The following commentary offered based upon a slew of conversations over the past week.

“Like a business” — I always find this phrase intriguing as it usually signals a certain trajectory to the ensuing conversation. Much like, when people say ‘to be honest’. Typically ‘like a business’ refers to a desire to see public agencies operated as private enterprises.  What’s odd is that typically the thing advocated to be run as a business typically does not lend itself to such and ironically, the things that could benefit from business thinking get passed quickly by. Usually ‘like a business’ is intertwined with thinking that public employees serve as ‘our employees’; ‘our’ referring to the taxpayer.

If you want to see ‘like a business’ thinking in progress, take a look at the debate of paying a grant writer. By any measure, paying someone on the order of $30K to bring in $2 million dollars in grant money seems like a pretty good return. If we are going to think in business terms, this would be the equivalent of laying off someone to save $30K in expenses yet sacrifice $2 million that they bring to the firm. I’m not sure most business people would consider this sound business thinking.

But in our fair city, it is always the expense side of the equation that gets the most focus. How often do strategies or policies derive from the revenue side of the equation? hardly ever.  I don’t have the time but if you were to look at how much energy goes into expense related issues versus revenue related issues, it would be several orders of magnitude in difference.  Look at how much effort goes into a 4 or 5 figure expense decision versus how much effort on a 4 or 5 figure revenue decision.

And public employees are not ‘our’ employees. It’s a ridiculous statement.

Moving on. I had a discussion this morning on retail space in the downtown district which made me soapbox a bit on the whole notion of ‘downtown’. Sure, we all view downtown as the historic downtown and even I will admit to yearning for its return to even a shadow of its former self. But I have to admit some skepticism that the current downtown can be revived; I’m starting to question whether we should not consider a ‘new downtown’ or a new center to the city located elsewhere that is more amenable to serving as the core of the city.

I think the problem with the current downtown is that it is really isolated from the rest of the city; it’s not suited as a gathering place; it’s suited as a transport space. From the highways surrounding it to the mass of cars parked in the median, it’s just not a great streetscape. And if by chance you were to attract residents and businesses, how do you sustain growth to the outside blocks? You cannot.

I think we should redefine the city center as existing elsewhere: maybe on the South Side, maybe along Division Street but somewhere where the following conditions hold:

1) Density and sustainability of residences; the denser the better

2) Pedestrian friendly

3) Extensibility — once the core forms, growth can occur organically to surrounding blocks

4) Mixed use — shops+residences+small businesses

I’ll admit the above is somewhat off-the-cuff but it seems that we may need to challenge some assumptions; maybe there is a faster, simpler, clearer way forward.

Cheers