Elections, new constitution in Kenya (also, riots)

Kenyans head to the polls this Monday, March 4 to select a new government. The state-wide elections coincide with a comprehensive overhaul of the sub-national government structures in Kenya that are seen as one of the boldest experiments in government reform within the region. The new system aims to bring Kenya’s government closer to its people, including several significant changes to the country’s organization and new requirements for gender representation in elected assemblies.

Local Government Minister Paul Otuoma dissolved all local authorities in January ahead of the elections, leaving mayorships and local legislatures vacant for the past month. The new constitution creates 47 counties to replace the country’s current provincial system. Each county will be comprised of a County Executive (headed by a governor) and a County Assembly. According to a government-sponsored website, each new assembly will be responsible for “exercising the powers of enacting laws at the county level, acting as an oversight instrument on the county executive, approval of plans and policies for smooth operation and management of resources and county institutions”.

CA's Experiment with Redevelopment Agencies

California Governor Jerry Brown began deliberations with the Legislature over dissolving the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies in the winter of 2011, and by June of that year they finalized the legislation. The abrupt demise of California’s massive multi-billion dollar local planning instrument has left many cities with administrative gaps in their economic development initiatives, and nearly $2 billion remain in limbo while local governments struggle to keep funds in their jurisdiction. 

Sacramento contests that local redevelopment agencies were choking off much-needed revenue for state services with little benefit to the state at large, while local governments defended them as powerful tools for revitalizing urban centers and propagating ‘smart urbanism’. The move has pitted competing interests of public agencies against each other in a debate over who is best suited to take on their planning responsibilities.

What is a Redevelopment Project Area?

A redevelopment area is a special development district similar to enterprise zones, incremental tax finance districts, cultural districts and others, with several significant characteristics that set them apart. California redevelopment areas were designated by local municipal governments – typically a city or town, but sometimes counties as well – and they allowed the local government to capture a greater share of property taxes while reducing the private cost burden of new developments.

Consult in New Delhi, or "Three years from now..."

Below is a copy of the meeting minutes from this week's consultation in New Delhi, in which the Institute of Social Sciences and The Hunger Project hosted a roundtable of practitioners and academics committed to local governance issues and decentralization. See it here, and for more info check out our website at localdemocracy.net

MINUTES FROM THE INDIA CONSULTATION, 9 JANUARY 2013

/lolmyface

India is a geographically and socially diverse country with a federal governance system. India has a tradition of decentralized governance since the implementation of the Panchayati Raj local government system in 1992, though these constitutional provisions often confront persistent structural challenges and limited mobilization of resources that impede effective participation, local planning and action. Against this background and with the support of the UN Democracy Fund, The Hunger Project (THP) organized an expert consultation in New Delhi on January 9 as the next step in cultivating a global community of practice on capacity building for participatory local democracy.

THP greatly appreciates the generous and enthusiastic participation by committed individuals from the UN system, academia and civil society who provided great support, information and recommendations to the project. We greatly appreciate the leadership of Dr. George Mathew (chair) and Dr. Ash Narayan Roy (executive director) and all the staff of the Institute of Social Sciences for organizing and hosting the consultation.

The experts identified numerous challenges, the most significant being the widespread shortage of resources among panchayat institutions and the civil society organizations supporting them. Only about 3-5% of total public funds in India are in the hands of local governments. Chronic shortages of funds and limited access to information about mandates and politics rights restricts their ability to mobilize resources to address local needs, even when there is local political will.

Quote of the Day

A man in a hat sat to my right, discretely.

It was knit and plum-red, and wrapped under his old chin. The room was cold even in the light of the rising sun that shone through the windows. He was at the corner where two of the long tables met, and he didn't speak except for occasional hums and soft grunts of recognition as others made their own points loudly. But when he finally spoke, it was deliberate.

"I look across the table and I see the same faces that I saw twenty years ago. I come to these meetings all this time with the hope of things changing, real change, when the people at the bottom finally get to stand up. And I think now, we are at a time when that is finally about to happen, in part because the people are so frustrated by the terrible things in Delhi that they may be ready for action."

He went on with the rest of the room silent, but his last words stuck with me.

"Three years ago no one was talking about women in meetings, and now that's all anyone will talk about here in India. My hope is that in three years we will remember that: 'Three years ago no one was talking about Participatory Governance, and now that's all anyone will talk about here in India.'"

India Gate, or "When the cold sets in"

You could taste the juniper on your tongue, as well as the burning trash. While at once nostalgic of camping in the the lower Sierras, the smoke that filled the cold streets on Delhi in a thick haze was also pungent and choking. Three days ago this street was full of Indians protesting the failure of Delhi authorities to prosecute six men who had raped and killed a young women on a bus. The protesting had escalated to mobs and even conflict as police in military-style riot gear descended upon the crowd in an effort to clear them from the India Gate monument area.

Today the park was empty except for the police buses and about 50 guards spread around the south entrance, and the smoke. This week marked the coldest day in New Delhi in nearly 44 years, at 1.9*C. Sam and I had left Washington in 1*C weather only a few days earlier as the Midwest was preparing for more snow, and so I understand when Americans ask why this is a big deal. But consider that for most of the year this region is nearly tropical, and that central heating is almost totally absent. More than 40 people died from exposure in Delhi yesterday.

