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Ethan Demme

Thoughts and Policy for Building a Better Pennsylvania

  • Education Reform
  • Parental Engagement
  • Public Policy
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Lancaster County
  • Education Reform
  • Parental Engagement
  • Public Policy
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Lancaster County
  • Education Reform
  • Parental Engagement
  • Public Policy
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Lancaster County

Public Policy

A City Transformed – Book Review

July 31, 2016

Lancaster City is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States of America. It was originally settled in 1709 by German immigrants, the Pennsylvania Dutch. Lancaster was originally known as Hickory Town and was designed by James Hamilton. Lancaster was chartered as a city on March 10, 1818. During the Revolutionary War, Lancaster was the capital of the American colonies for one day, September 27, 1777, when Congress was fleeing from the British. Lancaster was also capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 till 1812.

In his book A City Transformed, David Schuyler traces the history of redevelopment in Lancaster City from 1940 through 1980. Schuyler is Professor of American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College and he has spent a lot of his academic career exploring the challenges cities faced during the second half of the 20th century.

In the postwar years, cities across America faced drastic economic decline. Lancaster was one such city and in order to try and address this decline, the city adopted various urban renewal programs with the goal of revitalizing the city and particularly downtown.  Sadly, as Schuyler documents, most of these government-driven programs were failures that often exacerbated the problems. One of the greatest issues facing Lancaster was the need for affordable housing. Schuyler writes that “the discovery of a crisis in housing was the initial step in the development of a comprehensive urban renewal program for Lancaster” (pg. 35) After the Lancaster newspaper drew attention to the substandard living of poor residents in Barney Google Row and Shanytown where the “houses” were shacks with no running water or electric, Lancasterian leaders decided that something needed to be done. Unfortunately over the course of the next several decades, providing adequate housing for poorer families would prove a harder task than what was imagined.

Pertaining to housing, Schuyler documents in heartbreaking detail the unintended effects of gentrification with the Church-Musser plan for townhouse development which led to large increases of rent driving out poorer families from their homes. Schuyler also explores the ugly reality of segregation and the ways in which racial tensions also hurt families and kept them from accessing affordable housing.

One recurring theme in A City Transformed is how government intervention consistently made things worse. For example, during the summer of 1965, Lancaster’s leaders decided to demolish the historic west block of Lancaster despite intense public opposition. Schuyler writes that “despite the concerns, citizens voiced at the September 1964 public hearing, and despite editorials that warned against turning downtown into a rubble-strewn wasteland … members of City Council and the Redevelopment Authority abandoned a policy that had prevented premature demolition and adopted a new one that ensured it.” After demolishing the west block, the block sat vacant for almost a full decade and became known as “our hole in the ground” (pg. 87).

A City Transformed is a sobering account of Lancaster’s history here in the 20th century and the struggles for economic sustainability and affordable housing. Despite the best interests of Lancaster’s leaders, often the very initiatives that were hoped to alleviate the problems of the poor and revitalize the economy had the opposite effects. Nevertheless, the book is also a celebration of the enduring spirit of Lancastrians, their compassionate conservatism, and their work to try and make the city a better place for everyone.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Lancaster County, Public Policy Tagged With: book review, politics

Seeking the Good of The City

July 24, 2016

City of Charlotte

In May of this year, Montgomery County, one of the largest and wealthiest suburbs in DC, held a forum on urban development. Paul Grenier, writing for The American Conservative, commented on what he saw as a divide in the way the word “development” was being used. On the one side, council member Marc Elrich and economist Michael Shuman used the word development to refer to the good of the city. Grenier explains that “They asked qualitative questions about how to create as good a city as possible, and how to make the economy serve the interests of that good.” On the other side were the well-paid consultants who focused on “growth” and fixated on the development of the economy.

Grenier notes that this divide represents the difference between classical thought and modern thought. Whereas classical thought emphasizes the particularities of local communities and emphasizes the shared pursuit of citizens for the common good, modern thought strips away the particular quirks of particular places and instead emphasizes the universality of the market.

Council member Elrich began the forum by asking “what is the best kind of city.” Such a question likely conjures up thoughts of the local coffee shops and the diner where everyone knows your name and the older buildings with a strong sense of history. Elrich refers to “small spaces” which I take to mean those places that provide a sense of intimacy and locality. If development means seeking the good of the city, not just its growth, then perhaps creating (or more often, preserving) these small spaces might be just as important as bringing in big corporations with the hope of stimulating the economy and driving growth.

