Opportunity Urbanism

If you are interested in cities and economic growth, I recommend you read this report on Opportunity Urbanism by Joel Kotkin.  It offers an alternative to the "smart growth" and "luxury city" models followed elsewhere, including Minneapolis.

Worse Than Cleveland?

We keep hearing how Minneapolis is leading the nation in economic growth, thanks to the far-sighted policies of the state’s Democrat party.

Well, Joel Kotkin has looked at the actual numbers and the MSP region is mired deep in the pack.

For per capita increase in GDP, Minneapolis-St. Paul ranks 19^th among large urban areas.  The time period (2010-2013) exactly corresponds to the years Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton has been in office.

MSP ranks behind such garden spots as Columbus OH, Grand Rapids MI, Detroit(!), and Cleveland for recent increases in the economic growth rate.

Booming Houston leads the pack.  It’s worth reading Joel’s entire piece to get a flavor for where regional growth is happening.

Participation

The latest Minnesota employment statistics were released today, and they are being hailed in the usual precincts.

Weekly Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist and constant liberal Lori Sturdevant took to Twitter to declare,

4.3 percent state unemployment rate is lowest since Nov. '06; not since dot-com years was it consistently lower.

Digging into the numbers, one quickly discovers that the state unemployment rate is not falling because more jobs are being created, the rate is falling because fewer people are bothering to look for work.

As of August, the state’s labor force participation rate stands at 70.3 percent.  Looking at the raw numbers (not seasonally adjusted), the unemployment rate fell last month, even as the number of jobs fell.  The fall in the size of the labor force was even greater, producing the reduction in the unemployment rate.

In other words, the Minnesota economy is not producing new jobs:  we are counting on older workers retiring to free up old jobs.

Back in the “dot-com years” hailed by Sturdevant, the labor force participation rate was much higher.  Exactly a dozen years ago, in August 2002, the participation rate stood at 75.8 percent.  If we had a labor force that size in 2014, the current state unemployment rate would stand at 10.8 percent.

Yes, the labor force participation rate is falling, in part, because the population is aging.  But that is the point.  Our demographics are changing (more older people, fewer school-age children), but our economic policies (higher taxes, more regulation, ever-bigger government) assume the baby-boom-led demographics of the 1960’s.

Cam Winton on GOP Messaging

On today’s Gilmore and Glahn internet radio show, we hosted in our second half-hour Republican Cam Winton, who ran for Mayor of Minneapolis last year.

On the show, Winton offered some parting advice on the GOP campaign this November.  His four-point platform was structured on the Jeff Johnson vs. Mark Dayton race, but I think it will have wider appeal.  Here, I reprint Cam's remarks from the show, beginning at the 49:20 mark,

·       1 ) Under Jeff Johnson, all kids in Minnesota would have the best possible teacher in their classroom.  Under Dayton, they won’t – because Dayton defends teachers union bosses last in first out and is trying to keep out Teach for America.  

2) Under Jeff Johnson, all people in Minnesota could choose the health plan that works best for them – as any and all insurers compete against each other to provide the cheapest possible insurance.  Under Dayton, they won’t – because we’ll continue with the centrally-planned debacle of MNSure that limits competition.  

3) Under Jeff Johnson, we’ll make Minnesota an attractive place to start a new business – so that we can grow the next Medtronic or Target.  Under Dayton, we’ll continue to have stifling regulation that leads to us being #47 in the nation for per-capita number of new business starts.  [On the air, Cam said dead last. But he looked it up and we were #47 in 2013 according to Kaufman Foundation.]

4) Under Jeff Johnson, government will be a good steward of tax dollars, paying for our priorities.  Under Dayton, it won’t – we’ll keep spending on a palace for politicians and a football stadium where the numbers don’t add up.

Back in May of last year, I offered my own bloated five point message, aimed at the low information voter and reprinted here:

·        “We will make it easier for you to start and run your own business.”  Does not require voters to know how Minnesota ranks on business formations.

