Posted on 07/23/2007 3:52:00 AM PDT by goldstategop
Cities need to keep fees and taxes low. City staff should be helpful to customers. Hey, why not schedule office hours at times that suit those customers, not that suit city workers? Yet cities are increasingly closing their offices Fridays so that workers have another day off. Cities need to look at privatization and at shedding unnecessary departments – Sandy Springs, Ga., privatized the entire city (with the exception of public safety services) and is far better run and more efficient than neighboring cities. This new urban agenda also would end subsidies and special privileges for politically well-connected businesses, with a goal of treating all businesses – from a taco stand to a big corporate player – in the same fair, respectful manner.
Next time a potential city council candidate comes to your door to ask for support, don't ask if the candidate is a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. At the city level, those distinctions mean little. Ask if the candidate supports a new, freedom-friendly urban agenda before pledging your support.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
All of the above are areas that are in need of urban reform. Steven Greenhut lists some things that could reconnect city government to the people and make it both responsive and more efficient: 1) Allow people freedom to decide how they would like to design new buildings or open a new business, 2) Keep hands off private property and stop eminent domain abuse, 3) Allow parents to choose where to school their kids, 4) Put the public interest first by ending the privileged claim of unions and other special interests on the city treasury and 5) Maintain roads, keep the city safe and make it a welcome place for visitors and would be investors. And if it exists in the Yellow Pages, contract it out. This is an urban agenda for freedom.
As Greenhut says, its not the candidate's politics that matters. Ask local candidates if they support big government or if they support freedom. And vote accordingly. After all, the truism has more than a grain of truth to it that all politics are local.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It is absolutely true. The most intrusive government in America is Big City local government. It is the most insulated from checks and balances, and the most likely to come in direct contact with the people it has direct effect on.
Here in Boston, they support themselves! And how can they give jobs to all their hack friends and relatives if they -- perish the thought -- reduce gov't??? :(
Ping
IMHO, whether we progress further as a civilization will depend upon whether we get beyond 19th century forms of burocratic administration ......
Oh, good luck on that. Who do you think are going to get the contracts? Joe Sixpack, Inc., or Big Contributor Corp.? And who is Big Contributor Corp. going to buy their insurance from? Why, Mr. Mayor's Brother. Who'll be leasing them their trucks? Ms. Alderman's Aunt.
I suppose it'll help some. But one thing we're finding out in Chicago is that corruption can be outsourced.
Not every city controls the public schools, in fact, alot of them don’t, leaving public schools to the county or parish, so it’s not really fair to lay the blame for any school problems entirely at the municipal level. Actually, many of our cities are better off precisely because the county funds schooling because that is one large expense that doesn’t fall on municipal government.
But, to a degree, when you choose to live in a city, it’s not like living in the U.S. at large or even a state. When you explicitly decide to live in a geographic location, you agree in principle to accept all that this geographic location provides good or bad, because unlike the state or federal government, if you don’t like a policy, you actually can move and keep your life as it is, nothing keeps you there. That’s why we had suburbinization in the first place.
We personally weighed the options and chose the city because that’s where the property we wanted was located and in terms of price and commute time, it was the best deal by far. In exchange for this, our neighborhood public schools are not an option. Then again, by living in the city, the nuisance of contracting for garbage pickup is not an issue, because it is a free service provided by the city. And if a person allows their property to become dilapidated, then you can call urban development and basically have them either fix up the property or risk losing it. People in unincorporated areas of the county don’t have that option. If someone wants to open an incinerator, strip club or anything else near them, well, their just out of luck and they’re better off taking what they can get for their homes before their neighborhood slides.
I’m all for small government, but local government to me, is a fundamentally different propsect, because of what it’s scope is, and why someone lives where they live. It’s rare that a person is trapped in a community that they don’t want to live in. Choices are made where to live, in the suburbs, the city or the unincorporated county areas. If the state does something I don’t like, I really have no control over it, I’m stuck. If the city does something I don’t like, I can just move about 5 miles south, and I’ll be free of any legal jurisdiction that they have.
But I take real issue with your first point. One of the reasons I chose to live here is because there is no cookie cutter housing, and in general, cookie cutter housing plans don’t get approved by the city council. If they want that out in the county it’s fine, but I personally think it’s tacky, it makes neighborhoods nothing more than free standing equivalents of apartment complexes. And also, there was a time when we had that rationale in that city, there were no land use restrictions other than basic zoning. Because of that, about 40 years ago, the city went and destroyed the oldest continuously occupied residential area in the state, homes had been there since the 1780’s, all torn down for a new modern building. Many of our older homes and unique buildings went away so that they could build modern buildings. In order to build our modern bank building in the 60’s, they went and destroyed a customs house that had been in the city since the 1830s
Cities do have a right to set appropriate architectural boundaries for what will be in their limits. If people don’t want to deal with it, they can always live somewhere else, and actually, most Americans no longer live within the main cities of the metro areas, so alot of them have. But personally, I am glad that we now have an architectural review boardn that governs all changes in historic districts, with hope, they will make sure that our antebellum neighborhoods won’t fall victim to the cry for modernization.
You know, we chose to stay for the lifestyle, because we could have just as easily moved to the suburbs, and we could have probably purchased a palace out in the county, but we didn’t want to life that kind of lifestyle.
Then again, our city has a reputation for being very unkind to public employees, so, we haven’t had any of the public employee crunches that alot of cities have faced.
I don't recognize cities as having any rights. Only individuals have rights.
Cities should have narrow, limited, and clearly enumerated powers to protect the proper rights of individuals from trespass by other individuals, and to act as a referee on uses of land that belongs to no individual.
Restricting architectural style individuals' own land exceeds the proper limits of government, and trespasses on their rights to the fruits of their labor.
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