Talk of what government can realistically do reminds me of the most overlooked biblical role of government: praising those who do well.
My read is that Americans ignore this because it is too patronizing; condescending. To do it right would mean that the government takes on the role of someone the citizens are supposed to please; an authority to which they owe duties and from whom they should receive praise for duties well done.
This would mean the government setting and reinforcing (by praise) a positive moral vision for life in the community. If it was me, I'd keep an eye on the description of virtuous living in Titus, and only slightly change the emphases.
It would also mean that citizens who have negative or headache type interactions with the government would also have reason to believe the government is capable of being happy with them. After all, the government is happy with Mr. and Mrs. Jones across the street. This could make a big difference for communities where crime necessitates heavy policing.
One of the biggest challenges with this in our society is that punishment and praise function best to create loyalty and affection when they are united in a person. It would take a lot of work to unite the three branches of government in a praise ceremony so as to make the praise palpable to individuals and neighborhoods.
Aaron - I stumbled on this article last night after reading your essay, and I noticed many common themes:
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Furth sees Auburn’s reforms as among the most ambitious in the country today, and a model for other communities—indeed, he notes that other officials from as far away as New Mexico are asking him about what’s happening in the city.
The 2,000 housing units that Levesque wants to add may be small in absolute numbers but are bold in relative terms; they would provide the housing stock needed to increase Auburn’s population by some 25%. To put it in perspective, it would be like New York City adding 800,000 new homes and more than 2 million new residents.
While Furth and other national experts have advised the city, Auburn’s plan is truly homegrown. The city, with its roots in the blue-collar industries of the region, isn’t setting out to attract the creative class knowledge workers that are the desiderata of many other cities. Levesque wants to make Auburn “a blue-collar utopia,” not a Manhattan in miniature.
Aaron, could you comment more specifically on the tenure of Mitch Daniels as governor? It is hard to tell what you think here, as I see some praise yet am not sure how you would compare him to other governors in state history. I cannot think of a better or stronger governor in Indiana history. Russ Pulliam
As a former ship engineer, I have to question maintenance of said infrastructure. It's one thing to repair what had crumbled and build new infrastructure, but unless you put mechanisms in place to keep it repaired and maintained (and improved, when needed) it will eventually just crumble again. Is there a mechanism in place to ensure funding for future maintenance, repair, and improvement? That may be impossible to know, city councils are pretty good at shuffling money away from maintenance and upkeep into pet projects.
That is a big reason for the reluctance of tea party type voters to support these projects. They don't trust the government to control costs and they have good reasons for not trusting them. We will see what an extended period of higher interest rates does to promises to keep taxes low. Good for Mayor Brainard for keeping crime low. It will be a challenge to keep it low if he continues to celebrate diversity. My guess his strategy on that is to completely price the middle class out of the city's housing stock and hope the problems stay in Indy.
I concur. The reason conservatives don't support higher taxes and more government spending even locally that they don't trust how it will be spent. Part of the problem is those in government charged with actually executing renewing and revitalizing infrastructure are not competent and waste a lot of it because they are used to the way of the government "doing business". If Republican mayors or governors do go down this road, they need to ensure that those executing are competent. And if Mayor Brainard is even talking about how man-made climate change is real then he is part of the overall problem by buying into a lie.
Doing some checking on Carmel, according to the Census, the median rent in town is almost $1,350 a month and the median home value is $372k. Checking Zillow, that is probably a low estimate of what it would take to buy a single family home for a family in Carmel right now. What appears to have happened is that the city leadership either created or allowed an environment where their service sector workers can't afford to live in town if they have families. That would also tie into the 75% of adults have a college degree stat.
This is something you can do when attached to a metro area the size of Indianapolis, but it would be hard to replicate in many other places. I have heard similar things about Franklin, TN on the edge of the Nashville metro area. I am curious if Aaron can confirm or refute this and if it is true where do the working class employees of Carmel live?
Undoubtedly prices have gone up a lot there, as everywhere. I can't name a place where there isn't concern about workforce housing availability. Carmel has been allowing lots of apartments, and while they aren't Manhattan grade expensive, they are generally towards the nicer end for Indy. To me the risk there is that the existing lower cost housing gets redeveloped. There are still areas full of older suburban homes that are modest in price, but I'm not sure that's sustainable.
Given construction costs, it is impossible right now to build apartments and rent them at rates the working class can afford without getting some sort of subsidy. A lot of new construction is done with money from REITs and they get their best returns with high rent, high amenity properties geared toward young professionals and empty nesters. This isn't going to change in the short term.
More Urbanism from the Urbanophile please!
Talk of what government can realistically do reminds me of the most overlooked biblical role of government: praising those who do well.
My read is that Americans ignore this because it is too patronizing; condescending. To do it right would mean that the government takes on the role of someone the citizens are supposed to please; an authority to which they owe duties and from whom they should receive praise for duties well done.
