Investment vs. spending and DC's fiscal surplus: how about funding big, visionary projects

So DC has a $414 million surplus (partly because we won't spend money on where it needs to be spent, partly for other reasons).  See "D.C. budget surplus should be saved, mayor says" from WJLA-TV.

Some DC elected officials want all of it to be put in the bank.

Mayor Gray has announced a willingness to invest $100 million in affordable housing ("Gray pushes affordable housing, pay raises" from the Washington Examiner).

I would argue that besides investing in "affordable housing" the city should do other targeted investment on items that are really really really really really important, but that the city doesn't appear to be addressing at all.

The point of investment is to "spend" money on items that are structural and have long term positive economic return.

Spending is disbursing money on items that have little long term impact, tend to not be about structural change, and have little if any economic return.

I can think of at least five items that qualify, although it would be a lot easier if the city had a public capital improvements budgeting process and program.  (Most jurisdictions do this on a 6 year time frame, on a two year running plan.  DC does something like this in the Chief Financial Officer's shop, but it's not a public process.)

1.  Re-constructing the Georgia Avenue-Missouri Avenue intersection.  

This came up in the "Walmart" report process I co-chaired for ANC4B (ANC4B Large Tract Review Report on Walmart, 5/2011, "Temper Walmart Glee with Planning," op-ed, Washington Business Journal).  That intersection has an offset geometry from when the road was created in the 1860s and it has never been "corrected."  Riggs Road-Missouri Avenue-Military Road is the only through east-west arterial in Upper Northwest (and the only through east-west arterial other than Michigan Avenue-Columbia, which is in "Middle" Northwest).

The intersection will only get worse as Upper Georgia Avenue gets redevelopment in this segment, from Missouri Avenue--the city's first Walmart will be opening up at this intersection--to at least the Walter Reed Army Medical Center complex, which has been deaccessioned, with 60+ acres going to DC for redevelopment into office, retail, and housing + various nonprofit uses (like charter schools) and 30+ acres (I think) for embassies.  Other land use intensification opportunities exist along this corridor.

Now DDOT barely raised the issue of this intersection in their response to Walmart, but then DDOT was basically ordered by the city's elected officials, to make the project happen, not to mitigate the potential problems or come up with expensive projects to fix real, fundamental long term problems.

The ANC report mentioned that one option would be to build a circle and underground Missouri Avenue.

2.  Create a massive economic, education, health, and social improvement initiative for Wards 7 and 8.

Sometime this year I will be writing a series of pieces on how a type of Harlem Children's Zone initiative needs to be created, like the Promise Neighborhood Initiative in Kenilworth-Parkside but much much much much much bigger, with a focus not just on children, but everything.

This would cost a lot of money--every year, not just as a one time expense.

But think of it this way.  The city probably spends in direct costs in and as a result of these two wards between $1 Billion and $2 Billion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! annually (on education, health care, uncompensated health care, police services, fire department, emergency medical services, the court, legal, and incarceration system, youth services including incarceration, social work, etc.) without seeing much in the way of "return on investment" leading to positive structural change in the community and for individuals and families.

3. Dealing in a concerted manner ("war on abandominiums") with the Abandominium crisis East of the River.

This should be seen as a separate and inter-linked element with the previous item.

So there was a great piece in GGW ("Abandominiums house Anacostia resentment") about widespread multiunit housing abandonment East of the River. My response was this entry "Deeper thinking/programming on weak residential housing markets is required: DC example, Anacostia," which laid out a program on how to deal with it.

While I don't think that widespread blight justifies violence (Post columnist Courtland Milloy wrote that it does, at least with regard to Metrobuses traveling through the neighborhood, see "At a hearing on why kids throw stones at Metro buses, no one spoke for the kids") clearly it contributes to it, anomie, etc., and it becomes a reinforcing negative force leading to further decline.

Make this a priority. Fund it. Make it happen. Improve the neighborhood.

4.  Reconstructing other similar intersections/restoring lost circles/creating squares, etc.

The blog has discussed this ("It's time for a new "city beautiful" movement in DC," "Decking over I-395 should just be the beginning," "Public Squares and DC") with regard to Truxton Circle, Dupont Circle (pictured above), Scott Circle, and restoring the wide sidewalks in the Cleveland Park commercial district.

Using surplus monies for doing such projects makes a lot of sense to me.

