I am going to vote for Michael Nutter on November 6th, and he is going to win.
Despite the fact that he is not really a candidate anymore, and he already has my support, I do want to know more about how he thinks about the economic problems facing Philadelphia.
I have written about the future of Philadelphia’s economy here, here, here, and here and Nutter has demonstrated an intelligent response to many of the issues brought up in those conversations, He also comes to the General Election with the most equally balanced base of support in terms of race, ever.
However, no matter how good he is, or how good a job he does, or who supports him, his first few months in office will be challenging and I want to know what he is going to do to create a sustainable, local economy that benefits all of us.
Why?
Our city’s economy is in the midst of a major change that so far seems to be making quality of life worse for most of us. Our city has been through change before (think fight for independence, industrial revolution, the Great Depression, deindustrialization in the 1970s). In the past, the sheer size of these moments made it difficult for a local Mayor to do more than just react. However, the economic and cultural shifts we are experiencing now are different. An economy rooted in innovation, creativity, and service delivery (as opposed to industry, manufacturing, and concrete material products) is inherently more micro and local. Aided by the devolution of the role of federal government, there’s more power and responsibility in the hands of states and cities than ever before.
This big-pciture stuff has a particular and specific impact on us--young workers in Philadelphia. We are facing a really uncertain personal economic future. In the context of this very big framework, acknowledging Philadelphia itself can only do so much, I am curious to learn what Nutter will do, and more importantly how he thinks.
A few weeks back I wrote a post called “Back to Philadelphia’s Economic Future” that tries to describe what I am seeing emerge. I described an era in our nation and our world’s economic growth thathas yet to be named, but is characterized by increasing income inequity and poverty, rising violence. There I prescribed the formation of a plan for Philadelphia’s economy to help us navigate our way through this difficult era. I envisioned a detailed plan that could take advantage of the changes in our economy via local innovation, to take us to a new place of shared prosperity and increased opportunity. I talked to Dan about this in advance of my writing and he said:
I am not really a big fan of some huge master plan, because when you look back on master plans that cities have had before, they are really laughable in how stupid they are, or how out of time. I think what you are more talking about anyway is more like what I would consider a framework with a set of specific goals and outcomes.
Good point. Our economy and our city are too dynamic to make a plan that we must adhere to, but a framework, as Dan suggests, makes a lot of sense.
For instance, if you can prove to me that opening a new condo building with retail stores on the bottom will raise median wages, I’d support it. However, if you can show me that an investment in a green building trades apprentice program will ultimately raise median wages higher, than I’d rather prioritize that.
A framework (PHramework maybe?)—which might just start from a list of goals and ideas that are already out on the table—would help build a road map for local government practitioners to consult when they make any decision about municipal funding. If you are pushing green building, or increased CHIP funding, or affordable housing, or tax breaks, it should be obvious how any request to spend (or reduce the intake of revenue in the case of tax cuts) municipal funds will directly help to raise median wages or the reduce poverty.
What elements of a framework for Philadelphia's economic future can we all agree to?
Click "read more" below to see some ideas.
A Framework for Understanding Philadelphia’s Economic Future
I propose a framework that has as its main goal a boost in wages for all Philadelphians.
My religion is economic development. Like all devotees of any faith, I see mine as a frame through which to view EVERYthing that happens in my world. Our local economy is dynamic. It shapes attitudes towards education, drugs, crime, green issues, housing, zoning, policing, transit--in short, everything. Our economy also reacts to regional, state, national, and international happenings. None of our current problems can be solved without first fixing our economy.
A framework for improving Philadelphia’s future needs to be centered on raising wages and reducing poverty. To understand why, you have to look back.
The influx of immigrants in Philadelphia, starting with the Irish in the 1850s, and the need for cheap, expendable labor, is what initially grew our city’s population. We reached our peak in the 1960s with over 2 million residents. Those residents had higher median wages (adjusted for inflation) than we have today and they were able to buy homes and create opportunities for their children, who in turn went on to earn more and do even better than their parents had. The impact of organized labor on the manufacturing-based economy of the 20th century, along with the higher top income tax rates of the post-war era, made it much easier for companies and business to offer long-term employment with decent wages and benefits to workers. These jobs are what kept our city stable.
That’s simply not the reality today.
In the wake of deindustrialization, we have an innovation and service-based economy. This new economy, coupled with Reagan-era tax cuts and 90’s era bath-tub-drowning-Republicans has created, a new breed of super rich, and a middle class that has shrunk and is still shrinking. Although there are lots of opportunities to make a lot of money in this new economy, wages have decreased for the majority of workers. The gap in earnings between 40, 50 year olds and up, and people in their 20s and 30s is particularly notable.
