RSVP Now for Government 2.0 Camp New England

Registration just opened for Gov 2.0 Camp New England, a one-day unconference I’m helping to plan. It will be held Saturday, March 6th at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Harvard Square. The others involved in planning are Yasmin Fodil (KSG), Laurel Ruma (O’Reilly Media) and Sarah Bourne and Jessica Weiss (Commonwealth of MA). Thanks to this great group we’ve already got an interesting list of attendees registered, and a number of topics percolating on the wiki. In true unconference style the sessions won’t be finalized until the day of the event, but we are encouraging collaboration on the wiki.

What is government 2.0? I attempted to define the topic earlier this month, but I’m not hung up on definitions. If you’re interested in applying Internet technologies to the business of government, we hope you’ll attend.

> See Conference Wiki or Registration

What is Government 2.0?

With last year’s Gov 2.0 Summit and the explosion of social networking service GovLoop, “government 2.0” has become a buzzword in technology and government circles. What does government 2.0 refer to? And what exactly was the government 1.0 that we’re improving on? This article attempts to define the term and unearth some of the hidden assumptions and implications that result from applying concepts developed in Silicon Valley technology startups to the complex and age-old problem of governance.

The term government 2.0 is a deliberate reference to the term “web 2.0,” coined by publisher Tim O’Reilly to refer to interactive, social websites like Wikipedia and Facebook, which have revolutionized how people use the web. Before delving into the meaning of government 2.0, we should consider government 1.0, the government analogue to web 1.0. Although less common now, the term most often used for this initial approach to technology in government is e-government.

The Center for Technology in Government defined e-government as having three components: e-management, e-services, and e-democracy. The first two have been largely realized. Governments have adopted, to varying degrees of sophistication, internal information technology systems such as networks, databases, and intranets. As we will see, government 2.0 practices often rely on these underlying systems. Governments have long provided e-services to constituents through websites, email, or APIs, including tax payments, service requests, and digital applications and paperwork. The last component, e-democracy, has been more elusive. In the web 1.0 world, this has most often meant emailing elected officials or signing petitions on topics. These activities have grown, although in the U.S. context exist mainly outside of government websites or structures.

At a lecture hosted by the Kennedy School Government 2.0 Professional Interest Council this fall, Nicco Mele suggested we adopt Tim O’Reilly’s web 2.0 principles as a starting point for government 2.0. My essay builds on his interesting lecture.

1. Government as Platform

O’Reilly’s first principle is “the web as platform,” adjusted for our purposes to be “government as platform.” The most obvious examples of this are where government agencies provide data or host competitions to encourage creative ideas that serve the public interest. The “apps” competitions in Washington, D.C. and New York and sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, are a start to this trend. In these competitions, government provides the data, and an ecosystem of third party developers and tools helps unleash the value for the public, creating new tools, resources, and analyses.

Another example where government acts as platform is the phenomenon of participatory budgeting, pioneered by cities in Brazil and now has spread to a number of cities around the world. This approach puts budgetary decision-making, or some part of it, directly in the hands of citizens, bypassing existing representative models of decision-making. The technical dimensions of this are only now being explored, and in the Brazilian case above deliberation and voting online complemented conventional public meetings.

When it comes to service delivery, it is less clear what “government as platform” means. It may echo a broader political agenda that has sought to re-define the role of government through systematic privatization of formerly government functions, such as education or public services. After all, when governments provide educational or housing vouchers, aren’t they acting as the intermediary, or a platform? The political implications of shifting government from a service provider role to a facilitating role deserves consideration. This issue is connected to a host of issues surrounding contracting and public private partnerships. Governments may want to retain some types of service delivery if the good cannot be contracted for, or the public wants to enforce certain service standards.

2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence

The second principle is “harnessing collective intelligence.” Obama’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government identified collaboration as a policy goal for the federal government. In fact, Obama’s Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government Beth Noveck experimented with collaboration tools to create an open government policy last summer. In other areas there are limited successes of citizen-government collaboration. The Peer to Patent program pools expert opinion to speed the patent process. The Next Stop Design project in Salt Lake City, Utah used crowdsourcing to select the design for new bus shelters. One of the people involved in the project, Daren Brabham, is writing a PhD dissertation on the application of crowdsourcing to public problems. In Melbourne, the consulting firm Collabforge ran a wiki as a component of a conventional planning process to generate the new city plan.

