Urban Policy 2018 | Manhattan Institute
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CONTENTS About the Manhattan Institute .....................................................iv Contributors ............................................................................. v Foreword ................................................................................ix Chapter 1. The Dos and Don’ts of Civic Branding Aaron M. Renn ...................................................................1 Chapter 2. Precision Policing William J. Bratton and Jon Murad ................................ 21 Chapter 3. Unclogging the Permit Pipeline Stephen Goldsmith and Michael Hendrix .....................39 Chapter 4. News Deserts: No News Is Bad News Judith Miller ...................................................................59 Chapter 5. Building a Housing Ladder Howard Husock ..............................................................77 Chapter 6. Rethinking Urban Planning in Detroit—and Beyond Peter D. Salins .................................................................95 Chapter 7. Benchmarking Homeless Shelter Performance Stephen Eide ..................................................................117 Chapter 8. How the User Experience (UX) Can Build Greater Trust in Local Government Stephen Goldsmith ....................................................... 143 ©2018 Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. All rights reserved. Urban Policy 2018 ABOUT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE he Manhattan Institute for Policy Research develops and disseminates new ideas that foster greater economic choice T and individual responsibility. Since 1977, the institute has helped change the United States and its cities for the better: welfare reform, tort reform, proactive policing, and supply-side tax policies are at the heart of MI’s legacy. The Manhattan Institute is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. This booklet is the fourth in a series published by the Manhattan Institute (MI) to highlight ideas that can help cities thrive. General support for this year’s volume was provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The topics and authors were selected by Manhattan Institute. The views expressed in the papers are of the authors themselves; they do not represent institutional positions of MI or the foundations that supported this work. iv CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS William J. Bratton is executive chairman of Te- neo Risk, where he advises clients on risk iden- tification, prevention, and response. He also serves as vice chairman for the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council. During a 46-year career in law enforcement, Bratton led six police departments, including seven years as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and two nonconsecutive terms as police commissioner of the City of New York. He is the only individual to lead the police agencies of America’s two largest cities. Stephen Eide is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal, where he researches state and local finance and social-policy questions such as homelessness and mental illness. Previously, he was a senior research associate at the Worcester Regional Research Bureau. Eide has written for many publications, including National Review, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, Politico, Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard. He holds a B.A. from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Boston College. Stephen Goldsmith is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and the Director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He directs Data-Smart City Solutions, a project to highlight local government efforts to use new technologies that connect breakthroughs in the use of big-data v Urban Policy 2018 analytics with community input. Goldsmith has also served as mayor of Indianapolis, as deputy mayor of New York, as chief domestic-policy advisor to George W. Bush’s campaign in 2000, as chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and as district attorney for Marion County (Indiana). Michael Hendrix is director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute. Previously, he served as senior director for research and emerging issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Hendrix is a frequent public speaker, and his writings have appeared in, among others, National Review, City Journal, and National Affairs. He holds an M.A. in international relations from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), as well as a certificate in strategy and performance management from Georgetown University. Howard Husock is vice president for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute, a City Journal contributing editor, and director of MI’s social-entrepreneurship initiative. He also serves on the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Previously, Husock was director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard’s Kennedy School. His writing has been published in many newspapers and periodicals, and he is the author of Repairing the Ladder: To- ward a New Housing Policy Paradigm (1996). A former broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker for WGBH Boston, he won three Emmy Awards. Husock holds a B.A. from Boston University’s School of Public Communication and was a fellow at Princeton Uni- versity’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. vi CONTRIBUTORS Judith Miller is a City Journal contributing editor, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a Fox News contributor. She is also a best-selling author and an award-winning investigative reporter. In 2002, Miller was part of a small team at the New York Times that won a Pulitzer Prize for their writings on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That same year, she won an Emmy for her work on a docu- mentary based on articles for her book Germs (2001). Miller holds a B.A. from Barnard College and an M.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Jon Murad is managing director at Teneo Risk, where he leads strategic and crisis- communications campaigns. He is a fellow and former chair of the British-American Project for the Successor Generation and a director of the Harvard Club of New York Foundation. Previously, Murad served in various roles in the New York City Police Department, including as an assistant commissioner under William Bratton. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.A. in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. Aaron M. Renn is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a columnist for Governing magazine. Previously, he was a partner at Accenture, where he directed multimillion-dollar global technology implementations. He has contributed to the Guardian, Forbes.com, and numerous other publications, and his perspectives on urban issues are regularly cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, The Economist, Daily Telegraph, and other international media. vii Urban Policy 2018 Renn holds a B.S. from Indiana University, where he coauthored an early social-networking platform in 1991. He has also created several widely used open-source software packages. Peter D. Salins is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and University Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University, where he directs the school’s graduate program in public policy. He is also a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York. Previously, Salins served as provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs of the State University of New York, as an editor and contributor to City Journal, and as editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association. He has authored many articles and books, including, most recently, The Smart Society: Strengthening America’s Greatest Resource, Its People (2014). Salins holds a B.A. in architecture, an M.A. in planning, and a Ph.D. in metropolitan studies, all from Syracuse University. viii FOREWORD FOREWORD Michael Hendrix, Director, State and Local Policy Manhattan Institute for Policy Research alking the streets of Detroit, Michigan, is an exercise in living history. The sidewalks of Woodward Avenue, even on a cold Wday, are far from empty. Young lunchgoers pass through the lawn of Campus Martius Park in downtown’s “gathering place,” where the city’s mile roads fan out to the suburbs. Commuters ride to and fro on the QLINE’s red-and-white streetcars past once-faded store- fronts now alive again with someone else’s ambition. Detroit is like every city: a physical artifact of a social space. But there is only one Detroit. Every place may be a canvas fit for peo- ple, but people drawn together paint an entirely unique portrait of a place. So when we wonder what sort of public policies should govern urban America, we know they must be both nationally relevant and uniquely local. And these ideas must have at their center a vision for how people flourish; otherwise they are just more technocratic dreams that usually turn into someone else’s nightmare. Policy is for people, in other words, whose authors share their sense of place and time. That is why this year’s Urban Policy Series began outside Man- hattan. Our authors went to Akron, Ohio; Miami, Florida; Macon, Georgia; San Jose, California; and, yes, Detroit, Michigan.