The traditional roles played by organized labor, government, advocacy groups, and even political parties have not adjusted quickly enough to maintain median wages, and thus the standard of living that our parents and grandparents achieved is gone.
What City Government Can Do To Raise Wages, Lift People Out of Poverty and Grow Our Middle and High Wage Earning Households?
There have been many debates here (and all over the city) about the merits of tax reduction as a tool for growing wages (by attracting job) but the reality is that there is no one thing that the city can do to grow wages. There are actually a lot of things that we need to do, yet it doesn’t seem that anyone in City Hall has actually constructed a plan that lists these “to-do” items and then ranked them by priority.
The easiest thing city government can do to raise median wages of citizens is to look at its own work force (the city is itself the largest employer in Philadelphia). Are city workers being paid too much, or too little? Is the allocation of city workers, and their requisite training, equal to the needs of the populace? Do short term gains in reductions of the public work force have a negative effect on long-term economic sustainability or not?
The next thing the city can do is look at procurement procedures, city contracts, and vendors. What percentage of Philadelphians are employed by these entities? How much are they paid? What are the demographics of the people they employ? The city has tremendous spending power that can be used to force or incentivize companies that do business with the city to boost the wages they pay employees or hire more Philadelphians.
After that, city leaders need to start making investments in areas that matter to small, medium, and large-sized businesses and non-profits that employ people.
Every employer wants to hire someone who is as trained and prepared for their job as possible, so education is key. Employers also want physical plants that are affordable, easy to get to, and well located. Employers want to pay their taxes efficiently, understand zoning and health codes easily, and they want whatever help they can get in terms of accessing capital to get started. Employers certainly don’t want a city with a reputation as one of the most violent.
Even if you don’t agree with this list of priorities, I think we can agree that there has to be some list of priorities . I don’t know this for a fact, but it certainly seems right now that economic planning is not particularly coordinated and geared toward leveraging all of the city’s resources and tools to make change.
What Nutter Needs to Do
Certainly Nutter’s website shows that he has a lot of ideas about how to solve many problems that are the result of a confused approach to economic development like zoning reform, fiscal integrity, or public education. However, I think the average Philadelphian needs a clearer picture of where each of the individual issues fits on the larger road map to sustainability and prosperity for Philadelphia.
A good manager can make a lot of headway by delegating authority, but at some level, a Mayor still must decide how much time he and Council are going to focus on reducing gun violence, how much time they are going to spend on after school programs, and how much time they are going to spend on business recruitment and retention. There is clearly an relationship between priorities, but ultimately you have to do one thing first.
National and international economic trends have fundamentally changed our lives. No one is going to help our city respond to these changes except us. We need more than a haphazard, market driven decision making process. Philadelphia, based on its existing local resources, needs to plan for a new economy, especially for its younger workers.
How will Michael Nutter respond as our Mayor?
Green jobs can save Philly
I don't often post a copy of an entire column (other than my own), but I think Thomas Friedman's latest is really an important piece. He writes about "The green-collar solution" to creating high paying jobs for people who are currently trapped in poverty. Given our regular discussions of these issues, I thought it would be worth posting in it's entirety. I really think this could be a solution to Philadelphia's problem with poverty. Does anybody agree with me?
link
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I agree...but...
the point I am trying to drive at above is that there a ton of great stand alone ideas that will help improve our economy. the problem i am seeing is that we have no sense of context for these solutions. so, in this case, how specifically do green jobs improve the economy (they boost wages, yes? what else) and what will green jobs do to address immediate problems like violence?
I don't ask that to set you up--I am sure there are good answers--but I do want to emphasize that we need to map out all of the great ideas (like green jobs or expanded public transit or universal healthcare) and develop a prioritized to-do list.
Immediate Problems and a very, very jumbled response.
Sorry, trying to do 3 things at once:
When I talk about issues like violence, I talk about short, medium and long term solutions.
Green trades sounds like, at the very least, a "medium term" solution to many things, including reducing violence--and one that is absolutely worth pursuing. I consider it medium term because people have to be trained, funds have to be secured and businesses have to build green. Similarly, 500 new police, short-medium term solution(training and funding). Improving our public education (very general, I know) is a long term solution.
Short term solutions to items like violence, in my mind, are enforcement and criminal justice issues. How do we slow things down in the present.
I tend to shy away from prioritized "to do" lists as they have the affect of being constrictive to new challenges and the need for innovation. That being said, before we create a "to do" list, we must create an idea of what our short, medium and long term goals are and the best way to accomplish those goals. For instance, if we are talking about funding--identify who should fund what and how to go about getting that money. Sometimes, there are competiting needs for money--that is where, I think, Ray's want to prioritize comes in. For instance, personally, I think funding for job creation and crime reduction should take priority over expanded public transit. 5 years ago, I may have said something much different. But that was before the current spike in gun violence and the realization that, we are living in two different Philadelphias.
