Reaping What You Sow: Urban Politics and Political Cleansing, Part 1

Following up on this news story from last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a lead editorial in this Sunday's paper on the need for better "optics" from city government.  The Star Tribune reported last Wednesday that the City of Minneapolis was going ahead with the hiring of a "bicycle and pedestrian coordinator" at the same time it was laying off ten firefighters.  (Sunday's editorial also discussed a questionable move by St. Paul public schools, which I cover in Part 2 of this series.)

Writes the editorial board, "[Minneapolis Mayor R.T.] Rybak's office at least acknowledged that the timing of the [job] posting was 'unfortunate'."  Notice that the Mayor's office regrets the "timing" rather than the substance of the job posting.  The editorial itself seems less concerned with the policy itself, than with providing the "Tea Party" with "more fodder for spending-cuts-only" approaches.

In fact, the announcement of the hiring of a "bike coordinator" at a salary of up to $84,000--as they say in the computer software industry--was a feature, not a bug.  The proximate cause of the firefighter layoffs was a reduction in "local government aid" (LGA) from the state legislature.  LGA represents funds transferred to some (but not all) Minnesota municipalities from state taxpayers.  As can be found on this website, Minneapolis' 2011 share of LGA, $64 million, is down considerably from the $112 million it received from the state as recently as 2002.

So the posting of the bike coordinator position, with its generous compensation, should be seen as the City's affirmation that it will continue to pursue the policy preferences of a key constituency, wealthy liberals, in the face of the new austerity.  As the original article points out, the bike coordinator position was one of five positions for which the City is hiring, including a Director of Solid Waste and Recycling and a Director of Regulatory Services.  Bicycle policy, recycling, and regulation:  yes, that would pretty much sum up the modern, urban political priorities. 

What is most interesting about this incident is on which side the City backed.  The bike coordinator hiring shows the City's unwavering commitment to the most trendy global warming, "smart growth," and urban planning policies, in spite of the difficult economic conditions, obsessions of the wealthy liberal and urban professional classes.  However, losing ten firefighters does not help solidify relations with the unionized government workforce.  If you think about it, it makes sense:  emergency response times are the concern of a warehouse owner or the general manager of an industrial facility, not the college professor, and who are more thick on the ground in America's No. 1 Bike City?
Minneapolis' political leaders, like those in other large cities, are engaged in a delicate exercise of trying to please the different parts of the governing coalition, at the same time the "business model" is in the process of collapsing.

The political machine in Minneapolis and other large cities has been engaged in a decades-long effort in political cleansing:  it has succeeded in realizing East German playwright Bertolt Brecht's dream of having the government elect a new people.  Some of this effort has been been upfront and transparent, such as adopting "Sanctuary City" policies to attract new residents who will support the efforts of the urban political class and, eventually, provide significant numbers of new voters.  These recent immigrants add to the governing coalition of wealthy liberals, government workers, and the dependent class of low-income residents.

However, as the political class has catered to the desires of their core constituent groups--trendy social and environmental policies for the wealthy liberals, lucrative pay and pensions for government workers, and generous social programs and subsidies for the dependent classes--it has also succeeded in driving out large numbers of those who might form a core of support for the political opposition:  aspirational members of the lower- and middle-classes, entrepreneurs, families with school-age children, in short, the "productive" classes.  It matters little whether the productive classes fled ("middle-class flight") or were pushed out ("political cleansing), the fact is that they decamped for more hospitable economic climes long ago.

It all worked out as long as the county, state, and federal levels stood by to provide the resources needed to pay for the policy choices of the urban political elite.  But Minneapolis' experience with the state's LGA program in recent years shows that the other jurisdictions may no longer be so eager to subsidize this game.  And if the City must rely on local taxpayers to foot the bill, then the City in trouble.  Having to lay off union members in order to hire a bike coordinator shows that the City is in trouble.

Having driven out the productive classes, the urban political elite are in a poor position to lure them back inside the city limits.  On the one hand, adopting the boring policies needed to promote economic growth--sensible business regulation, low taxes, functioning infrastructure, and quality schools--threatens their preferred policy mix of a hip social agenda coupled with wealth redistribution.  On the other hand, actually succeeding in luring back the productive classes would deliver to their political opponents a new core of support.

As they say, "you reap what you sow".