Fundamentally, this trend will face several types of powerful resistance.

First, it can run counter to traditional concepts of representative democracy, where elected officials work “down” through an expert bureaucracy to create and implement policy. Archon Fung has proposed “empowered participation” can be deployed as a governance method for specific issues, such as Chicago’s school committees or neighborhood policing committees. However, creating these structures depends on modifying existing forms of governance. Existing projects have avoided this in several ways. The apps competitions aren’t about creating policy, and the government hosts can always disavow responsibility. Idea-generation contests usually reserve final decisions to designated juries. Policy-creation projects retain the final decision-making power with conventional authorities. However, pushing this further into what Beth Noveck calls “wiki government” will require addressing this tension with existing practices.

Second, a host of public problems require technical expertise to analyze or solve. The question of how to integrate technical forms of knowledge with citizens is far from resolved. The cutting edge involves putting modeling tools in the hands of citizens, who use them as “decision support tools,” but this runs counter to existing models of professional practice and the very real need for significant expertise to complete complex analyses.

Lastly classified data and national security, a major governmental function, may never be opened to the public. Interestingly, Department of Defense has been interested in the collaborative potential of internal communication across their vast bureaucracy through wikis, for example launching a wiki to improve the Army Field Manual.

3. Open Data Standards

The third principle is the use of data standards. Expanding access to government data is a major trend, with initiatives underway at the federal, state, and local level to create data portals. The concept of linked data, emerging out of the Wikipedia project, seems poised to move into government datasets. In fact, greater linking and cross-comparison among the expanding amount of available government data will create a positive pressure to ensure cross-compatibility. Within Massachusetts state government, for example, town-level data has become a standard for comparison and analysis. With the federal government in setting metadata and other standards already, this may happen slowly but some signs are already in place. Using this to evaluate government may be misleading: the primary purpose of government isn’t to create data, although it is an important one. The technological viewpoint threatens to be reductionist, viewing the government as primarily engaged in collecting and hosting data. In reality, most money and effort in government is spent on delivering healthcare, education, national defense, grant programs, and regulatory actions, where data can play a supporting role (perhaps as indicators) but is not even always a mandatory input to governance.

In Boston, the author of a recent major report studying the city’s transit agency said in November he wouldn’t ride the busy Red Line due to serious maintenance issues that threaten to cause a train derailment. At roughly the same time, data enthusiasts were demanding real-time data about bus and train arrivals at the MassDOT developers conference. When our transit systems are in real danger of catastrophic failure, shouldn’t we spend all available funds preventing disaster for the existing riders, rather than inventing technology to make use more convenient? How can these important goals be balanced properly?

4. Customer Service

The last principle discussed by Nicco is customer service, based on O’Reilly’s “rich user experience.” An emphasis on customer services is undeniable at all levels of government. Cities have launched successful 311 systems for managing citizen requests, and governments have been subscribing to the “plain language” movement make government information more understandable and usable to citizens. However, just like “government as platform,” this principle too often reduces government to a consumer-producer relationship where the government provides services just like private firms might in the marketplace. Customer service is important, but so is engaging with citizens to generate ideas and implement solutions. In exchange for expecting service, citizens have the responsibility to understand the resource and legal limitations of government.

5. Incremental Policy

O’Reilly has several additional principles: end of the software release cycle, lightweight programming models, and software above the level of the single device. Of these, I think the principle for government is the advent of more iterative forms of policy making. The field of planning has developed theories of incrementalism or “muddling through,” to reflect the real-world pace of change. The web supports both short bursts of activity but also long-term archiving, and professionals are only now learning how to use the tools to develop sustained interest and engagement through ongoing conversations and communications.

