Category Archives: Local Government

The Art of Economic Development

My husband and I just spent a couple of days in Asheville, N.C. We’ve previously visited the city, and are periodically drawn back by its thriving arts community.

Because we are old city hall types, when we travel, we tend to look for indicators of social and civic health that might not interest other visitors: are there empty store-fronts in the central core? How’s public transportation? Are there people “out and about”? Is there a good mix of housing and retail activity in the downtown (Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street”), or is the urban core dominated by banks and law offices?

Asheville is a fascinating place for a number of reasons. According to my friend Google, it’s about a third the size of Indianapolis. It has the worst mess of Interstate highways I’ve ever seen slicing into neighborhoods and districts, but its small downtown was vibrant. What struck us was the nature of the shops, cafes and restaurants populating the urban center: virtually all of them were local. Unlike the many interchangeable places we visit, authentic mom-and-pop enterprises haven’t been crowded out by the predictable Gaps, Pottery Barns and  Starbucks.

Mr. Google wasn’t as helpful when I tried to figure out why these local entrepreneurs were thriving in Asheville, despite their waning numbers in so many other locations. But I did find this nugget on a municipal website that might explain why support for the arts seems to have taken a central place in Asheville’s economic development strategy:

Statewide, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $1.2 billion in direct economic activity in North Carolina, supporting more than 43,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119 million in revenue for local governments and the State of North Carolina.

“We all understand and appreciate the intrinsic values of the arts. This study shows that arts organizations are also businesses. They employ people locally, purchase goods and services from within the community, are members of the chamber of commerce and local convention and visitor bureau’s and are key participants in marketing their cities and regions,” said Wayne Martin, executive director of the N.C. Arts Council.

“Because arts organizations are strongly rooted in their community the jobs they provide are, on the whole, local and cannot be shipped overseas,” Martin added.

It would be interesting to know which came first, the arts community or the strategy; it would also be interesting to know whether Asheville offers financing for small, local businesses; the preference of bankers for chains and large enterprises with significant assets and proven track records is often cited as a reason start-ups have such a hard time starting up.

With or without financing incentives, however, it was clear to us that Asheville’s decision to focus on the arts was a savvy one. The city hosts a variety of art festivals that draw lots of tourists, it is using art as a tool for redeveloping a dilapidated riverfront district, and a number of the galleries, cafes and shops in the downtown area were clearly geared toward “artsy” folks. That was true even of the local restaurants we tried–they were excellent, and as innovative as those in much larger, “foodie” cities.

Other observations, in no particular order: young people were everywhere–and overwhelmingly white. (Despite Asheville’s considerable merits, diversity appears to be lacking.) Most shops emphasized that goods were local, or if not, were “fair trade.” Being Green also seemed important. I saw more bookstores (independent!) in a few square blocks than I’ve seen in a long time (hope they last in this electronic age…). I’ve been stopped on the street by religious proselytizers in a number of cities, but in Asheville, the guy was a self-professed Buddhist monk, and that was a new experience.

All in all, a quirky, interesting place–not just another “mall-ified” stop on the highway.

There are some lessons there….

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Not Exactly Bragging Rights

A recent analysis by the Bloomberg Administration found that New York’s poverty rate held steady since 2000. That makes the Big Apple the only large U.S. city not to see a spike in that rate.

New York’s Center for Economic Opportunity released the survey last Thursday. It used U.S. Census Bureau data from 2000 and 2012, and determined that the nation’s largest city had maintained a 21.2 percent poverty rate during the intervening 12 years.

It also found that poverty rates in the country’s 19 other largest cities increased, on average, by 36 percent. That’s just an average, however. Rates of increase ranged from 3 percent in El Paso, Tex., to 88 percent in Indianapolis.

That’s right: while we’ve been focusing on bright shiny objects like cricket fields and Super Bowls, we’ve had an 88 percent increase in poverty.

If Mayor Ballard has addressed this issue, I haven’t heard about it.

As a friend of mine recently pointed out, Ballard rarely bothers to visit the Statehouse. He was willing to lobby  for elimination of the at-large council seats, a partisan move that increased his political power, but he’s been conspicuously absent on a whole range of issues having a direct impact on the economic well-being of Marion County residents. His support for public transportation was both tepid and a long time coming, despite the fact that–among other things–transportation is desperately needed to improve poor folks’  access to employment opportunities. He’s said nothing about the importance of expanding Medicaid. Yet lack of access to medical insurance is a major cause of poverty, and the recent hospital layoffs that increase local unemployment are a direct result of Pence’s unconscionable  refusal to expand Indiana’s Medicaid program.

Ballard has also said nothing about the recent, draconian cuts to the Food Stamp program despite the fact that the economic impact of Food Stamp dollars flowing to Marion County is equivalent to holding a Super Bowl every four months.

I guess we know where his priorities lie.

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The Kids Are Definitely NOT All Right….

I recently attended a briefing that left me physically sick to my stomach.

Consider the following statistics from DCS: between July 2011 and June 2012, there were 3,214 cases of substantiated sexual abuse of Indiana children. There were another 1,992 cases of substantiated physical abuse, and 14,802 cases of substantiated neglect.

