why haven’t they come to your city? What about Main Street programs? (Again, Google the term.)

Is gentrification happening in your city? Why did the gentrifiers move to some inner-city neighborhoods but not others? (Take an evening and knock on doors.) Given what you’ve learned, what is the most likely next neighborhood for gentrification and why? (Interview some real estate agents under age 40.) What has been the reaction of longtime neighbors to the newcomers? Is there a backlash?

Who bikes to work? What have they experienced? Who walks to work? What have they seen and learned? Who could afford to drive but chooses instead to take the bus? (These are called “choice riders.” Again, Google the term.) Why do they take transit, and what have they seen? (Hey, ride along with some.) What is the transit system doing to attract these riders?

Find the most successful public park in your city, in terms of usage. (If the parks department doesn’t have statistics, go out after work with a handheld counter and notepad and count the people.) What makes this park so successful? If it’s a large park, find a small one that’s equally successful on a per-acre basis. Again, what are its secrets? Call the nearest university with a landscape architecture program and interview some professors about what makes some urban parks successful and others desolate.

In which neighborhoods do people walk for exercise, entertainment, or to shop? (You may have to use the counter and a notebook.) Why do they walk there but not in the next neighborhood? What is the local government doing to encourage walkability? (Check sidewalk requirements.) If sidewalks are broken, who is responsible for the repairs—and does anyone actually enforce these requirements? What besides the sidewalks are the obstacles to walkable neighborhoods? (As a sidebar, interview public health officials about the connection between obesity and the lack of regular exercise—of which walking is considered the best.)

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. What is your city doing to improve the way people interact with places? Where are they making these improvements, and why are they investing in these locations? What resources are they bringing to bear on creating more interesting and attractive places? What have been the results, and what have been the responses by supporters and opponents, developers and residents new and old?

Now, stop a moment and think. Wouldn’t writing these stories be a lot more fun than covering the “NIMBYs” vs. “greedy developers” showdowns at the zoning board? Wouldn’t these stories teach readers more about their community and how their government works? Covering NIMBYs-vs.-developers stories is like writing about a baseball game that was played last year. Focus on land use and the forces that are changing it, and you’ll be writing about the game . . . before the players ever take the field.

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 Dylan Passmore licensed under Creative Commons.

A Reservoir for Civic Progress

Seven Habits of Highly Successful Civic Projects

How Odd Couples, Complementary Needs, and Chance Can Change Cities

Leadership as “a Kind of Genius”

Lesson One: It’s All About Land Use

About Otis White

The Great Project

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