Conclusion

What do we learn from this exercise? First, I’m not sure government 2.0 is yet a new type of government, instead a collection of promising trends. The adoption of new social and technical approaches of idea creation and governance don’t resolving age-old questions about what government should be doing, and how it should approach principles of equity and justice. In fact, what could emerge is a new, technically-enabled model of in the tradition of the “developmental state,” the concept that the state itself is engaged in economic and community development. This is perhaps the most important lesson of these trends: existing government processes should be examined and where they are not working be re-invented to take advantage of the ability of technology to expand the activity of governance beyond the institutions of government.

Proposals for Reforming D.C.’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions

Summer is always a good time to blog about things that have been bouncing around my head for a couple months, or in this case, years. The topic: reforming Washington, D.C.’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, or ANCs.

The ANC system was created in 1976 as part of the D.C. Home Rule Charter. In order to provide a means for local engagement and participation in public policy, the city established 37 commissions across the city, each representing a portion of a ward. (The names are the ward number followed by a letter, such as 1C, 2A, etc.) Each commission is composed of people elected from Single-Member Districts (SMDs) of approximately 2,000 people. Thus, across the city every resident is represented by exactly one ANC and one of the 270 commissioners. This map, showing the ANC and SMDs of the Mid City neighborhoods of U Street, Adams Morgan, and Columbia Heights, illustrates the dense geography of the ANC system.

I was reminded of the topic when a friend sent me this blog post about the latest ANC scandal, about an ANC commissioner and his partner apparently trying to obstruct the renewal of a liquor license for two popular restaurants. Indeed, the area of liquor licenses is often an area of intense conflict. Local residents oppose loud, noisy bars open late, and the attendees of loud, noisy bars open late aren’t a particularly organized constituency. The result is (unknown to most D.C. residents) that some neighborhoods (specifically, Dupont Circle, Georgetown, Glover Park, and Adams Morgan), have moratoriums in effect for new liquor licenses. The effect of the limited supply is the existing bars are even louder and busier, but that’s an issue for another day.

Before describing potential reforms I think it should note that most ANCs function relatively well most of the time. They are groups of citizens, serving unpaid, who have regular meetings to discuss issues of neighborhood concern. It’s important to note the critical role the ANCs create in providing a forum for neighborhood-level discussion, and to allow city government a formal way to communicate with local residents about proposed developments and policies. In fact, the intense emotion surrounding some ANC races speaks to the important role they provide. Although some throw up their hands and call for them to be abolished, I believe they play an important role and should continue to exist in some form.

Since no political system is perfect, this post serves to discuss some potential improvements. Here are too general categories of criticism.

First, too often ANCs are not representative. As a result, ANCs disproportionately represent the views of older, more affluent property owners. The views of the significant renter population in many neighborhoods is limited in many ANCs. Additionally, because of these biases the views of all may not be represented. In Adams Morgan, 1C is all white despite the huge diversity of the neighborhood. (See members today). In other neighborhoods, the patterns are different by no less troubling, with ANC commissioners not representing every facet of the community.

Second, ANCs are highly varied in their operations. The ANCs are independent, receiving only a small amount of support from city government. As a result, the quality of their websites, publications, location and openness of the meetings, and other aspects of operations varies widely, resulting in frustration and making them susceptible to manipulation.

Partly responding to these criticisms, below are four possible avenues of reform:

1. Modify the structure of Single Member Districts. The SMDs ensure every resident exactly one ANC commissioner to report to, however they suffer the same problem of any geography-based electoral system: diffuse interests are often not represented. (renters, immigrant populations, etc.) For this reason many city councils, including D.C., have at-large seats. The ANC boundaries could remain the same and all commissioners could be elected at-large within the ANC. Or, a compromise option, each ANC could have one at-large commissioner in addition to those elected from SMDs. The number of SMDs could be reduced, or the total number of commissioners in each ANC increased by one.

2. City government should enforce greater transparency and consistency in operations. The city could mandate the ANCs report their budgets, agendas, and other documents to a central repository. Access to these documents is often uneven. ANCs could be provided access to a system to allow them to set up a website through city resources. The ANC office in general takes a very hands-off approach, which is understandable given limited resources. However, a more active ANC office could standardize the operations of each without threatening their autonomy.

