Press the Accelerator: is turning Metro employees into entrepreneurs a good idea?

The business of business has nothing to do with "addressing inequality". The business of business is to maximize profits, even if it means supporting or generating inequality. In the 1950s, businesses had to be forced to acknowledge the civil rights of African Americans. It was not a benevolent free market that incorporated respect for human rights. It was a combination of government coercion and popular and political movements that forced businesses to comply.

As I learn that Mayor Karl Dean through his Office of Innovation is "innovating" Metro employees to become entrepreneurial by means of a "City Accelerator", I am concerned, not excited:

Through the Entrepreneur Center, we help really smart Metro employees learn about these tools, and turn them into quasi-entrepreneurs ... inside of Metro government so that they can make their ideas real businesses and real solutions for our city .... During the accelerator two more cohorts of innovation fellows will create new innovations for Metro government

The problem with this is it sounds exactly like the Republicans' decades old saw that "government should be run like a business," which has been tried and failed so many times in recent history. Disruption and innovation are the latest fad jargon for what is going on in the tech industry, which moves like gang busters in Nashville. But when stripped of the hype, the ideas amount to warmed-over conservative shut-down of public goods guaranteed by a democratically elected government.

Innovators invariably look for a different set of rules outside of government regulations by which to be "free" and to operate on their own. Then again, so do many Republicans.

Entrepreneurs by definition are people who risk their own money in order to start a business or profit-making enterprise. (Never mind that Nashville's Entrepreneur Center is heavily subsidized). Governments in democracies focus on providing access to broadly shared goods, like clean water, public safety, preserved undeveloped green space, transportation options and right to assembly. At times those purposes are complimentary, at times they are not.

For example, privatizing public education invests venture capital dollars heavily subsidized by the Obama Administration so that investors can experience a return in the education marketplace while selecting and keeping the students the corporations want rather than providing equal education opportunities for every student (the very purpose of the idea of government-provided education). Regardless of student development and welfare the bottom line is to avoid risk and maximize financial benefits.

A problem with turning government workers into entrepreneurs is that they will logically act to maximize profit-making enterprise regardless of whether it meets the test of universal accessibility. When they come up against regulations, even ones designed to protect consumers from an indifferent and arbitrary marketplace, they might look for ways around them (as if savvy government bureaucrats have never done that before).

Worse than trying to do something more disruptive than the regs allow is insisting, as Director of Financial Empowerment Erik Cole does in the video, that innovation can work "within the context of poverty" to solve inequality. Look at companies with reputation for greatest innovation before you buy his logic. Two start-up ride-sharing companies--attempting to disrupt cab companies and the government rules that regulate them--do not seem to be doing much to end inequality in our lifetime (are they even disrupting it?)

But it can be too easy to forget that people make “instant” happen. And, generally, these people are not a traditionally stable workforce. They are instead a flexible and scalable network of workers — “fractional employees” — that tap in and tap out as needed, and as suits them.

It’s estimated that more than 100,000 of these jobs have been created, especially due to the largest on-demand mobile services: The ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft, whose drivers provide alternatives to taxis and other forms of transportation.

The Uber-style model works when a company can turn that kind of disparate workforce into a reliable branded service. It’s not quantum computing, but after you click “buy now,” it falls to someone to do the hard and sensitive work of moving physical stuff around in the real world.

Uber says it is creating 20,000 U.S. jobs per month by allowing drivers to tap into its ride-hailing service in their local cities by renting a phone from the company (it used to be free).

And so, at its core, you might think of the instant gratification economy as a story about jobs — new kinds of jobs. Here’s how it works: People like to get stuff when they want it. And, because of smartphones and smart logistics software, deliveries can happen much more cheaply and quickly, especially in cities.

So, the availability of on-demand services generates more demand. To meet it, companies bring on more workers. And ultimately, finding one of these jobs — or often, more than one of them — can create living wages for people who might otherwise be out of work.

But it’s not all shiny happy job creation. It’s not terribly uplifting to think that the future of labor is delivering stuff to rich people.

That does not sound promising at all for low wage workers and homeless people. The expectation is not that workers achieve stability in the fluid "sharing economy" (or is that "service economy"?). The inflexible mantra is "stay flexible and scalable".  The goals of democratic government and the sharing economy work at cross purposes if the goals are equality, social justice and labor stability. If a few people actually achieve a living wage, it will like charter schools offering a way out of poverty to college for a small number of high school students, while the charter school corporations get rich.

I do not have a problem with innovating in government. One of the biggest innovators in U.S. history was Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. I do have a problem with dismantling government programs and precautionary regulations under the banner of absolute freedom for private enterprise, especially the absolute freedom to evangelize government workers and turn them into drones who support business innovators more than they advocate for ordinary Nashvillians.