So, if I can make any recomendation, it is to organize in short, medium and long term programing. Also, to prioritize based on a perception of need.
I am working to elect Larry Farnese to the General Assembly. Unless otherwise expressly stated, this and every comment or blog I post on YPP and any action I take hereon is solely attributable to me and not Farnese or Friends of Farnese
Good questions. Both
Good questions. Both short-term and long-term solutions for Philadelphia's economic development can be found in environmentally friendly technology.
In the short term, rehabbing crumbling and abandoned residential and commercial properties to be environmentally friendly can create a lot of economic activity. As Friedman notes, these types of jobs cannot be outsourced to China. Many of the construction unions have already begun to develop green components of their apprentice training programs. This needs to be encouraged and expanded. If we make an organized investment into these types of programs, we can actually target them at people currently trapped in poverty. That will create a bunch of high and medium wage jobs right away.
In the long term, Philadelphia needs to position itself to be a hub of environmental technological innovation. London is already positioning itself to be the European center of green technology. We need to follow suit. How does this happen? First, we need to look at the half dozen world class educational institutions already located in Philadelphia and encourage them to focus on these areas. We can also push some of our public schools to focus on this area as well. The market for green technology is only going to expand over the next 50 years. If we get started now, Philly could be a hub for this kind of economic activity.
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Who gets to decide?
I'm glad you had a chance to get this post out Ray. I guess the question for me is who gets to determine "The Plan"? Is it the Mayor? Council?
In a city with massive disenfranchisement, a widening gap between poor/working class folks and what's becoming a really upper level wealth class, with large immigrant pockets -- I just don't place a lot of faith in a top down approach to reviving our communities and protecting our children. Somewhere there has to be a voice for the people in the neighborhoods, with an inclusion of diverse voices to articulate and be part of any plan of revitalization. For them to prioritize their own needs is key.
I don't deny your strong push to improve wages (I would add benefits and health care); it's no doubt the biggest challenge Nutter will face in deciding who "wins" in the city union showdown (though I certainly hope it won't be like that). While jobs and wages address some of our individual needs, I guess I am also looking for a dialogue about our broader public goods (housing, health care, recreation, transportation -- the definitions of the quality of life of a city) that seems to have been lost recently. It's not just the marketplace that defines life -- and for many of our youngest who lack high school diplomas it will be a struggle for too many of them -- but we can ease some of our individual circumstances in looking at improving broader public goods in our neighborhoods and from City Hall.
A plan for Philadelphia--a framework--practically speaking
Good points Mansei. In my post, I am asking for two things:
1- for Michael Nutter to outline his plan for Philadelphia's economy if he agrees that we our local economic planning must be done in the context of a massive global shift (something I never heard Rendell or Street talk about).
2- for people like us to start developing our own plan and building our own consensus.
In response to this:
Absolutely. You know I care about these issues a lot. However, the frame with which they have been discussed lately seems to have been based on an outmoded view of the local economy. Since all of those issues require a massive investment of government funds to effect any real change, I figure it makes more sense to fix the economy that has reduced the contribution of tax revenue to fund this stuff.
Let me paraphrase Mark Price from his comment on a different thread:
This is not the case again today. Most Philadelphians, something like 70-80%, have seen a decline in their income since the 70s. The only growth areas have been for upper middle income and upper income earners who have just gotten richer. Practically speaking that means it's more cost effective for them to buy cars, send thier kids to private school, and buy houses in increasingly economic segregated areas (think U City, Bella Vista, Mt. Airy, Fairmount, Grays Ferry/Grad Hospital).
You can try to convince these people it's morally right to give up income to go toward collective problems, even though they have removed much of the personal need for these fixes. Or you can find ways to create a local economy that lifts more people into higher paying jobs so that there is more tax money going into city coffers to use to fix problems.
You are right to ask, who gets to decide?
The reality is that Michael Nutter, for all intents and purposes, already has the right to decide. He has to work with Council some, but he has a lot of power on his own. That's why I just want to know what he thinks--not in abstract bullets but in direct response to the specific structural economic problems in Philly.
Beyond that, it's up to us to buy in or not to that plan, but it requires organizing and activism from everyone on all levels. How that works out practically...I don't know...
Ray - I have a whole essay in my head on this
Ray - I have a whole essay in my head on this but no time to write it.
1. What you're talking about has probably been written by someone in a burrow at Temple or Penn somewhere. I bet it's there, it's just a matter of finding it.