3. Reduce the number of ANCs or enlarge SMD sizes. Although some neighborhoods enjoy active ANCs, others are less active and successful. Each ward contains 4 to 6 of the groups, perhaps the total number should be reduced and the corresponding SMDs enlarged. Currently many neighborhood civic organizations and ANCs cover similar areas, making the ANCs slightly larger would reduce this apparent redundancy. Having fewer ANCs might also increase the quality of their participation in public policy as it would cut down on the number of meetings necessary to reach every neighborhood in the city. It would, however, dilute the power of individual votes and reduce the number of elected commissioners.

4. Term Limits for ANC Commissioners. In Shaw, and other ANCs throughout the city, ANC commissioners can be very long-served, with mixed effects. Although they can be trusted voices and amass deep historical knowledge, long-serving ANC commissioners may prevent others from getting involved. The same arguments for and against term limits for any representative seat applies. Commissioners could have term limits, something fairly long but enough to ensure some turnover, perhaps 5-10 years.

These are just some tentative proposals based on my limited knowledge and experience with the system. Additional viewpoints are welcome. ANCs should be recognized as a valuable D.C. institution that is become a critical part of the local political life. However, like any political system their structure and operations need not remain static and fixed.

Note on boundary maps: The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has this gallery of maps of the district boundaries. However, I think they are inferior to an older series that has been removed. For example, the new maps don’t contain labels for all the SMDs. Luckily, these maps are preserved in the Internet Archive here. For the technically inclined, KML and ESRI Shapefile versions are available from the city here.

Data and Decisions in Government

When I first heard about Baltimore’s CitiStat program, which uses city data to “provide timely, reliable services to Baltimore’s residents,” I envisioned a public sector version of an executive dashboard. The mayor (the program started under Martin O’Malley, it continues under Sheila Dixon) would have data at their fingertips through a computer interface or screen of some type to evaluate the performance of city government, sending directions off to the various city administrators.

I was wrong. The award-winning program is less about technology and more about creating the management approach to directly link timely data to decision makers, and hold administrators responsible for performance. It’s remarkable how little technology it actually involves. According to a Center for American Process briefing “CitiStat uses basic Microsoft Office programs—such as PowerPoint for presentations and Excel to gather data—as well as geographic information system, or GIS, mapping software from ESRI’s ArcView unit, which costs less than $1,000.” The program cost $285,000 to set up and around $400,000 a year to run (mostly salaries), but has estimated to save the city over $350 million since its creation in 1999.

Facing a declining population, limited financial resources, and rampant absenteeism and inefficiency in city government when he took office, former Mayor Martin O’Malley told a conference he didn’t create CitiStat to win awards, but simply “to survive.” Adapting a system called CompStat invented by the New York City Police department, the city create a special office and hearing room (right). Every two weeks, participating city agencies submit data on predetermined metrics, such as days employees were absent or potholes fixed. City analysts write a 8 to 12 page memo for the mayor and cabinet, using the reported data, field research, and interviews of key staff. At the hearing (above) photos, charts, and data illustrating problem areas are displayed and discussed with the agency head responsible. In the program’s parlance, the tenants are:

• Accurate and Timely Intelligence Shared by All
• Rapid Deployment of Resources
• Effective Tactics and Strategies
• Relentless Follow-up and Assessment

The CitiStat model has inspired many similar efforts around the country. O’Malley, since elected governor of Maryland, is busy developing systems for Maryland state government and management of the Chesapeake Bay. And told a conference recently “It’s my belief that the lessons we are learning in Maryland can be applied to any government, at any level, anywhere in the world.”

The copycats are trying to do exactly that, and with varying degrees of success. In the Boston area, the Rappaport Institute sponsored an event in 2003 titled “Bringing CitiStat to Massachusetts,” and some cities to adopt the program most completely since then have been Somerville, Springfield, and Amesbury. The two major limitations of Baltimore’s CitiStat are the lack of any technical infrastructure for internal information management and and the lack of public transparency through the Internet. Technically, the system requires emailing spreadsheets back and forth (there are templates on the website) and the resulting data and meetings are not shared online in a timely way (the most recent agency reports are from October and the all-important analyst memoranda are not posted.)

