The Richmond Times-Dispatch disses DC (Photo: Richmond #3 by Andertho)

(Flickr photo by Andertho.)

Richmond #3
Originally uploaded by andertho.

Right now Blogger is completely wacked, so I am posting this via Flickr, and it will be my last entry for awhile, at least until Blogger recovers.

Yesterday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, in the editorial "Re-Tired" takes the kind of gratuitous slap at DC that Bacon's Rebellion complains about vis-a-vis Virginia and the Washington Post editorial page. (See Another Cheap Shot from the Washington Post.)

The RTD writes:

Good ideas are about as common in Washington as igloos in Iraq. But there's one afoot on the city streets other cities might want to emulate.

The District is experimenting with rubber sidewalks made of recycled tires. Unlike concrete sidewalks, the rubber ones are easier to work with -- they can be cut and molded and moved with comparative ease and they don't crack or crumble, which lessens the likelihood of lawsuits. They let tree roots breathe, so the roots don't fight upward through the sidewalk for air and water.

The language that comes to mind in response is not pretty. There are plenty of good ideas in Washington. (I have plenty myself...) But they do have a point.

What's lacking in Washington, both at the local level as well as the federal level (but we won't get into that) is a pervasive unresponsiveness to citizens, to creativity, to best practices, etc.

And there is a kind of infantilism, a lack of a sense of community efficacy, that residents-citizens need to take responsibility and work to help themselves, as well as goad public officials, vote, turn the undeserving out of office, etc. (You know the line "get off your a**...." I think it so many times when I read email on neighborhood e-lists.)

There is an op-ed in the Boston Globe about the Big Dig Tunnel debacle, which had been a big contracting and boondoggle story long before the tragedy of last week, where a woman was crushed by a falling panel.

In part, and in a way it reflects the thesis of Zach Schrag's book The Great Society Subway that the WMATA subway system in creation reflects a last gasp of liberal progressivism, that government can and should build great things to make life better for citizens (this is the philosophy that Mayor Joseph Riley of Charleston still espouses and practices, but he is truly a rare person on the political scene--read his speech to see what I mean).

Last night, I was talking to one of the key ECTC activists from the 1960s, and she thinks Zach is full of it, that the subway system had absolutely nothing to do with Great Society aspirations but came out of the activism and tumult of the times--from riots and the Black Panthers, Grey Panthers, student activism, protest against the Vietnam War, and the birth of environmentalism. For her, it is and was a ground-up movement that forced upon the government the subway system instead of freeways. Remember that people still remembered streetcars, which didn't stop running until 1962.

(Although they are probably both right. The subway was forced onto the local and federal government by the activists, but once the project started, it became imbued with the principles of the Great Society.)

In any case I believe that the anti-freeway activists, along with the historic preservationists, saved the city that we are fortunate enough to be able to enjoy today, because of its beauty and pedestrian-centric urban design despite the best efforts of the Growth Machine to make it over into a car-centered suburban like office and shopping mall ghetto.

Be that as it may, through the early 1970s (maybe Richard Nixon and Watergate permanently disrupted the sense that people could trust government) back then the government could accomplish things. And it still does, somewhat. But the vision is lacking and so is the execution, as I mentioned in a comment on the Sunday blog entry about Central Library planning in DC.

Anyway, the Globe op-ed, The culture of stressing costs over safety says:

...it's already clear that part of the problem was that for more than a decade public officials in charge of the Big Dig overemphasized concerns about the projects' costs and underemphasized the need to build a safe, well-built project.

That's not to say that they ignored concerns about safety and quality. Rather, they created a culture that was skeptical of -- and at times hostile to -- those who raised such concerns. As a result, seemingly minor problems were ignored. Usually this is not a problem, but sometimes this can lead to catastrophic results.

Why would the project's overseers underemphasize safety concerns? Because they fell victim to one of the iron laws of project management: ``Fast, good, or cheap? Pick two."

This is where Zach Schrag's thesis has some staying power. (Also seethis other Globe op-ed Correcting the Big Dig culture.)

When I first read the Globe piece, I was thinking about crony capitalism (i.e., Enron, Health South, Tyco, Fannie Mae etc.) and the pillaging of corporations for the benefit of top managers, as well as crony government, which as I have written about before, has been with us as long as we have had government, the King's court in England being one example.

But crony government is a problem when people look to use government to best benefit themselves. Dorothy Brizill has been writing about the egregious salaries and financial shenanigans in the DC Department of Parks and Recreation (check out the mail to see more about this). And my blog entries on the "Uncivil War" are about the return of crony government to DC, such as this entry Tom Sherwood, Duncan Spencer, Anwar Amal, and thinking about what I call the "Uncivil War".

And this week, the Washington Times has published a three-part series about the salaries of top officials in the DC Government, which to my way of thinking, given the kinds of "results" we are seeing in terms of sound agency operation, is another form of crony government.

Part One -- D.C. fields fewer workers, but payroll cost soars
Part Two -- D.C. pay increases not based on merit
Part Three -- D.C. officials earn in city, live in burbs

Clearly, we need a progressive urban agenda. Rubber sidewalks shouldn't be the pinnacle of DC's achievement of best practices and good government.

At Rhode Island and U streets NW, rubber sidewalks, made of recycled passenger tires, are said to have a lifespan three times longer than that of their concrete counterparts. (By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post). From "City Has a New Bounce in Its Step" subtitled
"D.C. Tests Tree-Friendly Sidewalks Made of Recycled Tires"

Index Keywords: good-government; civic-engagement