How to Fix Mayor Kenney's Lackluster Plan for Job Growth

March 01, 2022 Post a Comment

Feb. x, 2017

Back in November, I establish myself at a dinner party with 20 or so of the region's virtually accomplished business organization movers and shakers. One attendee estimated that the net worth of the room was in the billions. (Obviously, my presence significantly brought downwardly the curve.) As the conversation ebbed and flowed, a common theme emerged: Business organisation for the economic future of the city. And puzzlement over the Mayoral vision, a year into the new administration, for how to grow the local economy.

"It's been a twelvemonth, and all we've been hearing virtually is 'soda tax, soda revenue enhancement, soda tax,'" said one macher. "Well, I support pre-G. Just where's the economic development plan? How are you going to grow jobs?"

Others agreed, and soon the room was full of commentary attesting to the metropolis's lack of business friendliness. There were complaints almost our status as the highest-taxed big metropolis in America this side of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and about the inaction of our elected officials: "The only fourth dimension I hear from a politician is when he wants a check," someone said. Then came a rundown of a string of recent laws—ranging from paid sick leave to the ban on employers' asking about applicants' salary histories to the speculation that Councilman Bobby Henon will soon be introducing paid family unit leave legislation. We accept to compete for talent and market share with our surrounding suburbs, I heard time and over again; unilateral laws like these return u.s. uncompetitive. A tipping point may accept been reached earlier this week when Dan DiLella, President and CEO of Equus Capital Partners, announced that he was taking his 135 employees to Berwyn—in part, due to the city's challenging business climate.

Our dinner party Masters of the Universe were all doing quite well, and had been for some time. Yet they shared a concern about the trajectory of Philadelphia'southward story: low growth (of the top 10 major cities, nosotros rank 9th in economical growth at a paltry one.9 percent), high taxes, high poverty, struggling schools. In the year since Jim Kenney's election, where was the plan to abound jobs? Where was our new story?

Worldwide, cities are having a moment equally engines of innovation; my impression has been that Mayor Kenney has been incurious virtually that tendency, attached instead to onetime school tax and spend, redistributive policies. His signature year one accomplishment, later all, was the soda tax; not once did the Mayor tell the taxpayer what the return on that investment would be. Would it cause the graduation rate to increase 13 years from now? By how much? He posited pre-K every bit long-term economical development…well, cool: What's the goal for how many jobs we derive from this revenue enhancement? In other words, how do nosotros estimate success?

We were never actually told. In fact, nosotros weren't fifty-fifty told during Mayor Kenney'due south task interview—the campaign—how he'd pay for pre-G. Back then, yous'll recall, information technology was to be funded by zero-based budgeting, a truly inventive idea that would have placed the city at the forefront of urban innovation. One time in office, though, that reform morphed into the soda tax.

That'southward why I eagerly awaited Mayor Kenney'south 2d annual address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce terminal week. Would he drop a new vision on united states?

Sadly, no. What we got was more of the same. Yes, in that location was the recap of the Mayor's two big ticket investments, the pre-K programme and Rebuild, the administration's $500 million investment in parks, libraries and rec centers. And, yeah, there are dark-green shoots of confusing thinking in Kenney'due south regime, similar Startup PHL. Only Kenney'due south Chamber speech was generally a recitation of modest-ball policies—L&I's cut in half the time it takes to process let applications, the Commerce Department's Capital Consortium of lenders that have made four loans totaling $385,000—and announcements of plans to report bug similar "transportation and planning" in guild to take activity at some bespeak down the road. The speech wasn't devoid of content, and so much as defective an animating thought that might lead you to say to yourself: "Wow. Someone'southward rethinking who and what nosotros are."

In outcome, as final calendar week'due south speech illustrates, Jim Kenney is an erstwhile-fourth dimension big city mayor who believes in redistributing wealth. Problem is, given our revenue enhancement base of operations, there'southward precious little to redistribute. What the times call for is a vision that neither seeks to revenue enhancement and spend or cut its fashion to growth. Rather than slicing more pieces of an e'er-shrinking pie, nosotros need to grow by changing what nosotros think about city government, and the office of the mayor in it. That's what the nigh cut-border cities have washed, as The World Banking concern's 2022 Competitive Cities report found.

In a report of 750 cities that outgrow their home countries, the World Bank concluded that all share these traits: "(a) concern leaders were consulted about their needs and the constraints they encountered in their operations; (b) infrastructure investments were fabricated in collaboration with the firms and industries they aimed to serve; (c) skills initiatives were designed in partnership with firms, ensuring that curricula addressed their applied needs; and (d) industries were supported where they had a real commercial potential, through collective initiatives with the private sector rather than through the public sector alone."

In other words, rather than piling more taxes and regulation upon businesses, forward-thinking urban leaders have learned to partner with them. That might non play well on the political Left, where outrage over crony capitalism tends to obscure what pro-growth mayors in our fastest-growing cities have long known: Their citizens won't accept jobs without the businesses to hire them.

So what if Mayor Kenney announced that Philadelphia was going to unleash the genius of capitalism to help cure our issues? That would require widening the aperture of his lens and getting beyond our usual nix-sum debates. Just imagine if his pro-forma laundry list before the Sleeping room included some of these ideas:

The Urban center of B Corp Love. Philadelphia is already arguably the near B Corp friendly city in the nation, but few know it. Here's the background: Berwyn-based nonprofit B Lab created a new blazon of visitor, the B Corp, which extends members' fiduciary responsibleness across only shareholders, to stakeholders such every bit employees, the surroundings and the surrounding community. B Lab confers a type of Adept Housekeeping Seal of Approval when it comes to social responsibility for its more than 2,000 member companies, including well-known brands such as Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's.

