Archive for 2008

It’s useful to honestly measure the things that make a city attractive to its current and future residents. Clean streets, low crime rate, diverse retail options, value for the housing dollar and jobs are obvious elements of attractiveness. A thoughtful city planner or economist would measure these things, understand their impact on revitalization and then target spending to get the biggest bang for the buck. Read the rest of this entry »

If you ask a Trentonian about their number one city issue, crime will probably come up. Yet we don’t really seem to have any clue about its measurable affects on our city or how to manage them.

Previously, I wrote about the cause and effect of a city’s crime level and it’s immigration level ( How Crime Affects Trenton). However, this is a very small part of the story. First, we have to agree on what it is about a city that we’d like to improve. In general, the best measure of a city’s health is its per capita income. Cities with high crime rates have low per capita incomes and vice-a-versa (The Economics of Crime).

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The current financial crisis and recent shock in oil prices will usher in a new era for the American lifestyle.

We’re going to be a more modest nation. We’ll buy what we need to live and be less concerned about fads and status.  We’ll be concerned about our exposure to fossil fuels and will seek out dense urban living for both the economy of heating and driving. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness and its funder, the Educational Testing Service have produced a report, “Housing the Vulnerable in Mercer County” that defies the laws of economics, makes unfounded assertions and argues for the abandonment of Trenton. However, it does not address homelessness.

Link to the report

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I’d like to call ReinventTrenton readers attention to an excellent Harvard University Panel discussion on the causes of our financial crisis.  These are some of the best economic minds in the country including a Nobel laureate and the Dean of the Havard Business School.

Harvard Panel on the Financial Meltdown 9-25-2008

Basically, there are two drivers to the current problem, one of which affects Trenton and the other one, not so much. Read the rest of this entry »

We Trentonians apparently have the notion that we’re entitled to services far beyond both our means and our needs.

In 2006, many Trentonians and their politicians were in an uproar as Capital Health Systems planned to close one of their two hospitals in town. We were upset even though Trenton has a far higher ratio of hospital beds to people than the rest of NJ and the nation. Even with just two hospitals, our average is higher. Though there will be no shortage of hospital facilities, it was just the appearance of losing the entitlement to more than its fair share of services that ticked off Trentonians.

Here we are again. Read the rest of this entry »

It is rare in America that an inner city is truly revitalized. Sometimes, cities bounce back like Cleveland, New York, Washington and now maybe Newark.

But with the possible exception of New York no inner city has turned itself into a “shining city on a hill”. No inner city, and Trenton is an example, has turned squalor into enlightened civilization. Read the rest of this entry »

The city is by far the largest single holder of vacant and underutilized real estate in Trenton. This is a long standing situation and is not in the best interests of Trentonians.

It is inevitable to hear Trenton politicians and citizens alike exclaim that, while the city should sell its vacant holdings, “we shouldn’t give them away”.

Oh really? And just how have the fine folks at city hall, and many of our leading activists come to this conclusion?

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Trenton has the feeling of a business on the skids

The following is an excerpt from “Leading a Turnaround” by Harvard Business School professor, Rosabeth Moss Kantor:

In organizations in decline, a kind of learned helplessness sets in. Secrecy, blame, isolation, avoidance, passivity, and feelings of helplessness combine to perpetuate the poor performance.

This “death spiral” typically starts when a company begins to neglect the fundamentals—for example, letting communication deteriorate, starting to pull decision making back into the hands of smaller and smaller groups that make decisions behind closed doors. This undermines the organization’s problem-solving capability.

If you didn’t know this was from a study of poorly performing businesses, you’d think it was Trenton. Read the rest of this entry »

This article was originally published in the August 2008 edition of the Trenton Downtowner – D. Dodson

Trentonians pay for only 14% of the cost of running the city. If our external funders get tired of it, we’re in big trouble.

It isn’t clear how a city goes bankrupt. Technically bankruptcy occurs when an entity can’t pay its debt obligations. But a city can raise taxes and cut city services to the bone well before bankruptcy. In this case, the city simply ceases to be livable (e.g. Camden) Read the rest of this entry »