The cities of Boston and Washington, D.C. are innovating in the areas of performance indicators and data availability, but neither has put the whole package together: CitiStat’s management intensity combined with robust and transparent data architecture.

The Boston About Results (BAR) program compiles quarterly performance measures drawing from a database of electronic records:

BAR collects data on hundreds of performance measures from a wide range of departments in a centralized system that integrates a department’s mission, strategies, measures and resources. The data is used by city officials to identify trends, raise questions and devise new management practices to constantly improve city services.

Absent are any independent city employees scrutinizing the data and conducting investigations, or any description of the management mechanism whereby Mayor Thomas Menino holds anyone accountable for performance. A dry PDF published quarterly means the data is not as timely as Baltimore’s bimonthly review, however does provide an interesting window into city agency performance:

Washington, D.C. has become a leader in publishing data in multiple formats including XML files ready for real-time publishing and analysis by third-party software. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer data portal contains over 274 datasets, which they hope will prove a “catalyst ensuring agencies operate as more responsive, better performing organizations.” In order to encourage the development of creative use of all this data, the OCTO recently wrapped up an “Apps for Democracy” contest for the best mashups that use city data sources. Presumably some of these data sources could be used to evaluate city performance (service requests and police reports are published, but not evaluated for trends) by the city or a third party.

The use of specially defined data metrics to measure government performance is necessary because government cannot readily be measured in the terms used by the private sector: profitability. The systems must be unique because what is measured — the specific services offered and associated performance expectations — are defined by the voters.

One potential pitfall to this management approach is the limits of quantitative data. (That is, if you can avoid the typical pitfalls from this brief) Although the absentee rate and number of potholes fixed can be counted easily enough, a host of government functions are not easily counted. Looking at the city of Boston’s performance data, it struck me one of the agencies missing from the system was the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the planning and urban renewal agency for the city. If it was included, what metrics should be measured? Plans produced? Property values increased? The quality of plans produced? How should the success in coordinating private investment to create quality neighborhoods be evaluated?

Urban development is certainly not the only partly qualitative function of urban government, just one of interest to me. It should be remembered an earlier generation of reformers also sought to make government more efficient, and Robert Moses himself even concocted a scheme to evaluate the performance of city employees early in his career. The danger is that the drive for performance or efficiency can sideline worthy yet difficult to quantify government functions, or create a management framework where normative issues, such as the values informing goal setting itself, remain unexamined.

> Baltimore CitiStat
> D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer
> Boston About Results
> Rappaport Institute: “The Seven Big Errors of PerformanceStat”

World Bank Policies and Public Participation

Among the various activities of the World Bank, some of the most visible and controversial are the infrastructure projects they fund around the world. The projects are intended to improve quality of life and encourage economic development, and include irrigation systems, road and rail improvements, dams, port facilities, and even dumps.(Shown the right is World Bank-funded road construction in Tajikistan) Lesser known are the World Bank policies that mandate that project sponsors write lengthy, western-style environmental assessments and engage in mandated consultations with local NGOs and affected populations. Are you a member of an obscure indigenous people being displaced from your home by a huge new hydroelectric dam? Go to the environmental assessment hearing, listen to the PowerPoint, and be heard. This type of process happens frequently under World Bank policies pointed out to me by a former bank staff I met at an event this fall.

The bank’s so-called Safeguard Policies, designed to prevent “undue harm” to society and the environment as a result of “the development process,” do indeed mandate a bare minimum of public participation. The Environmental Assessment Policy requires,

the borrower consults project-affected groups and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) about the project’s environmental aspects and takes their views into account. The borrower initiates such consultations as early as possible. For Category A projects [those that "likely to have significant adverse environmental impacts that are sensitive, diverse or unprecedented"], the borrower consults these groups at least twice: (a) shortly after environmental screening and before the terms of reference for the EA are finalized; and (b) once a draft EA report is prepared. In addition, the borrower consults with such groups throughout project implementation as necessary to address EA-related issues that affect them.

