Why government works: City of Phoenix - the small things.
Ever since moving out of Scottsdale and to Phoenix, I've been aware of the importance of good government and managing resources. Phoenix, on it's face, is a large, ugly city of unimpressive architecture and bad planning back when it was first concieved and allowed to grow. It is the changeling child of what the Jack Swilling fathered.
This sounds like an odd way to describe a city I love. Nevertheless.
Phoenix has nothing but potential. In under 50 years, it's not impossible to see Phoenix as a real city of the future - with a vibrant urban transit solution and harnessing alternate energy in a way that put even Walt Disney's most masturbatory EPCOT fantasies to shame.
The foundation for it is there, and is there in the small things. The website for city services is awesome, from paying the water bill to contacting my city councilman, I've been able to get shit done, frankly. And one specific experience worked better than I imagined.
In front of my house is a street lamp. I like it because when it's on at night, it adds a layer of protection from crime, which frankly, is pretty high in my neighboorhood (at least two burglaries a month and in the past month, two murders - more on that in a later post). It burned out about 2 months ago.
A previous experience in Mesa regarding a burnt out street lamp. Mesa is city that bills itself as "Good People, Great Service!". So you'd think a burnt out street lamp would be fixed tout suite. NOPE. In the 2 1/2 years I lived there, the street lamp remained burned out for a majority of the time. As a result, it became a scary walk from my house to the Mesa Slam with an extremely agressive and skeevy group of people roaming about at night. It became an epicenter of crime that eventually resulted in one my friends getting mugged and pistol whipped (after months of ghetto bird overflights and gunfights in the parking lot).
Back to my burned out street lamp in Phoenix. I noticed it was out, checked the City of Phoenix website, found the place to report it, and two days later (it might have been the next day even), the street lamp is fixed.
It's a small thing, but it shows that the government is responsive, and the infrastructure in place works. What's the difference between Mesa and Phoenix? Well, population obviously - but another thing is that Phoenix charges both sales AND property taxes. This money helps keep things like websites and crews to change light bulbs in place and functional. Mesa only collects sales taxes. Guess which city's revenue flow suffers more in economic downturns.
This is not to say Phoenix is a utopia. It's got more than its share of problems, but these problems aren't going to go away by starving the city of tax money and public employees - you need to INCREASE both. The Phoenix PD is running lean right now, and as low as the crime rate is compared to previous years, we still need more cops on the street stopping petty crime, and we need extra tax funds for the city to run programs to stop these crimes before they happen. I don't care what works - public programs for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, homeless outreach, midnight basketball if that's still a thing.
Of course, to look at the people outside of Phoenix who post on conservative websites, they think whatever works in their little homogenous mountain towns, population 1000 or less, will work in the massive megalopolis of Phoenix. It doesn't and it never will. Businesses are self-regulating? The Walgreen's at Thomas and 16th can't be bothered to pick up the fucking trash in its own parking lot without me complaining to Walgreen's corporate about it (yes, I've become that guy). The management company won't clean off graffiti off the abandoned bar without me calling code enforcement (also that guy).
What I'm saying is that government serves a purpose, and I'm all for making it more efficient, as long as that efficiency doesn't come in the form of some bullshit Objectivist pie-in-the-fucking-sky fantasy about decent businessmen self-regulating and the community magically coming together to have a potluck/lynching of petty criminals. And that I'm quite alright with paying my taxes and would happily pay more if it meant the city was doing the job that it exists to do - make the city better.
This sounds like an odd way to describe a city I love. Nevertheless.
Phoenix has nothing but potential. In under 50 years, it's not impossible to see Phoenix as a real city of the future - with a vibrant urban transit solution and harnessing alternate energy in a way that put even Walt Disney's most masturbatory EPCOT fantasies to shame.
The foundation for it is there, and is there in the small things. The website for city services is awesome, from paying the water bill to contacting my city councilman, I've been able to get shit done, frankly. And one specific experience worked better than I imagined.
In front of my house is a street lamp. I like it because when it's on at night, it adds a layer of protection from crime, which frankly, is pretty high in my neighboorhood (at least two burglaries a month and in the past month, two murders - more on that in a later post). It burned out about 2 months ago.
A previous experience in Mesa regarding a burnt out street lamp. Mesa is city that bills itself as "Good People, Great Service!". So you'd think a burnt out street lamp would be fixed tout suite. NOPE. In the 2 1/2 years I lived there, the street lamp remained burned out for a majority of the time. As a result, it became a scary walk from my house to the Mesa Slam with an extremely agressive and skeevy group of people roaming about at night. It became an epicenter of crime that eventually resulted in one my friends getting mugged and pistol whipped (after months of ghetto bird overflights and gunfights in the parking lot).
Back to my burned out street lamp in Phoenix. I noticed it was out, checked the City of Phoenix website, found the place to report it, and two days later (it might have been the next day even), the street lamp is fixed.
It's a small thing, but it shows that the government is responsive, and the infrastructure in place works. What's the difference between Mesa and Phoenix? Well, population obviously - but another thing is that Phoenix charges both sales AND property taxes. This money helps keep things like websites and crews to change light bulbs in place and functional. Mesa only collects sales taxes. Guess which city's revenue flow suffers more in economic downturns.
This is not to say Phoenix is a utopia. It's got more than its share of problems, but these problems aren't going to go away by starving the city of tax money and public employees - you need to INCREASE both. The Phoenix PD is running lean right now, and as low as the crime rate is compared to previous years, we still need more cops on the street stopping petty crime, and we need extra tax funds for the city to run programs to stop these crimes before they happen. I don't care what works - public programs for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, homeless outreach, midnight basketball if that's still a thing.
Of course, to look at the people outside of Phoenix who post on conservative websites, they think whatever works in their little homogenous mountain towns, population 1000 or less, will work in the massive megalopolis of Phoenix. It doesn't and it never will. Businesses are self-regulating? The Walgreen's at Thomas and 16th can't be bothered to pick up the fucking trash in its own parking lot without me complaining to Walgreen's corporate about it (yes, I've become that guy). The management company won't clean off graffiti off the abandoned bar without me calling code enforcement (also that guy).
What I'm saying is that government serves a purpose, and I'm all for making it more efficient, as long as that efficiency doesn't come in the form of some bullshit Objectivist pie-in-the-fucking-sky fantasy about decent businessmen self-regulating and the community magically coming together to have a potluck/lynching of petty criminals. And that I'm quite alright with paying my taxes and would happily pay more if it meant the city was doing the job that it exists to do - make the city better.