Marketing Philly equally the B Corp city would set us apart, sending a much-needed point that private sector bottom line success and civic wellness needn't be at cross purposes. Already, thanks to then-Councilman Jim Kenney, Philly is 1 of the few cities to give companies a B Corp taxation break. Expanding it would also be a mode to concenter and continue millennials here: "All of the startups that come come across me?" venture backer Richard Vague one time told me. "It's a settled effect for them. They're B Corps."

Greenlight Governing. Why is it that Pittsburgh is the testing footing for Uber's experiment with driverless cars, while Philly merely recently okayed the use of ride-sharing? In part, it'south because Mayor Nib Peduto practices the art of "Greenlight Governing"—and Jim Kenney should do the same. Peduto did more than than pay lip service to his city's burgeoning startup community. He went out of his fashion to give them the freedom to experiment…and even fail.

"It's not our role to throw up regulations or limit companies like Uber," said Peduto. "You can either put up carmine tape or roll out the cherry carpet. If you want to exist a 21st Century laboratory for technology, you put out the carpeting." Peduto has given Uber unprecedented gratuitous rein, including exemptions from regulations. You want to attract talent? Let information technology be known that you're a city that will permit information technology flourish.

Be The Convener-in-Chief. The old way of being the city'south chief executive uses the power of your function to reward friends and punish enemies, and to prescribe solutions from on high. The new way is to invite others to join you at the trouble-solving table.

Rather than piling more taxes and regulation upon businesses, forward-thinking urban leaders have learned to partner with them. That might not play well on the political Left, where outrage over crony capitalism tends to obscure what pro-growth mayors in our fastest-growing cities have long known: Their citizens won't have jobs without the businesses to rent them.

Example in point: Every couple of years, headlines are fabricated because, unlike in other cities, our nonprofit universities don't pay a set fee to the urban center as a Payment In Lieu of Taxes. The debate rages for a few days…and then fizzles out. Well, how almost we move past the anticipated back and forth and, instead, Mayor Kenney brings the presidents of the urban center's universities into Urban center Hall and tells them the upshot is settled: They'll never again exist asked to pay PILOTs. Rather, he's inviting them to partake in a new challenge—call it Solutions In Lieu of Taxes, whereby each institution deploys its arsenal of intellectual talents and its resources to develop new answers to the intractable problems that plague us beyond the borders of its own campus.

This idea of regime convening the best and the brightest to work for the common skillful is already making inroads elsewhere. In Dallas—one of the fastest-growing local economies in the nation—numerous stakeholders take come up together to form the Dallas Innovation Brotherhood, a nonprofit public-private partnership recognized by the White Firm for turning Dallas into a smart city. Corporations, individual sector firms, nonprofits and government officials take all worked together to brand Dallas a hotbed of innovation and economic growth strategies. For Philadelphia, what might exist about innovative about the Dallas Innovation Alliance is the simple idea of the concern community and government working so closely together.

"In Philadelphia, there's a history of outsourcing leadership to local authorities," says Professor Richardson Dilworth of Drexel's Middle For Public Policy. "Public-private partnerships like in Dallas tin offer us a way to become all key stakeholders to sit at the problem-solving table together."

To be clear, the idea of widening the net of problem-solvers isn't just nearly adding more voices to our borough chat. Social bear on, or pay-for-success, bonds have really been used past governments to pay for public policy programs. In this model, the private sector works with governments and philanthropies to fund social programs—and investors merely see a return in one case clearly defined social impact goals are met. This type of collaboration with the business customs stands in stark dissimilarity to how Philadelphia has long approached governing, with an emphasis on broad-based taxing and stringent individual sector regulation.

Retrieve Huge. Finally, perhaps the most important thing Mayor Kenney can do to jumpstart the local economy is to think more than ambitiously, to summon JFK's audacious phone call to put a man on the moon in 10 years. People want to be inspired. So what tin can Jim Kenney's moonshot be? I've argued before that it ought to be high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor. The timing may be fortuitous, at present that we've got a president who, despite some odious thinking in other respects, says he wants to pass a $ane trillion infrastructure bill. Kenney should convene a broad-based coalition that lobbies for a resurrection of Amtrak's $150 billion 2022 plan for high-speed rail.

Thirty-seven minutes from 30th Street Station to Penn Station? What would the economic impact exist of that? It would make our city a bedroom community of New York, which would abound jobs, existent estate values and revenue enhancement revenue. For those who worry that such an eventuality would atomic number 82 to a type of Upper Eastward Side-ification of Centre City, that's a justifiable concern worthy of study. But the fact remains that the type of incrementalism and outdated thinking outlined in Mayor Kenney'due south Chamber address doesn't align with the pressing needs of this moment. You want to finally adequately fund our schools? Brand a dent in the poverty charge per unit? Grow jobs in every neighborhood? Address the pension crisis that, left unchecked, will only further bleed education and infrastructure spending?

Well, think big, Mr. Mayor. Because but after you grow, tin you and then redistribute.

Header photo by Philadelphia City Council via Flickr