In text reminiscent with the U.S. federal government’s mandates to cities in the 1950s regarding the relocation of people displaced for urban renewal projects, the World Bank’s Involuntary Resettlement policy requires (emphasis mine):

Involvement of resettlers and host communities:

(a) a description of the strategy for consultation with and participation of resettlers and hosts in the design and implementation of the resettlement activities;
(b) a summary of the views expressed and how these views were taken into account in preparing the resettlement plan;
(c) a review of the resettlement alternatives presented and the choices made by displaced persons regarding options available to them, including choices related to forms of compensation and resettlement assistance, to relocating as individuals families or as parts of preexisting communities or kinship groups, to sustaining existing patterns of group organization, and to retaining access to cultural property (e.g. places of worship, pilgrimage centers, cemeteries);5and
(d) institutionalized arrangements by which displaced people can communicate their concerns to project authorities throughout planning and implementation, and measures to ensure that such vulnerable groups as indigenous people, ethnic minorities, the landless, and women are adequately represented.

The Indigenous People’s Policy has similar language, recognizing the unique vulnerability of these populations:

A project proposed for Bank financing that affects Indigenous Peoples requires:

(a) screening by the Bank to identify whether Indigenous Peoples are present in, or have collective attachment to, the project area (see paragraph 8);
(b) a social assessment by the borrower (see paragraph 9 and Annex A);
(c) a process of free, prior, and informed consultation with the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities at each stage of the project, and particularly during project preparation, to fully identify their views and ascertain their broad community support for the project (see paragraphs 10 and 11);
(d) the preparation of an Indigenous Peoples Plan (see paragraph 12 and Annex B) or an Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (see paragraph 13 and Annex C); and
(e) disclosure of the draft Indigenous Peoples Plan or draft Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (see paragraph 15).

As an aside, the views and leadership of indigenous peoples are particularly difficult for outside powers to pin down. Who, precisely, can speak for the group? I once had an interesting conversation with a Lakota tribal elder about why he felt the official tribal government, did not represent the “true” interests of the full-blooded tribal members like himself.

Examples

An interesting source of material about how these policies are actually implemented are the official Environmental Assessments, which are as a matter of policy all posted to the World Bank’s website. Let’s look at two recent environmental assessments to see what they have to say about the public consultation for the project. First, regarding a Tunisian irrigation project:

PUBLIC CONSULTATION AND DISCLOSURE OF THE SDR
15. For the purpose of presenting the results of the analysis of equivalence and acceptability of the Tunisian national system of EA in the water sector, a public
consultation, in the form of an Atelier deInformation et de Concertationo took place at CITET in Tunis on October 28-30, 2008 under the patronage of the Secretaire deEtat. There were approximately 75 people in attendance (List Attached), including representatives of public and private sector entities, NGOs and the media, and
international donors including AFD and the ADB.

16. In addition to the presentation by Bank staff of the findings and conclusions of the SDR, five presentations were made by ANPE, MARH, and the consultants respectively
on: (i) the Tunisian System of EA in the Water Sector; (ii) the PISEAU II; (iii) the Resettlement Policy Framework; (iv) the DCPES; and (v) Environmental Health and Safety in Connection with Asbestos. Representatives of the World Bank introduced the context and methodology for the analysis of equivalence and acceptability of the national system of EA in the water sector and the results of this analysis as well as the gap filling measures necessary for the application of the Tunisian EA system to projects financed by the World Bank, and in particular to the World Bank-financed Sub-projects under the PISEAU II.

17. During the consultations, it was concluded that the report reflects the current status of the EA system in Tunisia and that the World Bank has in fact identified the gaps between the Tunisian system and the requirements of World Bank Operational Policy 4.00 on Piloting the Use of Borrower Systems to Address Environmental and Social Safeguard Issues in Bank-Supported Projects. The participants agreed in general with the DCPES as a way to guide the environmental and social management of activities to be financed by the PISEAU II consistent with the findings and conclusions of the SDR. The principal points raised during the consultation focused on the gaps observed between the Tunisian EA system and the requirements of the World Bank’s environmental policy. After explanation was given on the comments raised herein, the participants endorsed the
content of the report.