UPDATE: Beyond how business innovation actually changes income inequality is the specific question of Karl Dean's practices dealing with homelessness before the City Accelerator was a prospect. Last year, local pastor Jay Voorhees observed that the Mayor's Office has a poor track record on helping the homeless:

...outside of some basic lip service, Mayor Dean has not seemed particularly interested in the social safety net side of governmental services, and certainly not the challenges of the homeless community. In the days after the 2010 floods the mayor’s office was noticeably missing in trying to address the needs of the former tent city residents, leaving the question of how to deal with this population to a set of dedicated volunteers and clergy. The Metro Homelessness Commission has languished during the Dean administration, some of which can be attributed to its members, but part of which is reflective of a mayor who is more concerned with creating new business opportunities than assisting those who are down and out.

It is worth noting that Erik Cole, who appears in the video and makes comments supporting the use of business-oriented innovations to help the homeless, was appointed by Mayor Dean to chair the Metro Homelessness Commission (2008-2012). As council member, Mr. Cole always voted with the Mayor when it came down to spending that favored business interests.

Neither the Office of Innovation nor the Mr. Cole's Office of Financial Empowerment look like improvements on Karl Dean's general disinterest in policies of social uplift. It is hard for me to believe as the video claims that the Mayor has actually lost sleep over the problem of income equality given his past lip service without tangible actions. We cannot expect the City Accelerator to do anything more than help the involved business interests and the Entrepreneur Center.


UPDATE: mayoral candidate Megan Barry loves her some disruptive innovation. Her supportive comment on Nashville's bid on the city accelerator website:

Like Erik Cole, Council Member Megan Barry never bucked Karl Dean on policies that served business interests first. Her campaign for mayor seems to angle now towards a kinder and gentler mock-up of Karl Dean. She may actually lose sleep over income inequality. However, her campaign for council once promised to be a voice for everyone in Metro government and we see how that populist tone failed to materialize in real policy. I doubt a Mayor Barry would do much beyond lip service to the intention of leaving no one behind. I have never witnessed her hard-nosed enough to challenge the powers that be that leave people behind in the first place.

A carnival of contrasting perceptions of Nashville's Mayor in the wake of the NYT's "Nashville Itself"

Consider the analysis of New York Times southern bureau chief, Kim Severson, looking at Mayor Karl Dean with hindsight and outside-in in 2012:

Mr. Dean, a former city lawyer who became mayor in 2007 and led the city’s recovery from historic floods in 2010, said the [new convention center] project, which got under way during the recession, has been a fight every step of the way. “The gains for the city are real and tangible,” he said.

My observations and reflections on the Mayor's involvement in 2010:

I distinctly remember the Mayor laying low and putting news conferences and non-profits like Hands on Nashville...between himself and the relief effort. HoN did a lot of good, but it also took a lot of heat from some of us that Hizzoner chose not to face ....

Even as East Nashvillians mobilized 1,500 volunteers on their own to rescue neighbors and bring relief to their community, they watched Metro resources head west. Karl Dean may be Tennessean of the Year at 1100 Broadway, but he had very little impact at Moss Rose or near McFerrin Park outside of photo-op appearances when ... he decided to shed his "businesslike" style to get out and walk the neighborhoods ....

I watched TV reports of volunteers and Metro officials streaming into West Nashville, but then I drove Bordeaux neighborhoods that had huge piles of debris stacked at the curbs with no volunteers or Metro officials in sight. We took a car load of food and supplies to an Egyptian Coptic Christian community in South Nashville, where we saw few relief workers from Metro or Metro's non-profit contractors. It seemed like Metro-lead relief arrived late to and left early from poorer northern and southern neighborhoods ....

Less than a week after the 1,000-year flood, Karl Dean was on NPR whitewashing the destruction by claiming that 80-90% of Nashville was "untouched" by the disaster in an attempt to maximize future tourism revenue. It bears asking at this point: if only 10-20% of the city was "touched" by floods, why was the Mayor's performance heroic enough to be lauded as "Tennessean of the Year"?

That was 2010. Today local pastor Jay Voorhees blogged his own views of the Mayor's seeming blindness to disposable people with no power in the wake of the Music City Center construction:

For all of the hopes of some of my progressive friends back when he was elected, Mayor Karl Dean has had a dismal record of failure when it comes to dealing with the issue of homelessness in Nashville. One would think as a former public defender that he would have some sense of the issue and some of the needs of that community. Yet, outside of some basic lip service, Mayor Dean has not seemed particularly interested in the social safety net side of governmental services, and certainly not the challenges of the homeless community. In the days after the 2010 floods the mayor’s office was noticeably missing in trying to address the needs of the former tent city residents, leaving the question of how to deal with this population to a set of dedicated volunteers and clergy. The Metro Homelessness Commission has languished during the Dean administration, some of which can be attributed to its members, but part of which is reflective of a mayor who is more concerned with creating new business opportunities than assisting those who are down and out.