·        “We will help get your child out of a failing school”   Avoids insider phrases like achievement gap or vouchers.

             

·        “We will make sure your tax money is not wasted”  Labels like spending, deficits, debt, work less well when you are not familiar with the condition of state finances.

·        “You will get to keep more of what you earn”  Every one pays taxes, but a pitch based on “eliminating the new 4^th tier income tax” presumes way to much information.

·        “We will help those who need it most”  This phrase is what the argument around “priorities” really comes down to, but without the abstraction.

Minnesota’s New Feudalism

I’ve written lately of the transformation of the North Star state under the one-party rule of the Democrats under the banner of The Banana Republic of Minnesota.

Author Joel Kotkin has taken to describing the transformation of his home state of California under one-party Democrat rule as the New Feudalism.  Since Minnesota’s liberal progressives see the Golden State as a model for all of America, Kotkin’s analysis may give us a glimpse into our own future.
 

We Need a Reform Conservatism

Ross Douthat, the New York Times’ only conservative columnist, posted a helpful piece today on “What Is Reform Conservatism?  An agenda for an almost-movement.”

I met Ross a few weeks ago when he was in town to give a talk on his latest book, before a packed house.  I think he is someone we should be listening to.

Ross concedes in his post today that the idea of reform conservatism “has not exactly caught fire within the G.O.P.”  When you are fighting against the daily catastrophes brought on by one-party rule—as we are in Minnesota—or the too-many-scandals-too-count in Washington, it’s tough to look longer term at ideas worth implementing when (not if) we are back in power.

I’m optimistic that—in Minnesota—we may be back in 2014, so now is the time for building a consensus around a positive agenda for change in state government.

Last month I made a few suggestions to get started on a reform agenda for Minnesota.  Today, Ross offers a six point agenda that is useful as a starting point for discussions.  I wish he would have included a point on education reform (as I did) but that is more a quibble than a criticism.

More useful for the idea of establishing a conservative reform agenda are the two premises Ross’ articulates as underlying his thinking on the subject.

First, Ross discusses the need for “making family life more affordable, upward mobility more likely, and employment easier to find.”

Second, Ross names that the biggest hurdle to making that happen,

The existing welfare-state institutions we’ve inherited from the New Deal and the Great Society, however, often make these tasks harder rather than easier:  Their exploding costs crowd out every other form of spending

I’ve made exactly that same point before.  You would think that we would share common ground with those on the other side of the fence who genuinely want to help the needy.  The No. 1 reason why there is not more money to help the neediest?  Because of the huge share of our budget devoted to programs that we know don’t work.

Ross’ conclusion,

So we don’t face a choice between streamlining the welfare state and making it more supportive of work and family; we should be doing both at once.

Just as important are the items that Ross lists that should not be part of a conservative reform agenda:  no cap and trade, no more tax increases, etc.

I agree with the idea that we need something of a conservative reform movement.  Let’s get started.

Reaching the Low Information Voter, Part 2

In the first part of this series, I explore Minnesota’s current political landscape and suggest some messages crafted to reach democracy’s newest key demographic: low information voters.  In this part, I dig deeper into what low information voters actually know, and how to approach them.

Reaching the Low Information Voter, Part 1

With the 2013 legislative session now behind us, the 2014 election campaign can begin in earnest.  With major elections set for Governor, U.S. Senator, and the state House of Representatives, Minnesota’s voters have the opportunity to change the direction of the state’s politics for the third time in four years.

For the state’s Democrats, now enjoying one-party rule in St. Paul, the election is theirs to lose.  Thus the focus will inevitably fall on the Republicans’ response to the opportunity before them.   Already, there is no shortage of advice, coming from all points on the political compass.

The Blue Road Not Taken

Walter Russell Mead extends his thinking on the state of Blue America.  He thinks we are missing out on incredible opportunities to rebuild America.

What Comes After the Blue State Model?

Walter Russell Mead tries to peer over the horizon at what will come next in his newest essay.