This would mean the government setting and reinforcing (by praise) a positive moral vision for life in the community. If it was me, I'd keep an eye on the description of virtuous living in Titus, and only slightly change the emphases.
It would also mean that citizens who have negative or headache type interactions with the government would also have reason to believe the government is capable of being happy with them. After all, the government is happy with Mr. and Mrs. Jones across the street. This could make a big difference for communities where crime necessitates heavy policing.
One of the biggest challenges with this in our society is that punishment and praise function best to create loyalty and affection when they are united in a person. It would take a lot of work to unite the three branches of government in a praise ceremony so as to make the praise palpable to individuals and neighborhoods.
https://www.discoursemagazine.com/politics/2022/05/18/the-yimbyest-city-in-america/
Aaron - I stumbled on this article last night after reading your essay, and I noticed many common themes:
=============
Furth sees Auburn’s reforms as among the most ambitious in the country today, and a model for other communities—indeed, he notes that other officials from as far away as New Mexico are asking him about what’s happening in the city.
The 2,000 housing units that Levesque wants to add may be small in absolute numbers but are bold in relative terms; they would provide the housing stock needed to increase Auburn’s population by some 25%. To put it in perspective, it would be like New York City adding 800,000 new homes and more than 2 million new residents.
While Furth and other national experts have advised the city, Auburn’s plan is truly homegrown. The city, with its roots in the blue-collar industries of the region, isn’t setting out to attract the creative class knowledge workers that are the desiderata of many other cities. Levesque wants to make Auburn “a blue-collar utopia,” not a Manhattan in miniature.
=============
Aaron, could you comment more specifically on the tenure of Mitch Daniels as governor? It is hard to tell what you think here, as I see some praise yet am not sure how you would compare him to other governors in state history. I cannot think of a better or stronger governor in Indiana history. Russ Pulliam
As a former ship engineer, I have to question maintenance of said infrastructure. It's one thing to repair what had crumbled and build new infrastructure, but unless you put mechanisms in place to keep it repaired and maintained (and improved, when needed) it will eventually just crumble again. Is there a mechanism in place to ensure funding for future maintenance, repair, and improvement? That may be impossible to know, city councils are pretty good at shuffling money away from maintenance and upkeep into pet projects.
That is a big reason for the reluctance of tea party type voters to support these projects. They don't trust the government to control costs and they have good reasons for not trusting them. We will see what an extended period of higher interest rates does to promises to keep taxes low. Good for Mayor Brainard for keeping crime low. It will be a challenge to keep it low if he continues to celebrate diversity. My guess his strategy on that is to completely price the middle class out of the city's housing stock and hope the problems stay in Indy.
I concur. The reason conservatives don't support higher taxes and more government spending even locally that they don't trust how it will be spent. Part of the problem is those in government charged with actually executing renewing and revitalizing infrastructure are not competent and waste a lot of it because they are used to the way of the government "doing business". If Republican mayors or governors do go down this road, they need to ensure that those executing are competent. And if Mayor Brainard is even talking about how man-made climate change is real then he is part of the overall problem by buying into a lie.
Doing some checking on Carmel, according to the Census, the median rent in town is almost $1,350 a month and the median home value is $372k. Checking Zillow, that is probably a low estimate of what it would take to buy a single family home for a family in Carmel right now. What appears to have happened is that the city leadership either created or allowed an environment where their service sector workers can't afford to live in town if they have families. That would also tie into the 75% of adults have a college degree stat.
This is something you can do when attached to a metro area the size of Indianapolis, but it would be hard to replicate in many other places. I have heard similar things about Franklin, TN on the edge of the Nashville metro area. I am curious if Aaron can confirm or refute this and if it is true where do the working class employees of Carmel live?
Undoubtedly prices have gone up a lot there, as everywhere. I can't name a place where there isn't concern about workforce housing availability. Carmel has been allowing lots of apartments, and while they aren't Manhattan grade expensive, they are generally towards the nicer end for Indy. To me the risk there is that the existing lower cost housing gets redeveloped. There are still areas full of older suburban homes that are modest in price, but I'm not sure that's sustainable.
Given construction costs, it is impossible right now to build apartments and rent them at rates the working class can afford without getting some sort of subsidy. A lot of new construction is done with money from REITs and they get their best returns with high rent, high amenity properties geared toward young professionals and empty nesters. This isn't going to change in the short term.
That's an open question in some regard. I do think they'll have maintenance issues on the Palladium, for example.
However, when you've been in office 27, you've already gone through a full lifecycle on your early projects. These all have been maintained well.
And as I said, when their bond issues get paid off, they can essentially just re-borrow the money for infrastructure refresh.
But I do think maintenance is a challenge they will have to face.