I read Ed Rendells memoir awhile ago, and he pointed out that the reason consideration is preferentially given to select parties is simply because they are more engaged/lobby harder. Like when he was mayor of Philadelphia he had to renegotiate the cities union contracts because they were bleeding it dry with objectively ridiculous compensation and protections. The reason it got that bad was because Unions leaders jobs are to go lobby, and if you full court press the city for decades you will gradually extract more and more.
He had to go out and drum up support from the rest of the population to actually make progress, because they needed to weather garbage collector strikes and whatnot. He gave an anecdote when he was at his kids baseball game, and a union guy came up to him to bust his balls about the renegotiation, but some other guy ended up coming to his aid by complaining that his salary was half the city employees for more work and he was sick of it. That's when things started to change.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and politicians are human. So if you scream in their faces you'll get what you want since most people aren't strong enough to push back (ie. to relatively disenfranchise them on behalf of other constituents)
We expect elected officials to act undemocratically for the greater good, but in practice they can't do that so you need to ensure balanced engagement.
The community engagement itself was put in through a democratic process - previously, developers run rough-shod over communities and popular mayor/councils were elected to create the community engagement process.
Consider: If this is taken away, NIMBY mayors/councilors themselves might be elected. It happened in the 80s when these laws were introduced, it can happen again.
I guess I should clarify my argument. I don't mean to suggest that community meetings should be taken away. I explicitly think that the folks making these sorts of arguments are wrong (or at least half wrong). Community meetings remain a good check on elected and other city officials to help ensure that they do the work and engage with relevant constituencies early enough in the process. I just think that community meetings are not in and of themselves very democratic. They occur too late in the process, leaving only a support or reject choice for citizens and they privilege some voices over others in the decision-making process.
I agree, though, that a very serious risk of taking the advice of commentators like Yglesias is the eventual election of NIMBY mayors and councilors. Thus why I think early and direct engagement with interested parties to help form constituencies of citizens who will support new projects is a superior solution. But outside of cities, like Portland, which are already relatively urbanist, it hardly ever happens.
Very nice article.
I read Ed Rendells memoir awhile ago, and he pointed out that the reason consideration is preferentially given to select parties is simply because they are more engaged/lobby harder. Like when he was mayor of Philadelphia he had to renegotiate the cities union contracts because they were bleeding it dry with objectively ridiculous compensation and protections. The reason it got that bad was because Unions leaders jobs are to go lobby, and if you full court press the city for decades you will gradually extract more and more.
He had to go out and drum up support from the rest of the population to actually make progress, because they needed to weather garbage collector strikes and whatnot. He gave an anecdote when he was at his kids baseball game, and a union guy came up to him to bust his balls about the renegotiation, but some other guy ended up coming to his aid by complaining that his salary was half the city employees for more work and he was sick of it. That's when things started to change.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and politicians are human. So if you scream in their faces you'll get what you want since most people aren't strong enough to push back (ie. to relatively disenfranchise them on behalf of other constituents)
We expect elected officials to act undemocratically for the greater good, but in practice they can't do that so you need to ensure balanced engagement.
The community engagement itself was put in through a democratic process - previously, developers run rough-shod over communities and popular mayor/councils were elected to create the community engagement process.
Consider: If this is taken away, NIMBY mayors/councilors themselves might be elected. It happened in the 80s when these laws were introduced, it can happen again.
I guess I should clarify my argument. I don't mean to suggest that community meetings should be taken away. I explicitly think that the folks making these sorts of arguments are wrong (or at least half wrong). Community meetings remain a good check on elected and other city officials to help ensure that they do the work and engage with relevant constituencies early enough in the process. I just think that community meetings are not in and of themselves very democratic. They occur too late in the process, leaving only a support or reject choice for citizens and they privilege some voices over others in the decision-making process.
I agree, though, that a very serious risk of taking the advice of commentators like Yglesias is the eventual election of NIMBY mayors and councilors. Thus why I think early and direct engagement with interested parties to help form constituencies of citizens who will support new projects is a superior solution. But outside of cities, like Portland, which are already relatively urbanist, it hardly ever happens.