While small spaces often create jobs and generate market growth, participation in the big, global market can generate even greater profit. But is that really what matters? Can the good of the city really only be understood materialistically? Grenier, in parsing through this difference of thought between classical and modern thought writes:

Modern politics has no well-defined location, not any more than the global marketplace has a location. Classical politics, by contrast, takes place in the city. The city is what classical politics is about.

From the perspective of classical political thought, the city is the optimal scale for organizing political life because it is a scale that is sufficiently complex to allow for human flourishing, but not so huge that the crucial questions can’t be addressed by means of reasoned debate. Scales larger than that—such as the national or the global scale—are so vastly complex that such a conversation can no longer be concrete and to a purpose.

Michael Shuman believes that truly good economic development consists of applying four rules:

  • Maximize the percent of local industry and trade that is locally owned.
  • Emphasize local self-reliance, not as a means of becoming disengaged from the wider (including global) economy, but so as to engage with it from a position of strength.
  • Maintain high labor and environmental standards.
  • Create, or maintain, a social, institutional and investment framework that fosters a sort of local entrepreneurial eco-system.

Economic growth is important but it is not the only or even the most important rubric for measuring the flourishing of a city. More important than mere economic growth is the ability for small spaces to give room for tightly knit communities to have the kinds of conversations about justice, goodness, and beauty that grow the human spirit and cultivate friendships.

Filed Under: Public Policy Tagged With: civic engagement, conservative, development, public policy

David Brooks on Lost Hills and Strengthening Communities

June 22, 2016

If you ask New York Times columnist David Brooks what he thinks is the defining issue of our day, he would say social isolation. In one of his columns, he writes that “gaps have opened up among partisan tribes, economic classes and races. There has been a loss of social capital, especially for communities down the income scale. ” Brooks is thus pointing to the same negative phenomenon noted by Luvin in his new book The Fractured Republic (read my review of that book here).

To illustrate this problem, Brooks references Lost Hills, a farming town, writing that “there’s still no permanent church. Up until now there has been no library and no polling station. The closest police station is 45 miles away. Until recently there were no sidewalks nor many streetlights, so it was too dangerous to go trick-or-treating.” Fortunately, Lost Hills is the location for a new experiment in developing the social capital of the community. Brooks writes:

The experiment is being led by Lynda Resnick, who, with her husband, Stewart, owns the Wonderful Company, which includes FIJI Water, POM juice and most of the pistachios and almonds you eat. You should know that I’m friends with Lynda and Stewart and am biased in their direction. But what they are doing is still worth learning from.

…They’re not trying to find one way to serve this population. The problems are so intertwined, they are trying to change this community from all directions at once. In Lost Hills there are new health centers, new pre-K facilities, new housing projects, new gardens, new sidewalks and lights, a new community center and a new soccer field. Through the day, people have more places to meet, play and cooperate with their neighbors.

Brooks concludes by noting that communities are where social repair takes place. “The community is the right level, picking a piece of land and giving people a context in which they can do neighborly things — like the dads here who came to the pre-K center and spent six hours building a shed, and with it, invisibly, a wider circle of care for their children.” – Read the whole thing here.

Filed Under: Public Policy Tagged With: development, public policy

GOP Candidates: Education Records and Rhetoric

October 14, 2015

I previously posted and highlighted statements on education (school choice and the role of parents) of GOP presidential candidates. Today, I want to look at the record of the candidates choices for themselves and their children and compare that to their rhetoric.

Jeb Bush: is a proponent for school choice and his Foundation For Excellence In Education has been an influential advocate for school choice and education reform. Bush attended Andover Academy, an elite private prep school that his dad and brother also attended. However, he opted to spend his undergrad years at the University of Texas rather than an Ivy-League school. Jeb’s oldest son attended an elite private school before going to Rice University for his undergrad. Jeb Jr. on the other hand, attended University of Texas like his father. For the Bush family, school choice means making use of both public schools / non-elite higher education institutions and the best of the elite private schools. In terms of voting record though, there is no doubt that Jeb walks the talk. Here’s an article detailing his voting record and education reform initiatives.

Ben Carson: is a proponent for school choice. [source] He graduated from Southwestern High School, a public high school in Michigan. His personal story regarding parental engagement in education and the role of his mother is powerful: if you’re not familiar with, you can read it here. He attended Yale for his undergrad. Ben Carson’s son Murray attended one of Baltimore’s elitist college prep schools, McDonogh, before attending Yal. [source]. Ben Carson has no voting record to speak of. However, he did create the Carson Young Scholars nonprofit organization which has a program devoted to increasing reading and awards college scholarship funding.

