March 2013 – Page 3 – Sheila Kennedy

The Real Choices

Matt Tully’s column yesterday addressed the reasons prompting families to move from the city to the suburbs. It was a reasonable analysis of a trend that is probably older than he is–unexceptional, so far as it went. For many residents, family or job considerations may limit them to this choice between living in town and moving to, say, Hamilton Country, but for many others, city versus suburb does not exhaust the available options.

A number of us value and prefer urban living. Indeed, a not inconsiderable number of people find the prospect of huge yards, distant neighbors and miles-long drives to the nearest grocery distinctly unappealing. For us, the choice is not between downtown and the suburbs, but between cities. Indianapolis can’t compete with the suburbs for people who want suburban lives. It can and should compete with other places that offer urban amenities and lifestyles. We’ve come a long way down the road that Bill Hudnut built during his four terms as Mayor, but we’ve lost ground the past few years. My son made that point in a response to Tully’s column, on which he copied me.

Here’s his response.

Matt: I read your article about the choice people face between Indy and outlying counties. You make some good points… But as a longtime downtown dweller, I come at this from a different perspective: the challenges we face, and the failures of our leadership to honestly confront them, make me wonder whether we should consider a different CITY, not a suburb.

I grew up downtown Indy, mostly in historic Lockerbie — I thought I’d never return to Indy after leaving for college (in 1987). After college/living/working in Chicago and years of travel, I moved back to Indy – largely because Indy’s downtown had come so far, and Indy’s city experience had improved so much. Finally, Indy had a mix of urban amenities, shopping, culture (and I am not referring to sports venues, though they are nice, if overly dependent on taxpayers) and, importantly, an easy environment in which to raise kids. Today, we live downtown in the Old Northside (where we’ve lived since I returned to Indy)… our kids, 9 & 11, go to IPS’ CFI #2 (which we love), and we have a great, and diverse, community of friends, and family nearby.

As I see it, Indianapolis faces two major problems, one of which you allude to in your article. First, our kids educational experience is not available to everyone: great public schools, like CFI, have too few available slots. And while Indy must address this deficiency if it is to succeed and thrive, our City suffers other problems that (*gasp*) require resources to address: crime, infrastructure, affordable and dependable public transportation, among other things. Which highlights the second major problem — a lack/failure of leadership. Our leadership fails us when they buy into (and promote) the notion that Indy needs lower taxes more than it needs better schools, lower crime, or better/workable public transportation that meets the needs of our residents and workforce. While government needs to operate “efficiently,” we should not try to compete with Boone County to be “low tax” place, a fight we can’t win and shouldn’t try to win; instead, we should recognize the strength of our “product” — the CITY — and its amenities. We need to recognize the need for (and fight for) the resources to make it great.

Instead, in the name of “efficiency,” the city gives away to a contractor literally millions of dollars every year (by some estimates $500 million over time) of potential city revenue that could be used to fight crime, build/maintain infrastructure. Why? Either because it lacks the imagination or operational competence to see that the city can upgrade parking meters (inexpensively) and operate them for ourselves… And while it would be nice to see the political courage to argue for more resources, the city administration fails to even try to lobby/work the legislature to alter the formula for distribution of income tax revenue so that it is not distributed 100% to the county where people live, but instead is shared, even if just a little bit. These are just two of many examples…

The failure to even try … The failure of vision and the lack of any attempt is frustrating. A friend recently moved out of state because he sees in our political leadership the operating mantra of “mediocre is good enough.” As you noted the other day, Guv Pence states his “ambition is the status quo” (and while he said it of gambling, he might as well have said about everything, since his most active push is for a tax cut for which there is NO evidence it will create a single job). This is not a critique of the many dedicated public servants who “try,” but of the political class that doesn’t.

Unlike those readers who assume its a choice between Indianapolis and Hamilton/Johnson Counties, it isn’t for me. It’s a choice between an Indianapolis that withers on the vine and a better city where more of the residents and their leaders “get it” — and fight for it.

Comments

Me versus Us

NPR aired a brief report yesterday on recent research into “framing,” the manner in which Americans make policy arguments. According to the researcher, Americans are less likely to respond to appeals to the common good or the public interest than we are to appeals to individual rights and benefits. Our Constitutional emphasis on individual rights, in this analysis, has led to a culture in which policies are evaluated through a highly individualized prism–what we might call a “what’s in it for me” approach.

If this research is correct, Americans have confused a healthy distrust of majoritarianism with an unhealthy disdain for the common good. Those aren’t the same thing. A distrust of the preferences of popular majorities–the “passions of the mob”–is built into our national DNA, and we are right to guard against violations of individual rights that can result. But that is different from civic behavior that elevates personal preferences and immediate gratification over consideration of the good of the community.

The discussion of mass transit is an example. Those who are opposed to a tax for transit are not arguing that transit would be bad for the community–an argument I disagree with, but a legitimate basis for opposition. They are arguing that they don’t want to pay for it, because they don’t believe it will benefit them personally. (Actually, as I pointed out, we all benefit in numerous ways–tangible and intangible–when we live in a community with a better quality of life, but that’s a different argument.)