Those comments are consistent with my perception that Hizzoner may not really care about people who do not have campaign cash to give or influence to lever. No doubt the MCC will provide a lot of wealth for a few tourism industry big shots to hoard without regard for Nashville's outcasts. To her credit at least Times journo Severson touches on some of the local perception of Karl Dean's benign neglect, even as the bare mention does not scratch the surface of the challenges Nashville faces:

“People are too smug about how fortunate we are now,” said the Southern journalist John Egerton, 77, who has lived in Nashville since the 1970s.

“We ought to be paying more attention to how many people we have who are ill-fed and ill-housed and ill-educated,” he said.

The paradox here is that the local social media (as well as the news media) that I see is running with smugness about the New York Times piece and its ingratiating airbrush of Music City. Instead of revealing something insightful--nay human--about Nashville, the piece is just another arrow in the branding quiver of self-conscious marketers and neurotic hand-wringers regarding Nashville's "image". Karl Dean and the journalistic tributes that continue to follow him will one day be gone and Nashville will be left with some stubborn facts about who is in and who is out in this city. We continue to deny those facts at risk of our own self-delusion.

The ongoing problem of the Morgan Park water feature going featureless

City Parks blog has a prescription for successful parks that applies to a relatively news feature at Morgan Park:

For city parks to be successful, they need great water features. Yet it takes money to maintain them, and neglecting such facilities can make a real negative impression on visitors and residents.

A fountain installed last year at Morgan Park--later than originally planned--worked well for the October 2009 opening ceremony, attended by council members, Vice Mayor, and German dignitaries. It functioned normally for a few weeks after that.

Then as time passed the water flowed or it didn't. If Metro kept the level high enough, the street-side spigots would issue water. When they didn't water failed to issue forth. After a while the water level would drop more and water would stop flowing down the channel adjoining the park trail. Periodically someone would increase the water level and every part of the thing flowed. But more times it didn't.

The feature has been working less and less lately. I cannot remember the last time water dropped out of the street-side spigots.

I'm not going to call the Morgan Park fountain great. So, maybe it wouldn't have left a positive impression on park visitors and residents even if it had operated well. However, it is not clear that Metro ever gave it a fighting chance. Many times it limps along with slapdash that makes a negative impression on this resident. I would consider Metro's upkeep and maintenance of the feature to border on neglect. Metro put the feature in on its own initiative and it should take more initiative in keeping the water flowing.

Lately, a homeless man has taken up residence on the benches at the bottom basin. The trash can overflows with meal rubbish, including single serving cereal boxes, yogurt cups, and coke cans. Parks should increase its trash pick-up with the new resident so that the overflowing garbage does not match the negativity of a poorly functioning fountain.

Yeah, well, the ad men simply can't spin an aggressive program for the homeless into something as sexy as the Music City Center

What kind of alternative universe would it be if $1,000,000 was spent on marketing the idea of addressing Nashville's chronic homeless issue instead of on hawking the goal of making a niche industry wealthier than the rest? Jeff Woods suggests the Mayor's Office has misplaced priorities:

First, Dean rams through the new convention center for downtown businesses, then he asks people to toss some spare change at this little homelessness problem we seem to have developed. Dean's got it backwards. First, he should have rolled out a bold program to create housing, offer services and improve the lives of our burgeoning homeless population. Then maybe we could have tried this Adopt-A-Meter campaign to raise money for a new convention center.

You know that those paid political consultants would be moving to greener pastures since they can't haul in obscene amounts of money on homeless issues.

Another MDHA Embarrassment at the Homelessness Commission

MDHA's Homelessness Commission Director has been put on 90-day probation by the commission for awarding a computer security contract without publicizing it to other companies. The Tennessean reports that Commission Chair Erik Cole admitted that the governing body--which includes former Vice Mayor Howard Gentry, current Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors, and MDHA Director Phil Ryan--failed to carefully supervise staff.

Letting Homeless Alcoholics Drink in Shelters Saves Millions in Public Costs

JAMA report finds that sheltering homeless alcholics and permitting them consumption while sheltered not only keeps them out of prison and emergency rooms on the taxpayers' dime, but that long-term shelter living also decreases their consumption.

Sounds great if it keeps homeless imbibers off urban street corners in blighted areas. Let them consume in shelters, I say. Maybe beer companies could find more productive ways to help fund such shelters instead of subsidizing single-serve outposts that do nothing to help the homeless or the local neighborhoods.