Progressive City Leadership
Over at The Albany Project, I read an interesting post-mortem of Philly Dem Michael Nutter, who just won the primary to be the Mayoral candidate. As with Rochester, Philly has an overwhelming majority of Dem voters, so the primary pretty much decides who’s in.
First the facts: Nutter (a 14-year city councilman who resigned last July to run full-time) won with 37 percent, beating a millionaire, two congressmen (one of whom was the Philadelphia Democratic chairman), and a state representative, by at least 12 percent.
Whoa, how’d that happen?
A month ago, Nutter was running fourth, but he had husbanded his resources for an effective TV campaign that highlighted him as a reformer, in contrast to the unpopular current mayor.
So, what was this “reform” platform that he ran on?
Nutter’s stands included: aggressive police enforcement targeting illegal guns (in a city with far more per capita gun violence than Albany, and 149 murder victims so far this year); transparency in city budgeting; making Philadelphia America’s “greenest” city; ethics reform; promoting small business development; zoning and planning reform;Â creating a city Department of Transportation and working for enhanced pedestrian safety, an extensive bicycle network, reversing the steep decline in local street maintenance since 2000, and improving mass transit; promoting the production of new housing and the revitalization of existing neighborhoods; etc.
All of that would work in Albany and other upstate cities, too. If someone would do it.
Rochester’s a little different, in that we have (so far) a popular mayor. There’s also the city/county dynamic of “who’s in charge?” of various areas, like mass transit (think RGRTA *shudder*, and the Water Authority *double shudder*). I don’t know that Philly has any of that– I believe it’s all the city, all the time.
The overriding question in my mind is, how do Duffy’s accomplishments/goals stand up against that laundry list ‘o progressivism?
Related posts:
Duffy seems to have broad (but shallow) support. I seriously don’t know why he’s so popular. Not a knock on him by any means, but I’m just asking for information. I don’t know very much at all about him/what he’s been up to. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Also, I’ve been following the Philly story through MyDD for all the time they’ve been covering it. It seems pretty interesting/an important example for us to follow. Perhaps someone should get the scoop the coalition building, netroots activities, and platform of Nutter. That would be nice.
I think this week would be a good time to compare/contrast Roch with other cities/movements/areas. More on this later.
Duffy put more police on the street and he has shown a real interest in improving our abysmal graduation rate. These two things, safety and education, are the crux of the city’s revitalization. The fact that he gets that, and that he was handed a pretty big “ferry tale” when he came into office, are working for him. He gets the benefit of the doubt a little while longer. Plus, what a nice, personable guy he is. People want to like him because he’s so likable. He will have to get more money for us from Albany in order to keep his numbers high. The disparity between our funding and Buffalo’s and Syracuse’s (per person) is a problem.
So would you say he’s “stron gon police and education?”
Yet, policemen detest him. That doesn’t seem promising.
And would someone with an interest in education threaten to cut funding for schools? Either Duffy wanted to cut spending or make a political point. Either way, I’m not impressed.
If Duffy really wanted to beef up education, he’d fund PreK programs and anti-poverty initiatives. The research backs it up: those are the most efficient and effective ways to increase the quality of education.
Do you think policemen detest him because he removed them from desk jobs and put them on the street beat where the crime is? He’s not afraid to make the tough decisions and that indicates he’s not entirely poll-driven.
What he was asking for from the schools is that they pay a $1.1 million police protection cost that the city incurred because Albany increased school spending (even as the schools perform abysmally in the city). He was trying to balance the budget and spark Albany to provide funding equitable to Buffalo and Syracuse.
I think by focusing on the graduation rate that Duffy is assisting in poverty relief. The two are intrinsically tied. I’m not familiar with his stance on pre-K, but if you read his state of the city report there is a lot of focus on education in it. He also rightly recognizes that safety creates a better learning environment, and a better learning environment helps improve one’s chances of rising out of poverty. Also, a safer city draws more business, which leads to more jobs for the city’s residents. All this works together. I think he’s off to a good start with room for improvement.