2. You're basically talking about reversing global capitalism.
One of the only ways to revitalize Philly's economy is to revive indigenous industries - a return to the merchant economy. You look at the parts of our economy that are still healthy, they are things that can't leave - building trades, the arts, Yards brewery. The only way to do it is to buy stuff that is made here, and that would require a massive reconfiguration of consumer tastes and expectations. People need to stop buying eight pairs of Chinese made shoes and instead buy two pairs that are made by a Philadelphia cobbler. That's the only way to do it.
I thought for a long time that this was impossible. How do you change consumer buying habits in a culture in which shopping for useless crap is a huge leisure time activity, and the meaning of life for a lot of people?
But I was driving to work the other day and WHYY had this thing about WWII's Victory Gardens effort. You remember this?
If you really think about it, during WWII, the United States government convinced hundreds of thousands of people all over the country to drastically lower their food buying habits...based not on necessity, not on financial need but JUST ON ABSTRACT IDEAS AND A REALLY GOOD PERSUASION CAMPAIGN. I mean, the government didn't even give out free pumpkin seeds. People had to buy their own stuff. And think abut this - this is in the context of a war being fought thousands of miles away, on the other of an ocean, against this abstract idea, 'facism', that really meant nothing to most people. (even if the draft at home did make it personal for a lot of people.)
So I guess the question is - can we get Philadelphians to start growing radishes against fascism again?
21st-Century Philly
Philadelphia has continued to be relevant and vibrant in the new global economy of the 21st century in part because it has already made the transition to a global economy. But it still hasn't capitalized on its inherent potential.
This is where I disagree with Hannah above. The major industries in Philadelphia aren't just the indigenous, immobile ones. Philadelphia's largest/most high-profile non-governmental employers are the universities, the hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies, and telecommunications. Education, health care, and technology.
In this respect, Philadelphia is incredibly fortunate. These are industries with positive long-term growth, that employ large numbers of Philadelphians at every skill and educational level (even though they do tilt towards workers with more education), that generate a tremendous amount of wealth for the city and the region, and which naturally synergize with one another, and which can potentially improve the life of every Philadelphian. We don't make cigarettes, or tanks, or gas-guzzling cars. We help people learn, we help them to communicate, and we save their lives.
I grew up in Detroit, which pinned its hopes on large-scale manufacturing. Detroit has no built-in tourist attractions, few universities (and no prestigious ones), little residential density. It's a city that threatens to be the 21st century version of Pompeii, perpetually frozen in ash. Philadelphia, by contrast, really is the next great city.
So what can we do to better capitalize on this growth? Well, I would like to see more cooperation between these industries, both with one another, and with the city. There is no reason why Earthlink needed to be brought in to do the city's municipal wireless network. Comcast or Verizon should have done that, to show off their headquarters city as a prototype of what their companies can do. The entire city, every classroom, home, business, and office, should have fiberoptic broadband and wireless access. The city needs to sit down with its two partners, bring in the unions who can help deliver the labor, and get the deal done.
We should also look at the relationship the universities have with the medical and pharmaceutical industries as a model of how for-profit companies and the schools can work together. The city's medical students (at Temple, Penn, Jefferson, etc.) are shoo-ins for jobs and residencies at our city's hospitals, and the students at the university of the sciences are quickly snatched up by Big Pharma. But the majority of the city's college students wind up having to leave Philly to find jobs -- while in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York, the brains only compound themselves after graduation.
One of the city's major universities -- probably Penn or Temple or both -- needs to make a commitment to training students in computing, engineering, and technology, to make Philadephia competitive with Boston on this coast and the Bay Area on the other in attracting the kinds of students who will create the next Google, the next Apple, the next Amazon. And we need to leverage our relationship with the telecommunications companies to make that happen, and to coax THEM into thinking about themselves less like Ma Bell (20th-century wired monopolies) and more like the 21st-century networking engines they already are. If we create those conditions, and educate those students, we don't need to create jobs for them -- they'll create jobs for themselves and many others.
The last thing I'll mention is obvious, but probably the most important. Our universities, tech companies, and hospitals need to expand their relationships with our schools, as part of a much more comprehensive program to improve the education our students receive, to help them get into those colleges, and to help them prepare to work in those kinds of jobs.
I'd like to see the city, the state, the federal government, and our universities work together to create an innovative teachers' college. To staff the high schools of the future, we need the teachers of the future -- teachers prepared for the challenges of teaching students left behind by the 20th century economy, but fully armed with the skills, resources, and technology of the 21st-century. Mark Cohen has talked in the past about trying to create a new state school within the city limits. I think a flagship teachers' college would do more good than any other kind of new university. And Michael Nutter, Mark Cohen, Dwight Evans, Chaka Fattah, Anthony Williams, Bob Brady, Allison Schwartz, Amy Gutmann, Judy Rodin, and Ed Rendell are the people who could make it happen.
There's more to say, but I've said enough.
--Tim
From Brookings
via the Housing Alliance of PA: