Archive for June, 2017

I really dislike those books.  The titles are demeaning to people who just want to learn something at a basic level.   But who am I to say; it’s a wildly popular series.   I suppose the title has a little empathy for the person who wants to learn “How to use a computer”, “How to Garden” or “How to do Arithmetic”.
So here I am in year 17 of the Trenton Revitalization Doug Palmer told me was underway.   It’s not! Trenton has steadily slid backwards (based on objective metrics).

And yet the State of NJ, Mercer County and occasionally the Feds continue to throw millions and millions of dollars at Trenton.   We got a hotel, a ballpark, an arena, a Rt 29 conversion, a Light Rail, a Train Station redo, a nursing school, a new Housing Project or two and what do we have to show for it?   Nothing!  We’re still losing population; our tax base and per capita income are still losing ground against the rest of the State.

So maybe we do need some condescending help with the problem.   Maybe the Mayor and Governor need a copy of “How to Redevelop Trenton for Dummies”.

Over the years I’ve likely written enough essays to fill the book but perhaps I need a good outline.  Outlines help keep books simple and suitable for “Dummies”.    The book would have only four chapters and plenty of pictures and examples.  What it wouldn’t have are chapters on how to spend vast sums of taxpayer money on public venues that don’t impact the local economy.   An $18M bridge from the State Capitol into the Delaware River is a distraction just like the Ballpark and Arena were.

Chapter 1 -  CLEAN and NEAT

This chapter will cover:

• How to inform citizens about trash disposal methods
• How to consistently inspect properties for code violations as opposed to inconsistently and capriciously
• How to make the city code work for you.  Do you know what’s in it?
• Trash cans, they can help

Chapter 2 – It’s the Tax Base Dummy

In this chapter, we’ll cover some basic economics and math like:

• How using State and Federal money for development subsidies has a better ROI than anything
• Land Value Tax and how cities benefit
• Consistency is the friend of investment
• Bribery is bad business

Chapter 3 – Transparency and Accountability

In this chapter, we’ll cover basic public relations technique like:

• Using the Internet as a communications tool
• Getting voters bought into your plan, assuming you have one
• Robo-calling, “Less is More”
• Answering citizen concerns
• Modern technology and how “trouble tickets” help organize citizen complaints
• The connection between budgets, spending and priorities

Chapter 4 – Making Trenton a Living Hell for Criminals

This self-help chapter will cover:

• Responding to citizens before it’s too late
• Leveraging private surveillance
• The Economics of Crime
• Criminal databases for everybody

Building parks is what politicians do when they simply don’t know what else to do.

Imagine you’re in charge of a “down on its luck city” with high crime, low income levels, bad schools minimal industry and population loss.  You have only $1 dollar, no make that $20,000,000 left to spend.   The question is, on what do you spend that one time only $20M?

Hmmm …..

If you’re an observer of successful urban revitalization maybe a few things would come to mind:

• How about a stimulus package for urban homesteaders that would attract investment?
• How about site development for a light manufacturing facility?
• How about a big investment in technology and surveillance for the police including body-cams?

All seem worth a thought.   But they have one problem in common.  They aren’t parks.

People love parks, or at least the notion of a park.  Perhaps we have fond childhood memories of playing in a well-kept park with mom and dad.  Perhaps, we remember playing baseball or going on a picnic.

Parks are like catnip for residents that don’t know any better.

“People do not use city open space just because it is there and because city planners or designers wish they would.” Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Parks take regular expensive maintenance.  Parks are magnets for drug dealers and prostitutes.   Parks use up land that could be converted to taxable property.  Unless a lot of operational funding is thrown at a park, it’s at best a drain on a city’s finances and at worst a breeding ground for everything wrong with a city.  Parks are what we should do after we’ve achieved some revitalization success.

Parks are what politicians build when they don’t know how to do real revitalization and when they know they’re citizens can be fooled.

