GOLDSMITH'S SECRETS OF SUCCESS
COHEN, ERIC S.
THE SEVEN HABITS OF EFFECTIVE MAYORS by Eric S. Cohen Asked for a definition of compassionate conservatism at a recent luncheon in Washington, Stephen Goldsmith didn't miss a beat: "To me it means...
...Americans have lost confidence in government's ability to do what religious and community institutions always did—help the disadvantaged—and, as a result, many politicians have embraced the solutions offered by institutions of faith...
...Goldsmith has shown that a humble government is not a limp government, just one that focuses on its core responsibilities and knows its limits...
...Over 4,000 homes have been built or restored in the city's most broken-down neighborhoods...
...Goldsmith has been leading the way...
...His involvement with the children who come to Christamore House has a distinct civic importance...
...Those mayors, Republicans and Democrats, who have followed Goldsmith's example— cutting government and taxes while encouraging competition and community—are being rewarded with popularity, electoral success, and national praise...
...He has since become one of Goldsmith's biggest supporters and a very effective community leader...
...At a neighborhood meeting, one man "stood up and stated flatly that the city had ignored [them] for too long," Goldsmith recounts...
...City hall has supported the "little platoons" in Indianapolis with a series of civic initiatives...
...It takes its signals from neighborhood leaders and entrepreneurs...
...Markets empower workers, who "are more than willing to answer for their results in exchange for real authority over how their jobs are done...
...THE SEVEN HABITS OF EFFECTIVE MAYORS by Eric S. Cohen Asked for a definition of compassionate conservatism at a recent luncheon in Washington, Stephen Goldsmith didn't miss a beat: "To me it means that Republicans have an obligation to help those who are in difficult straits, and that we can do that and still be conservative at the same time...
...Thirty years of big-government programs and city planners had turned the underclass into hardened cynics...
...And we try to get it for them—with private resources if possible, and public resources where appropriate...
...it's not that city workers are inherently lazy...
...Community policing, an idea developed by Mark Moore and George Kelling at Harvard and James Q. Wilson at UCLA, has transformed the formerly antagonistic relationship between Indianapolis police and the urban poor into a constructive partnership...
...And yet, Indianapolis has seen four tax cuts over the same period...
...Let me be absolutely clear about this," says Mayor Ed Rendell, the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia...
...Today, big city mayors, both Republicans and Democrats, believe that supply-side tax cuts are not just common sense but economic necessity...
...they just lack the freedom, incentive, and expertise to improve services and cut costs...
...Bush is not alone...
...Under Goldsmith, the city government has been focused on fundamentals...
...Face up to your responsibilities,' he said, 'and then we will respond.'" Habit 5: Support little platoons The man who stood up at the meeting was a former Black Panther named Olgen Williams...
...In Indianapolis, Goldsmith made it clear that workers who reject accountability, who want to be coddled and protected, should do so on their own time and not at taxpayers' expense...
...Habit 2: Fire your friends City governments are notorious for the well-connected party hacks who get appointed as "supervisors" throughout the bureaucracy...
...Moreover, Goldsmith was proved correct...
...Crime is down, record numbers of new homes are going up, and unemployment is below 3 percent...
...The Front Porch Alliance has placed the resources of city hall behind faith- and community-based efforts to rebuild the city's social capital...
...Fundamental problems like bad roads, syringes on the playground, and backed-up sewers go unaddressed while city governments roll out one "personal well-being program" after another...
...Tax reductions are one of the highest priorities of my second term...
...Goldsmith's record in indianapolis is impressive: Since coming to office in 1992, he has cut the budget every year, cut taxes four times, opened up over 80 city services to competitive bidding, and reduced the city workforce (everybody but police officers and fire fighters) by 40 percent...
...Habit 1: Encourage competition Markets do many things...
...The total savings: $400 million...
...They even show a polite interest in me, a white guy in a suit, and ask what I do for a living...
...He should know...
...In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people," he said, "we will look first to faith-based organizations, charities, and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives...
...Businesses are better at providing jobs and creating wealth...