Saving the Middle Class

[A repost of a book excerpt from earlier this year]

Is America's middle class in danger?  In October 2011, Anne Applebaum wrote an opinion piece in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph— “Can America survive without its backbone, the middle class?”—and put forward this thesis,

I would argue that the growing divisions within the American middle class are far more important than the gap between the very richest and everybody else.  They are important because to be “middle class”, in America, has such positive connotations, and because most Americans think they belong in it.  The middle class is the “heartland”; the middle class is the “backbone of the country”.  In 1970, Time magazine described Middle America as people who “sing the national anthem at football games – and mean it”.[1]

Unfortunately, so much government policy is aimed at helping lower income families—through social welfare programs—and upper income people—through subsidies for the “Creative Classes” and outright crony capitalism, that the middle class, the middle-middle, ends up getting squeezed out.

America and the Value of 'Earned Success'

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Arthur Brooks on the idea of earned success as the key to personal happiness.  It's available to all (not just subscribers).

It begins with this provocative sentence,

"I learned to appreciate the American free enterprise system by quitting a job in Spain."

The Future of Jobs

Walter Russell Mead has started a new series of posts over at his blog on the future of jobs in our changing economy.

Part 2 is now up.

Keith Downey on the Right to Work Issue

Minnesota is not a "Right to Work" state, although there are efforts at the state legislature to join Indiana in prohibiting the practice of forcing non-members to pay union dues.

My State Rep., Keith Downey (R-Edina), writes on the issue in a St. Paul Pioneer Press opinion piece headlined, "Why 'right to work' would be good for workers and their unions."

Downey makes the point that in making union dues-paying voluntary, unions would become more competitive by having to show members the benefits of membership.  He writes,

"In fact, right-to-work is a growth opportunity for labor.  In fact, it is the real future for unions.  Let workers organize, freely, in the competitive marketplace of ideas, talent and effectiveness.  Reduce state interference. That's not hazardous; that brings out the best in people.

"Under right-to-work, collective bargaining is left untouched.  Unions will, of course, still exist.  And they will flourish when they add value to employees and employers, not because they've fenced out the competition and forced membership.

"This will bring out the best in organized labor.  It will restore the traditional role of unions we all respect and admire--adding value to workers with training and certifications, and adding value to employers and consumers by improving service and quality.  Add more value than cost, and wages and profits increase too."

Here Downey is channeling Walter Russell Mead, who writes about the future of work and jobs in his series "Beyond Blue."  In Mead's Beyond Blue Part 5, 'Jobs, Jobs, Jobs", he writes about the future of labor unions,

"But in the labor market of the future, workers are less likely to need bargaining agents who improve their working conditions and pay through a rule-making process at their long-term employer.  They are more likely to need a kind of career agent who helps them negotiate work contracts for short term gigs and develop a long term plan to keep their skills sharp and move with a changing economy into new fields.  Fewer of us will build careers by lifetime service to a single firm; more of us will seek improved pay and more agreeable work by switching companies and even fields.  Fewer of us will be represented by the successors of Jimmy Hoffa; more of us will have a personal Michael Ovitz on call."

State-of-the-art skills and training, representing individual workers as they move from one short-term job to the next, this scenario sounds like it was tailor-made for a 21st-century, free-market version of the traditional "craft" unions or even the older medieval guilds.

What's Next for the American Dream?

Walter Russell Mead continues his a series of essays to see what is over the horizon for the American Dream as the "Blue Social Model" continues to collapse.

• Part 5
• Part 4
• Part 3
• Part 2
• Part 1

The Most Important Conversation in America: the Future of the American Dream

For my money, the most important conversation in America is one largely going on behind the scenes.  While the Republican presidential candidates pummel each other into un-electability, the National Debt races to $16.4 trillion, and mass unemployment has reached Depression-era longevity, a few brave people are trying to figure out "What Comes Next."

