Downtown

This week finds me at a public policy conference in the City of Brotherly Love -- Philadelphia -- which I always enjoying visiting but the present state of the city also leaves me sad since the downtown is rather run down and broken. Were Benjamin Franklin alive today he would probably shed a tear once he saw what has become of his home city where he played such a prominent role especially via his Junto Society (http://www.juntosociety.com/about.html).

If a similar civil society organization like the Junto Society does not exist in Philadelphia today then it is time for the city's leaders to step forward to harness Franklin's model for social change. I was reminded of this history today while reading Monica Yant Kinney's column in today's Philadelphia Inquirer entitled, "Ray Nagin Need Not Apologize."

Kinney's column focused on the poor performance of Mayor Street's (he is retiring this year so election fever is in the air) "Neighborhood Transformation Initiative" (NTI) as compared to Mayor Nagin's rebuilding of New Orleans. The NTI was a plan to clean up the city by removing abandoned cars (224,000 such cars have already been removed Kinney reports), cleaning vacant lots, and demolishing abandoned buildings. To date US$300 million has been spent on this project but they probably need to spend at least another $300 million based on the condition of the city that I saw today.

The major problem with such city programs is that like a struggling corporation that announces massive job layoffs instead of incrementally improving its operations daily such pronouncements are a sign that a crisis point has been hit.

Imagine -- 224,000 abandoned cars in Philadelphia at one time!! 224,000!! What were the city workers and police doing while these eye sores piled up? This is a classic example of the "broken window theory" pertaining to urban decay. The theory goes like this -- "hey there is an abandoned car on my street so I might as well dump this old couch on the car since I don't want to pay to have it hauled away...........why don't we set that abandoned couch on fire.........then let's pull some parts off the car to throw at the windows of the homes on the street............" --- you see how it goes.

Continuous improvement in city services, a greater respect for property rights, and local support and membership of civil society organizations like Kiwanis, Rotary, Boy Scouts, etc. would be a better downtown revitalization plan than "grand schemes" such as Mayor Streets' NTI program.

Think locally, act privately,

Todd

Heroes

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending the "2007 Oklahoma Citizenship Award Dinner" which was hosted by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (www.ocpathink.org). This annual event showcases the concept of "citizenship" via an essay contest for students with $12,000 in prize money awarded for winning essays and the "Will Rogers Award" given to the citizenship award winner.

This year's winner was former astronaut/entrepreneur/former military advisor General Thomas Stafford - a native of Oklahoma. Following his acceptance speech the keynote address was given by Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College (www.hillsdale.edu) who delivered an excellent speech regarding the the importance of Americans understanding the US Constitution. I share Dr. Arnn's reflections on the heroic leadership qualities of President George Washington but do not share his admiration for Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since Churchill was a die hard imperialist -- no champion of the kind of freedom I want to enjoy.

Tonight's speech on leadership qualities and heroic qualities reminded me of the USA Today story I read yesterday -- "An amazing story of giving that could change our world" -- by DeWayne Wickham. Wickham's article was focused on multi-millionaire/philanthropist/social entrepreneur (my description) -- Harris Rosen of Orlando, Florida.

Mr. Rosen has invested his personal wealth into a very poor and dangerous unincorporated community near Orlando called "Tangelo Park" which includes free pre-school education for 2, 3, and 4 year old children and a free college education for all high school graduates of Tangelo Park.

Since Mr. Rosen's program for Tangelo Park started crime has "dropped 67% and the area's high school dropout rate fell from 25% to 6%." Overall Mr. Rosen has spent $7 million working to improve Tangelo Park so he has called on his fellow wealthy Americans to spend their own funds in their own communities just like he has done. The motivation for cleaning up his own "back yard" is driven by his world view -- ONE THAT I SHARE TOTALLY -- which is noted in this quote from Mr. Rosen:

"Government is just too dense, too stupid, too inept to do this (project). If Oprah came down here and saw what we're doing, she would do it somewhere. If I could get NBA Commissioner David Stern to come here, I think he would get every NBA team involved in a project like ours in their cities."

Now that makes a lot of sense - especially for the NBA, not only for public relations purposes but to improve the neighborhoods and build the fan base around their downtown stadiums.

The world needs heroes,

Todd