5.  Allocate money for planning, design, and engineering for the Separated Blue Line.

I write about this all the time, so I won't repeat myself...

Just do it.  Start the process.  Had it been done 11 years ago, it would be opening up in a couple years...

Information production vs. consumption and digital access

Slowpoke comic, Jan Sorenson.

My home office computer has some software flaw at the moment, so I can't reply to comments in the comments on entries. In the previous entry, Spookiness writes:

This is good PR I suppose, but most trends I have seen seem to point to the decline of home PC's connected to fixed wireline broadband connections. More and more, it's simply not the way that most people are connecting to the internet nowadays. Even poor people have cell phones with smart phone capability and internet access that way. This seems about 10 or 15 years too late, and frankly like the "food desert" issue, I think the digital divide is overstated.

I am not absolutely opposed to your argument about the digital divide. Research from many years ago by Milton Mueller (now at Syracuse) found that lower income households spent plenty of money on telecommunications services such as cable and cell phones, just not computer-related services. (Mueller M. and Schement, J. R. "Universal Service from the Bottom Up: A Profile of Telecommunications Access in Camden, New Jersey." The Information Society 12:3 (August 1996).

However, I don't necessarily agree with your argument in terms of what we might call digital access devices and Internet connection.

There are three separate issues. One is having a computer, or based on what spookiness says, a digital access device, which could also be a phone or a gamebox. The second is access to the Internet.. The third is whether or not the device is capable of supporting the ability to work substantively.

Maybe you can write a paper or produce a digital media production on a phone, but I think it would be almost impossible.

E.g., someone like myself, who writes, finds micro-devices like smartphones extremely frustrating, because they aren't designed for serious writing or research. Maybe an Ipad can get you there as opposed to a phone, I haven't used one in depth. I won't write a blog entry on a phone. It takes too damn long.

So the issue becomes one of production versus consumption of digital content.

This data is from an article in Municipal World (the Canadian public administration monthly magazine) from a few years ago, the basic point is that more than half the people "on the Internet" consume content but don't produce it. The numbers total more than 100%.

info seekers 51%
spectators 33%
joiners 19%
info sharers 15%
critics 19%
creators 13%

Creators are screwed by limitations on the ability to create. That's why people like me need computers, be they hardwired or not, because we write or otherwise develop and produce "content." I can't write on an smartphone, even if I can use it to consume content.

I think students in particular probably need more traditional "digital access devices," in other words, "computers" (laptops/Ipads qualify) first, and internet connections second. A computer matters. Whether or not the connection is landline or wireless matters less.

But it's not just about using google for limited search. It's about reading and using documents. It's about creating documents. Creating videos. Manipulating images, etc.

Ultimately, you need a better computer. And if you do a lot of your work at home. You need access to the Internet at home.

So the Comcast program does matter I think, although it would be interesting to do some systematic study of the program to see what the results end up being.

Comcast initiative: "Lifeline" Internet access, $10/month for low income residents with schoolchildren

Regarding the so called "digital divide," where lower income people have limited access to fee-based services such as Internet service, Comcast, the nation's largest cable television company (with interests both in providing cable services to customers as well as in programming, including NBC), is providing a $10/month Internet service to households with children qualifying for free lunch at their local school. See "Comcast to offer $10 Internet access" from the Los Angeles Times Technology blog. This is one of the conditions imposed on Comcast as a result of their merger with NBC/Universal.

-- Comcast Internet Essentials program.
-- "The Digital Divide: Where We Are/A status report on the digital divide," Edutopia
-- Chicago Digital Access Alliance

-- Information Community Case Study, Washington, D.C.: Addressing Information Divides With Diverse Approaches, New America Foundation

-- Section from the case study on the DC Municipal Broadband Network (which is also made available to community organizations), New America Foundation

From the article:

The media and communications giant's Internet Essentials plan provides Internet access at speeds of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second) and also offers other qualifying customers a netbook computer for $149.99 when signing up for the service.

To qualify, families must live in an area covered by Comcast and have at least one child who receives free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program.

The $10 Internet plan comes after the Federal Communications Commission ordered Comcast to offer affordable Internet access for low-income families following its purchase of NBC Universal in January. ...

Along with the $9.95 low monthly rate and the $149.99 netbook, the plan also offers qualifying families access to free Internet training and promises "No price increases, no activation fees and no equipment rental fees," according to a Comcast Web page.