Another recent project I selected at random, the “Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project,” provided a process a bit more nuanced than a dry public meeting in the capital city:

The Consultation Team had to adjust the consultation plan after the meetings with the scavengers and the leaders of two communities near the existing Yatta landfill. Informal leaders of scavengers from Yatta city and formal leaders of communities near the Yatta landfill site wanted to discuss negative environmental and social effects and impacts of the site. The site was managed very poorly until 2006 and some of the complains needed to be crosschecked with responsible government authorities and with field data. Therefore the Consultant Team decided to interview a medical expert in Yatta district and an social expert of the Municipal Social Department. In addition, the Consultant decided to conduct a census of all scavengers working on an average summer day at the landfill site, and to prepare profiles of four scavengers households from Yatta city and four households from El Deirat village. The additional data was required to deal with conflicting information about number of scavengers, health conditions and the socio-economic backgrounds of the households of scavenger families that have children and adults picking waste at the landfill site.

Thinly-veiled threats raised during one community meeting even made it into the report:

The leaders of communities living near to the proposed regional land fill site in El Menya and the proposed transfer station in South Hebron have given their conditional support to the project components. They want their communities to benefits from improved infrastructure and employment opportunities. Their conditions concern the management of the facilities in accordance with international environmental and social standards so that the communities and these assets will be protected for negative impacts in the short, medium and long term. The community leaders also expressed a warning: if the SWM facilities are not properly managed and cause hinder to the neighboring communities these might react by blocking the operation of the solid waste management system.

Some might scoff at the actual power wielded by the community. Once the trash transfer facility was built, what power could they have to ensure environmental standards are upheld? In 1968 one U.S. community faced the precise same problem. Officials refused to re-route garbage and fuel trucks serving Boston’s Logan Airport from a densely populated residential street in East Boston — Maverick Street. The street’s residents sparked a political confrontation and re-routing of the trucks by physically blocking the street. The comparison opens up the question of what social and political factors must be present for procedural environmental assessments to result in community power.

Conclusion

Like with many mandated consultation processes, distrust and frustration is rife on both sides. According to one article about a World Bank process in Pakistan I found online, a group of 24 NGOs dropped out of an official consultation process in 2001, complaining “The nature and content of the consultations has to be meaningful” before they would participate. In other places and times hundreds of groups have boycotted the consultation processes, including this example from 2004. An independent 2004 evaluation of the public consultation process for a hydroelectric project in Laos (right) critiques the process, concluding:

From its beginning in 1996 to the present time, the Nam Theun 2 public consultation process was aimed not at empowering the public to engage in informed dialogue and debate about the project, but rather to justify the decision to proceed with it. ” although they point out, “Whether it would be possible for a more neutral and well-intentioned party to structure a participatory decision-making process that works in the context of Laos–and that would meet the universal standards of transparency and accountability that both the World Bank and WCD recommend–remains to be seen. But in the current situation, the Nam Theun 2 public consultation process has clearly failed to meet even minimal World Bank standards, much less the more rigorous WCD standards, and should not be accepted as an adequate basis for the approval of support for the Project.

A 2002 World Bank working paper evaluating public consultations in the environmental assessment policy concluded something similar, finding that although consultation had become common, “the current challenge for Bank operations focuses on the quality of public consultations and the extent to which they influence project design and effect project impact.”

I am very new to the area of megaprojects, only recently having ordered the Flyvbjerg and Altshuler/Luberoff recent books on the subject. However even from this cursory review, the application of consultation requirements in developing world contexts can serve to illuminate the many factors consultation projects in general are are based upon: the existence of a civil society, free and robust media, and the assumption the people affected by the project are protected from possible harms outside of the scope of individual projects. Indeed, maybe these policies only make sense in a country with a rule of law that can function as an arena of last resort. After all, without legal recourse, how substantive would many participation processes in the U.S. be? Although the precise impact of the policies seems varied, at the very least it is sparking new forms of local debate and information exchange and warrant further examination.

This topic is related to two others I hope to write about soon. In the U.S., state planning and zoning laws can mandate participation for urban planning at the local level, like the World Bank policies setting requirements to guide local planning. Around the world, a new approach to infrastructure development shifts the paradigm away from procedural assessments and consultations such as the environmental assessments described above, or used in the U.S. under the National Environmental Policy Act. In the emerging field of participatory budgeting, urban residents themselves decide which infrastructure projects should be built, through cutting-edge democratic processes.

