Charles Marohn

From the mayor’s office

Engineer, president of Smart Towns, Feb 21, 12.

Tagged with urban planning, government, cities

Continued from From the mayor’s office (part 1)

Economic development director

You’ve just heard me address the city engineer and city planner and redirect their efforts 180 degrees. I have the same challenge for you because we need a completely different approach.

Providing a 26-year Tax Increment Financing subsidy to move a fast food business four blocks up the street is an embarrassment. That type of project is not worthy of our efforts. But I understand why you do these things; you have to show results or you are criticized. Your job has always been a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” affair.

I want to redirect your efforts from economic hunting—the idea of finding that business from outside the community and luring it to come here—to economic gardening. I want to grow jobs locally, not import them. My inspiration is Littleton, Colorado, where the economic gardening approach has helped them create thousands of jobs without any tax subsidy. And these are not fragile jobs—ones that are threatened once the subsidy goes away—but jobs that will be deeply rooted in the community and, thus, have tremendous staying power.

I don’t want to bring in another business that adds fifty new jobs. I want you to focus on creating one new job in fifty different businesses. This is much more than just business retention and expansion. Read their stuff. I’ll even budget for you to go to their conference and training sessions.

The downside of this approach is that there will be no more ribbon cuttings. No more grand openings. No more big events where you and I can stand there with a hardhat and shovel while we celebrate a “successful” transaction where we gave away millions to bring some new jobs to town. Those things play well politically for both of us because they provide the illusion that we are actually doing something and making progress. I actually want to do something. I actually want to make progress.

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Transit coordinator

I appreciate what you are trying to do and the effort you put in. The limited mandate you have matches the tools we’ve provided you. Unfortunately, I can’t put a lot more resources into your efforts, but I can change your mandate and focus your limited resources on an approach that would be far more productive.

Today you run Dial-a-Ride, which is essentially a very expensive taxi service. I realize this service fills a need—and I’m not sure how to address that need as it relates to those outside of the city limits—but we can meet that need within the city and do so much more if we change to a fixed route service.

I’ve sketched out a very rough 3-1/2 mile route that provides service within easy walking distance of the neighborhood we are focusing on. It connects that neighborhood with the downtown, the mall and grocery store, government offices, churches and parks. If we designed a similar system on the south side of town, we could also connect the clinic, many other parks, schools and pretty much the rest of the core neighborhoods.

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