Chris Christie: is a proponent for school choice and has often struggled to push voucher legislation through the Democrat-controlled legislature. [source] He graduated from Livingston High School (public) and did his undergrad BA at University of Delaware. Christie’s oldest son attended an elite school Delbarton and is now studying at Princeton [source]. Christie has a track record of pushing for school choice such as approving charter schools and pushing for tax credits and voucher programs.

Ted Cruz: is a proponent of school choice, calling it a civil rights issue. [source] He graduated from Second Baptist High School and then did his undergrad at Princeton. Cruz has only recently (as in, this year) gotten into the school choice movement, including sponsoring school-choice friendly legislation. [source]

Carly Fiorina: is a verbal proponent of school choice. She graduated Charles E. Jordan High School (public) after spending time in schools in London and Ghana. She earned her BA from Stanford University.

Jim Gilmore: is a somewhat unenthusiastic proponent of school choice. He graduated from  John Randolph Tucker High School (a magnet school) before doing his undergrad at University of Virginia.

Lindsey Graham: is a proponent of school choice. He graduated D. W. Daniel High School (public) and was the first person in his family to attend college, he did his undergrad at University of South Carolina. Graham has supported school choice legislation like this as early as the 1990s. [source]

Mike Huckabee: is a proponent of school choice. He graduated from Hope High School (public) and attended Ouachita Baptist University for his undergrad. Huckabee has been inconsistent in regards to school choice [source], and appears to be less committed to it in practice.

Bobby Jindal: is a strong proponent of school choice. He attended Baton Rouge Magnet High School before doing his undergrad at Brown. Jindal has supported and fought for voucher programs in Louisiana. [source]

John Kasich: is a proponent of school choice. He attended various public schools and did his undergrad at Ohio State. As governor of Ohio Kasich has pushed through several school choice reforms including vouchers and funding for charter schools [source].

Rand Paul: is a proponent of school choice. He attended Brazoswood High School (public) and spent three years studying at Baylor University (he left before earning a BA.)

George Pataki: is a strong proponent of school choice. He attended Peekskill High School (public school) before doing his undergrad at Yale. His daughter Allison (a published novelist) attended high school at The Hackley School (an Ivy-feed school for Yale) before her doing her undergrad at Yale.

Marco Rubio: is a strong proponent of school choice [source]. The son of immigrants who never graduated from high school, he attended South Miami, a public Sr. High School  and did undergrad work at Tarkio College and Santa Fe Community College before getting his M.A. from the University of Florida and his J.D. from the University of Miami.

Rick Santorum: is a proponent of school choice. [source] He attended various private and public schools before graduating from Carmel High School, a private parochial school. He completed his undergraduate degree at Penn State. Santorum’s children have made use of homeschooling as well as charter schools. Given his rhetoric regarding not having government involved in education as well as thoughts on public funding, some saw him as duplicitous for enrolling his own children in a state-paid-for PA charter school even while his resided primarily in Virginia. [source]

Donald Trump: is a vocal proponent of school choice. He attended The Kew-Forest School and New York Military Academy. He did his undergrad years at University of Pennsylvania. His children have attended various prep schools including Choate Rosemary Hall and The Hill School and have done their undergrad studies at Georgetown and University of Penn.

 

Filed Under: Public Policy Tagged With: 2016 election, education reform, politics, school choice

HECOA: Show Up Politics (speaking)

September 23, 2015

PNG-LOGO-NBTSThis Friday, September 25, I will be speaking online for the HECOA Summit. To register for the conference, visit the website to register for the conference. My topic on Friday is on the importance of getting involved in the local political process. Here’s the description.

Show Up Politics: Getting Involved in the Political Process
Growing up, my parents would take me and my brothers along with them when they voted. I remember the old-fashioned lever voting machines in the booths. Seeing my parents engaged in the political process played a very significant role in my life. Now, all these years later, I have put those acquired values to work, serving my local community in many roles, most recently as a township supervisor. In this talk, I draw from my experiences to provide inspiration and practical tips for civic engagement. You and your whole family can make a difference in your local community; learn why local politics matters and why showing up is the most important step.

Filed Under: Public Policy Tagged With: parental engagement, politics, speaking, trust parents

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