World Bank photos: road construction in Tajikistan and Nam Theum 2 project.

Report Finds Public Participation Improves Policy

A new study published by the National Academy of Sciences has concluded public participation processes can improve the quality of policies and help them become implemented. The 270-page report is the product of a research panel of a dozen experts. The report’s primary recommendation urges “Public participation should be fully incorporated into environmental assessment and decision-making processes, and it should be recognized by government agencies and other organizers of the processes as a requisite of effective action, not merely a formal procedural requirement.”

While I have not read the full study yet, I am not surprised by the findings. After all, in the words of panel head Thomas Dietz, since “a lot of science has to be applied to a very local context, local knowledge is essential.” Although a dearth of good research on the topic exists in the field of urban planning, I found several studies drawing similar conclusions. One interesting examination of 60 planning processes in Florida and Washington concluded that “with greater stakeholder involvement, comprehensive plans are stronger, and proposals made in plans are more likely to be implemented.” The study author went on to write (with two others) a subsequent article analyzing how states should mandate participation. I adopted that group’s general framework, derived as it was from the previous study of effectiveness, for my final paper describing how the Internet could be used as a participation tool.

I think the lesson from the National Academies panel must be driven home to the urban development community. Since we are so intimate with participation, we lose perspective on its broader importance and role. Given the legal requirements for transparency and professional approaches to participation, the key is to look beyond an obsession with the intellectually vague “NIMBYism” and design processes that foster consensus and prevent Morriss Fiorina’s “Extreme Voices” from having a monopoly. In particular, I think it means designing processes that are less time-intensive and allow involvement on a wider scale of commitment levels.

> [Read it Online] National Academies: Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making
> NYTimes: “Report Says Public Outreach, Done Right, Aids Policymaking”
> Previous posts: NIMBYism, Urban Development, and the Public Involvement Solution, Public Participation in Urban Planning Series

Subprime Mortgages and Race

The map to the right shows the overwhelming majority of subprime loans and foreclosures in New York City have been in minority neighborhoods. (Created by NEDAP via NY Times) The map tells an often-overlooked fact: the subprime crisis has hit minority neighborhoods harder than white ones.

The banking industry sometimes claims the differences in lending between whites and blacks and Hispanics are due to differences in credit and income. Although income plays a role, last year the New York Times reported that after controlling for the size of the loan and income of the borrower, blacks were 2.3 times more likely and Hispanics two times more likely than whites to have a high-cost loan. They cite the example of two neighborhoods in Detroit, both with median incomes around $50,000 — 70% of loans in the black neighborhood had high interest rates, while only 17% did in the white neighborhood.

Another study found that homeowners in upper income black neighborhoods (income above 120% AMI) were twice as likely to have subprime loans as homeowners in low-income (income below 80% AMI) white neighborhoods. Almost 40% of the loans in the affluent black neighborhood were subprime, versus 18% in the low income white neighborhood.

One article (PDF) thinks it is precisely that statistic that suggests something more – whether discrimination or a simple lack of prime lenders — is to blame:

The finding that upper income African-American borrowers rely more heavily on the subprime market than low-income White borrowers suggests that a portion of subprime lending is occurring with borrowers whose credit would qualify them for lower cost conventional prime loans. There is also evidence that the higher interest rates charged by subprime lenders cannot be fully explained solely as a function of the additional risks they bear. Thus, a greater presence by mainstream lenders could possibly reduce the high up-front fees and interest rates currently being paid by residents of low-income and minority neighborhoods.

The Times speculates in addition to a lack of prime lenders, other reasons could include aggressive sales in minority neighborhoods, less financial saavy, and lower net worth of minority lenders. Regardless, the stark numbers show that while the worst redlining may be behind us, the problem of equitable housing finance for urban neighborhoods still eludes us.

> NYTimes: What’s Behind the Race Gap?
> W. Post: Subprime Mortgages and Race
> HUD: Subprime Market Growth and Predatory Lending (PDF)