The researcher on NPR recommended that policy arguments be framed to appeal to the individual–this is what is in it for you!–rather than with appeals to the common good. Perhaps that advice is strategically sound.

But what does it say about us as citizens?

Comments

Define Benefit

State Senator Luke Kenley is quoted in a news story about the public transportation bill currently before the General Assembly.

“I have a surprisingly large number of constituents who are strongly opposed to this,” says Sen. Kenley (R-Noblesville.) “They just feel like it’s going to be a tax increase on them without any particular benefit.”

There are a number of responses that come to mind: the most obvious is that all the bill requires is an opportunity for the citizens who will be taxed to vote on the matter. Those opposed will have an opportunity to make that opposition known.

That said, the belief that those who wouldn’t use public transportation wouldn’t benefit from its availability is incredibly short-sighted. We all benefit from cleaner air, economic development and improved quality of life–all outcomes associated with the availability of good public transportation systems. The attitude displayed by Kenley’s constituents reminds me of people who don’t want to support good schools, because their own children are grown, despite ample evidence that a good school system adds to property values and an educated workforce is a requirement for economic development.

These are all tangible benefits that even the whiners will enjoy. But we might also wonder whether there isn’t some intangible benefit in creating a community that works for everyone, not just the self-satisfied “makers” with two cars parked in the garage of their suburban home in a gated community.

Comments

Representing Indiana?

The Journal-Gazette has an article about Indiana Congressman Marlon Stutzman, and his “leadership” on “gun rights.”

So far this year, in his second term in the House, he has sponsored legislation that would require states to honor one another’s concealed-carry gun permits, and he has written letters inviting gun manufacturers Beretta USA and Magpul to move to Indiana from Maryland and Colorado, respectively, because of gun-control bills advancing in those states’ legislatures.

The article details Stutzman’s role as leader of a new Congressional committee formed to “protect” Second Amendment rights, and his ownership of a small arsenal of weapons of his own. It also notes the variance between his positions on gun-control issues and those of the public, as shown in numerous recent polls. Like all Indiana Republican Representatives, his candidacy was endorsed and supported financially by the NRA.

Interestingly, Stutzman was the only Indiana Congressperson to vote against the Violence Against Women Act.

Draw whatever conclusions you will.

Comments

The Personal and the Political

There has been a flurry of publicity in the wake of Ohio Senator Rob Portman’s announcement that he has changed his position on same-sex marriage. Portman had been a reliable vote for pro-discrimination measures—he’d supported DOMA and voted for a Constitutional amendment to declare marriage a union between one man and one woman, among other things. Now, he is the only Republican Senator to support marriage equality. So what changed his mind?

His son came out.

Critics immediately pounced. The criticisms focused on the fact that Portman was perfectly willing to demonize and disenfranchise people he didn’t know—that it was only when disparate legal status hit closer to home that he was willing to re-examine his previous positions. Some speculated that he had never really been a “culture warrior”—he had never led the charge against GLBT folks, only voted the party line—but that he’d been willing to parrot the homophobes in his party (and not so incidentally pander to the GOP base) until the policies hit close to home.

Others in the gay community were more willing to welcome Portman to the side of the good guys, essentially arguing “better late than never.” If it took a personal connection to the issue to usher Portman out of the dark side, so be it. At least he made the move. And he clearly loves and accepts his son. (A reporter asked Rick Santorum how he would react in a similar situation, and the answer was far less affirming.)

My own reaction is that Portman’s intellectual honesty is irrelevant. If there is anything that this most recent conversion proves, it is the wisdom of the tactic of coming out—the broad and lasting political impact of thousands of acts of personal courage over a period of many years.

I remember the time when most gay people were firmly in the closet—when a chance encounter with one of my sons’ high school teachers when my husband and I met friends at a local gay bar clearly terrified him. Had I mentioned the encounter, he could have lost his job. In that world, a bigot like Jesse Helms could credibly claim that he’d never met a gay person. In the popular imagination of the time, gay men wore feather boas and danced in gay bars. Gays and lesbians were exotic “others,” and easy to demonize.

Coming Out as a deliberate political tactic changed that forever.

Younger gay people may still dread coming out to their friends and families, but the environment they face is dramatically more accepting than it was ten or twenty years ago. For that, they owe an earlier generation a great debt of gratitude. A generation ago, coming out took tremendous courage. You could lose your job, your friends, your family. The thousands who took that risk, however, put a face on what had previously been faceless. Suddenly, gays weren’t some deviant and foreign species—they were your doctor, your nephew, your Aunt Gladys and her “roommate” of 30+ years. They were people you knew and loved.

They were Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow.

In the early days of the Women’s Movement, a favorite saying was “The personal is the political.” Each of us has the power to change social norms—one person at a time, confronting injustice, makes a difference. The enormous cultural shift that has occurred as a result of thousands of GLBT folks coming out is proof that the slogan is true.

At the end of the day, do we really care whether Rob Portman casts a vote for equality because he has weighed the equities of the situation and recognized that it is the just and moral thing to do, or because he loves his son?

I don’t think so.

Comments