These are just the cases that were reported, investigated and substantiated. The CDC estimates that fewer than half of rape and sexual assault crimes ever get reported, and it can be very difficult to substantiate those that do get reported. Even when we are counting only substantiated cases, however, in 2009, Indiana females in grades 9-12 had the second highest rate of forced sexual intercourse in the nation. (Indiana’s rate is 17.3% as opposed to the national rate of 10.5. Both rates are scandalous.)

Welcome to Indiana, where our elected officials talk a lot about our low taxes and not at all about our abysmal social health indicators.

Most of the abuse that occurs is what the reports delicately label “partner” or “intimate” violence–meaning that these young girls are being exploited by boyfriends, fathers, stepfathers, “funny” uncles and others within their homes and communities. In some of our more rural precincts, these behaviors are tacitly accepted or shrugged off. “Boys will be boys.” (I should note here that young boys are by no means safe from sexual assault, although fewer males experience it, and we should be no less outraged by their exploitation.)

The consequences of this behavior are costly for both the victims and society. Research suggests that victims of sexual violence are likely to suffer mental and physical ailments in later life: anxiety, post-traumatic-stress disorder, fear, depression…They are also more likely to attempt suicide.

Nationally, health costs attributable to rape and sexual assault have been estimated at $4.1 billion.

The familial environments within which these assaults occur makes this an incredibly difficult behavior to prevent. But there is at least one thing Indiana lawmakers can and should do pronto: commit the state to the crime data collection program certified by the FBI. Currently, Indiana has no state legislation requiring the collection of crime data. Approximately 30% of Indiana law enforcement agencies voluntarily report their statistics for inclusion in the UCR (Uniform Crime Report), but Indiana is one of only three states that lacks a centralized crime reporting program.

It’s bad enough that only a small percentage of rapes are ever reported; the least we could do is keep track of those that are.

Here’s a thought: how about we ask our lawmakers to divert some of the time and energy they are spending trying to marginalize GLBT citizens to efforts that might actually protect Indiana children?

Here’s another: Governor Pence has certainly been willing to name new “commissions” and “panels” to take over duties that were previously the responsibility of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Perhaps he could take a rest from trying to undermine the election results, and appoint a commission to address the ongoing, scandalous exploitation of Indiana children?

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In Praise of (Certain) Republicans

If there is hope for the re-emergence of the Republican Party to which I gave a significant chunk of my adult life, it lies in the actions of seven GOP members of the Indianapolis City-County Council on Monday night.

Republicans Will Gooden, Ben Hunter, Robert Lutz, Janice McHenry, Michael McQuillen, Jeff Miller and Jefferson Shreve joined all of the Democratic council members in support of a resolution urging the Indiana General Assembly to reject HJR6. (For anyone who has spent the last couple of years on Mars, HJR6 would place Indiana’s current statutory ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution, and would add gratuitous language outlawing civil unions and official recognition of anything else creative minds might consider “equivalent” to marriage.)

Six Republicans voted against the resolution, but the future of the GOP–if it has one–lies with the seven who refused to be bullied by activists from the far right fringes.

The capture of one of America’s major political parties by extremists has made governing–and civil discourse– virtually impossible.  It has already made GOP candidates unelectable in urban areas, and caused wholesale defections elsewhere.

Those seven Republicans understand something that too many of those remaining in the Grand Old Party seem to have forgotten: politics isn’t–or shouldn’t be–religion. When every vote becomes a test of moral purity, when every issue is a contest between Good and Evil, when any deviation from Approved Doctrine is blasphemy and anything less than ardent affirmation is evidence that the errant member has gone over to the dark side, what you have isn’t a political party.

It’s a cult.

Kudos to the seven who refused to drink the Kool-aid. May their numbers increase.

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Governing Isn’t a Game!

I wouldn’t know Glenda Ritz if I fell over her. I have no idea whether she is doing a competent job as Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, or–more accurately, whether she would be doing a competent job if the Governor and his cronies allowed her to do that job.

Here’s what I do know: she was elected with a lot more votes than Governor Pence received. And I am not the only person increasingly pissed by the games the Governor and legislature have been playing to keep her from doing the job she was elected to do–all in order to strip her office of its usual authority and make it incredibly difficult for her to do her job.

That doesn’t mean I approve of everything Ritz has done in return, but it is certainly clear who started this “tit for tat” that is consuming public resources and diverting time and energy from performance of the tasks We the People have a right to expect our elected officials to perform.

This unseemly effort to “cheat” when the “game” isn’t going your way is one more bit of evidence that our current crop of political actors are uninterested in actually governing. They run for office not because they want to do something, but because they want to be something.

Here’s the deal, Governor: you ran for office. Glenda Ritz ran for office. You were both elected. You don’t get to change the rules in order to ensure that she can’t do her job. She gets to fulfill the duties of her office, and if she doesn’t do that satisfactorily–something We the People will decide–we get to vote her out.

That works for you, too.

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