...Habit 3: Cut taxes Just a few years ago, both big government liberals and budget hawks dismissed the importance of marginal tax rates as "voodoo economics...
...It has linked faith-based organizations with local charities and businesses to fund after-school, job-training, and family-outreach programs...
...Where appropriate, it supplies limited resources...
...Habit 4: Do the fundamentals A basic failure of the liberal vision of government is that it is long on the things communities should do and short on the things government should do...
...Call them the seven habits—or strategies—of a highly effective mayor...
...In the end, dilapidated public spaces send a signal that if you live in a tough neighborhood, you're a second-class citizen...
...Eric S. Cohen is assistant editor of the Public Interest...
...At the Christamore House, a community center in Haughville, one of Indianapolis's toughest areas, Williams serves as director, mentor, counselor, and fix-it man...
...Habit 7: Keep government humble Mayors across the country are abandoning the Great Society philosophy of govern-ment-knows-best in favor of pragmatic, neighborhood-based, faith-based approaches to urban renewal...
...When Goldsmith visited poor neighborhoods at the beginning of his first term, residents shouted at him...
...Churches and families are better at maintaining the social fabric and instilling virtue...
...Law enforcement spending has been increased by $160 million...
...Goldsmith cut a number of needless positions, saved the city money, and won the respect of the union workers, who at first viewed his "marketization" plan as merely a threat to their jobs...
...As a result, crime is down dramatically (except for homicides, which Goldsmith attributes to the late introduction of crack into Indianapolis...
...The city soon contracted out many services, including wastewater management, towing abandoned vehicles, and running the Indianapolis airport...
...A humble government accepts its role as a support player...
...The lessons of Goldsmith's success offer a model of urban reform across the country...
...And despite the many social and economic ills that still confront the city's poorest residents—out-of-wedlock births, crack, poor schools—there is a new optimism that springs from seven years of slow, but steady, renewal...
...Private companies are often better at providing essential public services...
...Yet, "the crucial factor in a free market is not fear but freedom...
...Like the prospect of hanging, Goldsmith says, competition concentrates the mind wonderfully...
...It has supplied community groups with city trucks and dumpsters for neighborhood cleanup projects...
...Goldsmith fired enough of them to make city departments competitive with private sector companies...
...a humble government does not see in every problem the beginnings of a new agency or government mandate...
...As Goldsmith explains, "We listen to community and church leaders, who tell us what they need...
...This approach has reaped many rewards...
...The program has helped churches turn abandoned parking lots and crack alleys into parks and playgrounds...
...They are developing good habits, the foundation of any just and prosperous regime...
...The father of ten, he has a personal stake in the community...
...178 sheriff's deputies, police officers, and park rangers have been added...
...Government monopolies, on the other hand, are fat and inefficient...
...Habit 6: Brim God back to the ghetto Recently, Texas governor George W. Bush traveled to Indianapolis to make his first major policy address...
...In addition, Goldsmith has turned around public housing by moving public money into private investment and working with various community development corporations...
...The new services are, as he likes to say, "not just cheaper, but better...
...It was not an easy task—the managers he fired were predominantly his own Republican supporters—but it paid off...
...To the mayor's surprise, union workers, freed from unnecessary middle managers and allowed to bid against private companies, openly won a fair number of city contracts...
...Goldsmith, the two-term mayor of Indianapolis, is presidential candidate George W. Bush's guru of urban renewal...
...If we are to have any chance of permanently reversing the decades-long trend of losing residents and businesses, we have to continue to . . . cut the tax burden that chokes our residents, our workers, and our businesses...
...Seven poor areas have been targeted through an initiative called Building Better Neighborhoods...
...Their lives shaped by gangs, crack, and above all, poverty, the youngsters are nevertheless neatly dressed and well-mannered...
...In all, more than $1 billion has been invested to rebuild sidewalks, resurface streets, and build and restore parks and public buildings...
...Moreover, he knows the hard-luck stories of the people around him...
...They inspire creativity, tailor services to public demand, and weed out bad assumptions...
...Williams lives in Haughville...
Vol. 4 • September 1999 • No. 48
