mayors – Looking Forward

September 25, 2013

Has The Internet Enabled Local Government To Replace Nation-States?

Rutgers University Political Science Professor Benjamin Barber has written a provocative book, “If Mayors Ruled The World”, which is scheduled to be available this November.

His thesis, as described on his website, is that:

The issues dominating our headlines – global warming, terrorism, economic inequality – do not stop at national borders. Nonetheless, our chief means of addressing them remains the nation-state, a 17th century framework constitutionally unable, and temperamentally unwilling, to collaborate across frontiers in order to solve common problems. What is to be done? Let cities, through a global “Parliament of Mayors,” run the world. …

[Cities] are unburdened with the issues of borders and sovereignty which hobble the capacity of nation-states to work with one another.

… regardless of city size or political affiliation, local executives exhibit a non-partisan and pragmatic style of governance that is lacking in national and international halls of power. … Through these qualities of leadership mayors have retained the trust of citizens in their office, helped cities become beacons of good governance, and spearheaded city-to-city collaborations in order to better address shared problems.

For more, you can see him present his ideas at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJgmV7GRVc and http://www.booktv.org/Program/14242/If+Mayors+Ruled+the+World.aspx .

Indeed, there is no doubt that mayors can collaborate in ways that were impossible before the Internet. Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and former Policy Director for the US State Department (arguably one of the most prominent institutions which defends the concept of the nation-state), wrote “A New World Order” in 2004. That book describes all kinds of examples of cross-border collaboration in everything from judicial opinions to environmental action.

Others, from former Vice President Al Gore to Professor Joseph Nye, have also pointed out the various ways that the power of the nation-state seems to be in relative decline.

Since the global communications network makes possible connections even among local areas that are not geographically near, there is also the potential for networks of local governments or regions to develop without regard to national boundaries – virtual metroplexes. For example, it may be that two cities separated by thousands of miles – for example New York and London – have more connections and more in common than nearer cities like New York and Syracuse. The global communications network now makes it possible for these two distant metropolises to coalesce as one.

The ability of distant urban areas to work closely together raises questions of governance, even governance issues that cross national borders. However, much of this activity is occurring below “the radar” of nation-states; they are unaware and cannot keep track of all such interactions.

I think that Barber’s proposal is too ambitious for cities, given all the problems mayors face doing their jobs now. It is worth noting that, within the limits of time, mayors do take global positions — such as the more than a thousand mayors who have agreed to a climate change pledge — but that’s not the same thing as running the world.

At the same time, Barber’s view is also a bit old fashioned by viewing cities in the image of the traditional nation-state. It is curious that he calls for a form of governance – a parliament – associated with the mature nation-state, rather than looking to newer alternatives for collaboration which would run into fewer legal and institutional obstacles. I would expect a more flexible collaborative approach, a different way of doing public service if the world Barber envisions comes about.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that mayors can collaborate in ways that were impossible before the Internet. It’s encouraging to see that this topic will be getting more exposure and I look forward to seeing the reaction when the book comes out.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/62241246607/has-the-internet-enabled-local-government-to-replace]

June 6, 2012

The Shrinking Office

Last week, as part of its regular reporting on the real estate market, the New York Times had an interesting article, entitled “More Room For Ideas In A Smaller Office”.See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/realestate/commercial/gaining-savings-and-productivity-from-smaller-offices.html

The article highlights the greater collaboration and innovation that have resulted from the use of smaller, less traditional office space.

I do have the sense, though, that these newly discovered desirable features amount, in part, to making a virtue of necessity.

The Great Recession of 2008 made people think that the vacancy rates of commercial office space was a reflection of the poor condition of the economy. But the reduction in the need for traditional office space has been a trend for a while.

Not mentioned in the Times was a recent survey by Jones Lang LaSalle, a major real estate firm. A report about that had these findings, as well:

40% of IBM employees work from a location other than an office at IBM. [The same is true for Cisco and many other organizations, not only IT companies, but those in any kind of intangible service. Indeed the TImes article featured 22squared, an Atlanta advertising agency.]
The current rule of thumb concerning office space per employee – 200 square feet per employee – is shrinking to just 50 square feet by 2015.
As early evidence of the trend, office tenants renewing their lease nowadays often cut their total space by around 10%-30%.

In past blogs, I’ve pointed out how, traditionally, city plans and taxes have heavily depended upon office space. Commercial real estate has been the goose that has laid the golden eggs for local governments around the US.

The trend of reduced space per employee will clearly have consequences for those cities that do not start shifting their assumptions about the way the economy will increasingly work.

Those cities will also find their own financial success increasingly misaligned with the financial success of their residents, who are quickly adapting to the new work environment in the home and other places that don’t look like offices. That is not a good situations for mayors and other elected officials.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/24536576324/the-shrinking-office]

April 3, 2012

FW: Skills Shortage? Quit Whining

My work on economic growth for the US Conference of Mayors has focused, in part, on labor and how to improve the skills of workers in ways that are not dependent upon the traditionally expensive classroom environment.

So I found this article by Rob Preston, Editor in Chief of InformationWeek of interest. Read it at http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/interviews/232601751

It has also struck me that the labor market, especially compared to capital markets, is quite inefficient. Are people working at tasks that are the best use of their skills and temperament? How much could the economy grow if people were more optimally allocated to the needs of the market? As with other markets, the Internet may help increase the efficiency of the labor market by providing better information about all players in the market. It remains to be seen, of course, how exactly this might play out in the future.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/20405942580/fw-skills-shortage-quit-whining]