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Robert Culpepper Final Paper City Politics:PLS-321 sec 01 Fall 1995 |
Today’s cities face a managerie of problems as we prepare to enter the 21st
century. Overcrowding, homelessness and crime are all visible problems, but
what people don’t see is the real problems that lurk behind the doors of the
Federal and municipal buildings. What lurks there drives many problems in
the city and feeds a never ending loop of dependence and quick-fixes. The
problems behind the doors of those governmental offices is how cities handle
their monetary crises and what the national government does to contribute to
these problems the cities face.
The most serious problems facing cities today are a lack of fiscal resources,
unfunded mandates and regulations as well as other problems. Other problems
are that the programs that had been helping cities have been either severely
cut or removed entirely, federal money is becoming increasingly more scarce
for city projects and then there is the continuing failure to revamp H.U.D.
projects.
Ask almost any city official anywhere in the U.S., and they will probably
say that their very worst problem is a lack of funds. With a growing need
for city services, and a continually shrinking tax base, cities are finding
themselves with less and less money to use to solve their problems. Just
meeting basic city needs becomes a challenge. The cities seem to keep being
passes by, since all the talks of middle-class tax cuts, and the hopes of
economic growth won’t even help the cities with their fiscal woes (Schneider,
p. 140).
As cities see it, unfunded mandates are also one of their worst problems.
Unfunded mandates essentially require the state or local government to carry
out policy the federal government wants with local money (Tucker, p. 155).
There are four types of these mandates such as the direct order which is a
statutory requirement, crossover sanction which means grants are withheld
until a community complies to code, crosscutting requirements which removes
all federal funding if a community refuses to follow the requirements and
partial preemptions which create minimum standards for local governments to
meet at their own expense.
One example of these unfunded mandates is the Americans With Disabilities
Act, which required accessibility for all disabled persons for all public
services (Walters, p. 148). The Americans With Disabilities Act came with
no money to aid cities to adapt to the new law and consequently the cities
found themselves once again paying the bill. All of these mandates take
money away from the local government that could be used for issues the city
feels would aid them more (Tucker, p. 155).
Regulations is another area where cities feel that the federal, and
sometimes state, government is providing yet another problem for cities to
cope with. For example, one city had to fill out a 1200 page application to
apply for meager Head Start funding (Tucker, p. 154). These regulations
requires special people to deal with them, and in doing so takes away
valuable resources and personnel that could be used on other problems cities
today face.
Yet another problem that cities today face is that during the 1980s, the
programs that were helping cities were either cut or massively downsized.
Programs like local revenue sharing, Urban Development Action Grants and the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act are now just a memory (Walters, p.
148). Add to this that federal money to cities keeps shrinking yearly and
there is no wonder why cities have to "claw" for what resources there are
left for programs like Head Start and Community Development Block Grants
(Walters, p. 148).
Another problem cities are facing today is urban housing projects, where
crime seems to be drawn to. These areas require a great deal of resources
to monitor them and enforce the laws there. Throughout the years there have
been attempts to reform these ‘projects’ though, but to no avail (Ramos, p.
153). Some plans have called for distributed and more diverse locations
while others have planned a suburbanization of the urban poor (Ramos, p. 153).
For one reason or another either plans are not carried through, resources
are not allocated or even when the plan is ready to be implemented and the
money is there, legislators oppose the idea. These steps together insure
that few things will change with public housing and therefore, the city will
continue to be faced with the problems these areas cause.
Well, it appears we know most of the problems. Why isn’t anything being
done then? The political and bureaucratic bodies that deal with these
matters do little, if anything, to try to help the cities and their
problems. This is done for a variety of reasons including taking the easy
way out, and political goals and gains.
Taking the easy way out is the city’s end of their problem. Instead of
trying to cut what they can, and doing their best to provide a mean level of
service many cities prefer to complain about lack of funds even when they
know that money alone will probably not solve all their problems.
Political goals take a variety of forms when it comes to the inaction
politicians take on the behalf of cities. In one respect, politicians in
Washington don’t necessarily want to stop unfunded mandates and regulations
because they are the easiest way to get ambitious social legislation passed
(Tucker, p. 154). If the federal government doesn’t have to pay for it, why
worry?
On the case of urban housing, it is a matter of votes that causes
politicians to oppose such ideas as suburbanization. The politicians who
oppose these plans most often represent the district in question they vote
against, fearing that any change in demographics might endanger their
re-election (Ramos). Also, people representing these areas tend to vote
together to protect each others interests making their voice a rather loud
one. Besides, it is their district and apparently their citizens wishes,
which is truly the case many times (Ramos, p. 153).
In another case of political gains, the programs that did work for cities
(i.e. revenue sharing, etc...) were easy targets to cut in the 1980s when
increased defense spending was more attractive than aiding cities that may
or may not have voted for the opposing party. These programs that did not
show an instant gain or improvement were easily criticized, and poorly
defended making their demise almost inevitable.
There are many solutions out there to help cities today though, and they
fall all across the political spectrum. Some ideas are key on new
resources and more money while others focus on privatization and other
business-like steps.
From many cities’ perspectives, money is still the answer. To be precise,
‘targeted resources’ are what is really desired today. These resources
would go to attack a particular problem (homelessness, AIDS, etc...) and
would be tailored to meet the need for a particular desired outcome
(Schneider, p. 140). While this approach is one step over the idea of just
throwing money at a problem, it still is too vague on what kinds of
resources the city needs. Unfortunately, that aspect is vague because many
have no idea what resources the city could use most efficiently for their
problems.
A hole group of proposed ideas to benefit the city fall under the category
of business-like approaches to helping the city solve its own problems. One
of these approaches is to have government empower people rather than serve
them. With this philosophy, government would provide the tools for people
to help themselves, but would keep out of people’s lives and would offer few
or no ‘services’ in the conventional sense (Osborne). While this plan
sounds good in theory, in practice it might prove otherwise. It would help
those that could help themselves, but it totally bypasses the people who
can’t help themselves.
Another idea is the competitive government model. In this case, the
government and private sector compete to deliver services to people
(Osborne). Again, in theory it sounds good to make government competitive
but the fact is that few government entities could compete with the private
sector. Another point is that some services that the city provides are just
not desirably served by a private entity.
Of all the ideas that have a business-like reforms to them, the concept of
mission driven government has the best ability to work. Mission driven
government concentrates on problems, not particular areas of interest.
Agencies are grouped by problems not ‘territory’ (Osborne, p. 161). This
approach has the best chance to work because it plays to the cities strength
of delivering services for a diverse group of people and does not
necessarily rely on an outside group to implement policy.
One final item that might work well to help cities solve their problems is
anticipatory government. Anticipatory government concentrates on trying to
prevent problems before they occur (Osborne, p. 162). While this requires a
great deal of vigilance, and is difficult to implement and run, the rewards
of being able to stop or solve a problem before it gets too large to deal
with is considered to be worth the effort.
Today’s cities face many problems, dwindling resources and tax base
evaporation are only part of the problem. Many of the cities’ major
problems comes from federal rules, regulations and programs that are not
designed to aid the city but are designed to aid the people who draw them
up. Add to this mixture the fact that even though we know the problems, we
are a far way from finding the solutions and what you have is a very cloudy
uncertain future for what may be the next endangered species: American
cities.