Let's start with Charles Murray's important book Coming Apart, (yes, I said it) which documents how the elite of America have physically separated themselves from the rest of America over the past 50 years, while pollster Scott Rasmussen has documented how the elite have more recently separated themselves philosophically.  Left-wing critics of Murray accuse him of "blaming the victim."  In reality, they are engaging in "shooting the messenger," as most of Murray's book consists of carefully documenting the very decline in the fortunes of the middle- and working-classes his liberal critics have been complaining about for decades.
 
If  the current version of the American Dream is slipping away for so many, what comes next?  New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers some insights, as he both defends Murray's work and offers a helpful critique.  Douthat wrote last week,

"The crisis in working-class life Murray describes is arguably our most pressing domestic problem.  But we are not going to address it by gut-renovating our welfare state to fit a libertarian ideal, or by dramatically expanding the same state in pursuit of an unattainable social democratic dream.  What we can do instead is take modest steps, in areas where culture and economics intersect, to make it easier for working-class Americans to cultivate the virtues that foster resilience and self-sufficiency."

Douthat goes on to offer ideas on how to "make work pay," help families, fix immigration policies, and rethink crime and punishment policies.

For his part, Bard College professor Walter Russell Mead offers his own prescriptions for reviving the American Dream for the middle- and working-classes.  Included are ideas on the expansion of the personal service economy (think "mass luxury"), more and better-focused educational opportunities (more customized training to match existing job opportunities), more individual control over health care, and new worlds of self-employment.

The work of Murray and Mead has sparked an important debate about how we should be promoting economic growth and provides a needed contrast to the "Creative Class" ideas of Richard Florida, which dominate so much of the conventional wisdom of economic development and urban planning types and focuses exclusively on developing the new elite class.

I am looking forward to this debate playing out and I urge others to follow it.  What comes from this discussion will have more impact on American Life in the next 50 years than anything said by candidates in the 2012 election.

Microloans at Work

A report from Minnesota Public Radio.

Redesigning Government: More Local Flexibility

Minnesota Public Radio reports that groups representing local governments and schools are asking the State of Minnesota for more flexibility.  MPR says,

"The three main organizations that represent local governments in the state released a report today that health and human services, education, transportation, public safety and government operations and boundaries all can improve if state leaders take a number of steps to let local leaders do more to collaborate and come up with innovations."

Joel Kotkin Sees Some Hope for the Future

Over at New Geography, Joel writes that recovery could be at hand, if we only let it.  What we need is a new "American Style Strategy,"

"So this is where we now sit.  With all the essential elements for a strong, sustained recovery place, the big question is whether we will find political leaders capable of tapping this country’s phenomenal potential."

Prosperity is not always pretty

As Walter Russell Mead points out on his blog, prosperity is not always pretty when we find it in the wild, unlike this achingly beautiful photo essay in the January 2008 National Geographic on the ghost towns of western North Dakota.  Now less than four years later those ghost towns are springing back to life with oil and gas exploration, and it's all so...untidy.  Fifth generation newspaper mogul A.G. Sulzberger writes in his great-great-grandfather's newspaper of the boom town horrors being visited upon the once-unspoilt prairie.

More than ten years ago, when young A.G. was just a teen, his father's newspaper was writing off North Dakota, and not for the first or last time.  ("As Others Abandon Plains, Indians and Bison Come Back")  In May 2001, the Times' Timothy Egan wrote,

"In writing the obituary of the Great Plains, social historians have looked out at the abandoned ranches, collapsed homesteads and dying towns huddled against the wind in a sea of grass and seen an epic failure."

Sadly for the Times, North Dakota has failed to fail on schedule.

Mead captures this sentiment from the Timesmen, across the generations,

"Decline is so much more decorous.   Prairie towns slowly wither on the vine; the young people quietly leave, the stores gradually empty and close.   Reporters from the Times write haunting and moving stories about the gentle, drifting sadness of it all.  Novelists in creative writing programs can write delicate tales of rural decline; filmmakers can make understated little films about the lost hope and vanished promise of the American dream."

Long live North Dakota.