That’s what’s going on in Trenton.  Gov. Christie says new Trenton park ‘first step’ to reconfigure Route 29

Faced with his last year in office and in collusion with a governor also in his last year in office, Mayor Jackson realizes that he can’t point to much that’s moved the needle in Trenton.   Instead, he’s lost or wasted millions of taxpayer dollars.   So, what to do?  Build a park or maybe two.

There are a large number of Trenton residents that will immediately reach for their rose colored glasses and think back to pleasant childhood memories to convince themselves that, yes, absolutely, a park will turn Trenton around.   New residents hoping to build new $300,000 homes will flock to Trenton because of our parks.   Criminals will be repulsed by the beauty of the new park and will immediately forgo a life of crime, go back to school, get straight As and find a well-paying job.   That’s what parks do.  The power of parks.

If parks were the linchpin of our Mayor’s overall grand plan (not that anyone believes that) then why hasn’t he shared it with the public?  Why didn’t he base his campaign on it?   Parks were never part of any plan, they just sort of came up and he said, “yeah, sure, then the people will think I did something positive”.

It’s just the opposite, Trenton is taking money out of the “political capital” bank and instead of investing it in to trans-formative initiatives, wasting it on parks.

What does a $130M loft complex in Chambersburg section of Trenton, an $18.3M pedestrian bridge, a $135M proposal to build two new single purpose state owned office buildings at the edge of downtown, a state funded $13M plan to tear down empty houses throughout the city, a $2.3M plan to add features to Cadwalader Park in western Trenton, a $180M high school and a $300M plan to refurbish the New Jersey State Capitol building have in common?

The answer is, NOTHING.

Together these projects total in value $778M.   That’s a lot of money.   Only one of these include private money (Roebling Lofts) and even it benefits from substantial State subsidies.

We have to assume that State of New Jersey doesn’t have the citizens of Trenton’s best interest at heart.   But that doesn’t mean the City of Trenton should let all of this public money be wasted.

We have a very large private project nearing completion of its first phase at the old Roebling complex.  Let’s start with that.   Which of the public State and City projects directly support its success.  If the answer is none, let me suggest that our leaders start over in their thinking.

After participating in the 2002 Leadership Trenton program, I became convinced that Republican’s have much to offer cities. Urban Republican change the attitude towards cities away treating them as charity cases and instead viewing them as opportunities.  This can be done by promoting principles of fiscal conservatism, social liberalism and limited government. These principles shape our deep concerns about racism, sprawl, crime, pollution, welfare and drug addiction.

The Leadership Trenton program showed a serious divide between the interest of economic revitalization and social welfare. The emotion of racial victimization underlies the social welfare movement which deeply distrusts white Republicans. However there is a cold hard reality to building a sustainable urban tax base that is at the heart of the Republican fiscal conservative movement.

There are both black and white fiscal conservatives among Trenton’s and other urban small business communities. They denounce failed policies of publicly subsidized housing, poorly funded public safety and high taxes. Republicans support school choice as a radical change to a persistent problem and they support a pro-business stance that finds strategic advantage in urban site location. Rational Republicans also know that racially spurred sprawl has led to government expansion in the form of bloated transportation departments and segregated school districts.

Urban Republicans don’t have patience with social conservatives. They know that the anti-choice stance on abortion is out of touch with city dwellers. They support the LBGT and want government out of the bedroom. They know that addiction is a disease that can be cured. Most importantly they challenge racism not only on moral grounds but as damaging to our vitality as a people.

However, for Urban Republicans to make progress, our national leaders must root out the latent racism of the party. Republicans have a hard enough time talking about tough social issues without that albatross around our necks.

There are hard cold benefits to a state like New Jersey in helping our cities thrive.   Cities are where innovation happens best.  They’re economical to develop and don’t add to sprawl.  And best of all they conserve energy and reduce our carbon footprint.

A strong Urban Agenda appeals to the business community and many of the traditionally Democratic interests as well.   It’s what we need in New Jersey to grow our state and become national leaders for a better society.