Street cleaning and city services (eating my words)

Street cleaning
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Ironically, in a meeting and in email today I discussed how typically cities lack the resources to provide a high degree of services to any particular street or subdistrict, that if you want your commercial district or block to look good, you have to step up and pitch in. And the fact is that it is true. Maybe once a year we get some of this kind of service on our street. In the meantime, I pick up trash virtually every day, when I am out and about between home and the subway station or the bus stop or while running errands.

Still, today the city DPW was out tending to our street.


My general point, especially regarding commercial districts, remains true. If you want regular cleaning comparable to a shopping mall, you better come up with a plan. It's one of the reasons why business improvement districts, funded with an assessment on property taxes, have been created.

In the case of special spaces, such as pocket parks and similar places, you better come up with your own plan and even a landscape plan, because you can't expect the Dept. of Parks and Recreation to regularly maintain the space, or to maintain it according to what's planted there, such as flowers. Expect clearcutting and plan accordingly. Or, develop a memorandum of understanding with the agency and take care of it yourself.

After all, it is your neighborhood or commercial district that has to deal with the consequences of poorly maintained physical spaces. At the end of the day, a failure to execute in your neighborhood or commercial district has little consequence for people who work for local government (at least in a city like DC).