As we drove around the city today from one meeting to another, I noticed scores of people wrapped in layers of shawls walking along congested (but somehow still flowing) roadways carrying stacks of freshly cut branches and children carrying sacks of leaves they had collected. Later on in the day these lines of travelers turned into groups of people standing around open fires in trashcans or even simply in the dirt near the street, in front of tall tents and gerry-rigged tarp and metal huts. Despite the government's large subsidies for kerosene during the colder winter months, many still can't afford to spend limited cooking fuel on heating an open space.

So now as we walked along India Gate, through the streets full of tuk-tuks and buses and cars that all rushed by in some chaotic yet purposeful swarm, the fog descended over Central Delhi and mixed with the smoke of juniper and trash and dung fires into a rich, bitter mist. The police brigades wrapped their faces in scarves, played cards and shared cigarettes, and smiled at us with shaking heads each time we approached the barricades. The protesters had moved closer to the parliament buildings these days, and except for the hum of the never-ending stream of autos the area was almost silent. And in a bustling city of 250,000 it was strange, and exciting.

District Parks Divided, or "Occupy protesters vs. land use planning"

Is your local park locally or federally owned? I'm willing to bet that most of you have never really considered this question. For most people around the country there is no reason to (except for in places like the Presidio in SF, which is still a national park with apartments and storefronts in it). But jurisdiction over DC's parks is split between the federal government - specifically the National Park Service who manages them and the Architect of the Capital that plans and designs them - and DC local government. This has two important implications. The first is an issue of finance; since Washington government does not own the land or the structures on the property, it does not see any revenue generated from vendors/tourism and it cannot leverage them as collateral assets in financial planning (i.e. bonds, loans, credit ratings, etc). It might sound crazy to leverage a park or recreation area on a public loan, but it's actually pretty common and most local governments have many other tools for managing repayment issues so that they don't actually give up the property in a pinch.

But the second is a bit more interesting from a public interest perspective. This disparity was recently exemplified during the Occupy DC protest when - after several months of sit/lie ins in McPherson Square and other parks - District residents overwhelmingly supported the removal of long-term encampments. Despite Washington's overwhelmingly left-leaning political culture and recognition that Occupy had made its point, residents wanted use of their parks back. But there was one simple problem: DC government did not have jurisdiction over the parks.

Home designs for humanitarian crises, or "What do IDPs and hipsters have in common?"

A friend at school asked for a book suggestion last December as part of her effort to find the perfect Christmas present for her architecture and development inclined SO. By chance, I actually had a book on hand for exactly this situation! Architecture for Humanity collected information on dozens of innovative, low-cost, "sustainable" designs for habitable structures back in 2006 and featured them in a handbook called Design Like You Give a Damn.

Someone had bought it, presumably used it, and discarded it at the end of my freshman year of college at Santa Clara. After haggling with the book-nazi in the basement of our student center (not the nice gray-haired woman, the other old guy that didn't smile) to sell back my calculus text for more than $10 - and failing - I found this gem on the FREE table. It was brilliant. I read the book cover to cover and shared it with a few people, and I wound up working on our school's Solar Decathlon team the next year because I thought the whole idea was so nifty. After suggesting the book I read through it again, and I've been following their work for the past few months.

Economic inequality and development, or "This is where Occupy should have started"

I have spent a lot of time graphing Lorenz curves. It's a requirement of getting my degree. I hated drawing distributions of income/land/wealth and working out the calculations and derivatives by hand, but in retrospect this practice seriously matured my academic understanding of the effects of economic inequality (especially radical inequality) on the overall well-being and economic efficiency of a society. Greater inequality reduces domestic consumption, decreases political participation and representation, increases statutory penalties and abuses of police power, inhibits the accumulation of human capital necessary for advanced production and services, etc etc. All of these things are clearly established correlations, and many of them have substantial data to support causal relationships.

You can maybe imagine then, how strange it is to turn this critical perspective back onto the United States. Instead of starting with "greater inequality reduces well-being and economic performance" and "what can we do about it", domestic political conversations have to begin with a tedious explanation of why treating "economic inequality" is not the same thing as "envy of the rich", "commi-socialism" and "class warfare".

New budget autonomy for DC in the work, or "Lieberman steps it up"

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) introduced legislation to the Senate last night that would grant the District of Columbia new budgetary autonomy. The initiative would severe the District's budget from the Congressional appropriations process, which currently exposes local administration to federal political infighting and often delays the District budgetary development by six to eight months. Lieberman was joined by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dan Akaka (D-Hawaii) as cosponsors. Lieberman’s newest move comes as support continues to build in the House, where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the D.C.-focused Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been recently spearheading the reform effort. Lieberman will be retiring at the end of his current term, and this latest bill is seen as part of an effort to button-down his legacy as a District-governance advocate.

The Give D.C. Local Budget Control Bill of 2012 would grant DC government the power to set its own fiscal year and develop a budget without interference from the Congress. The legislation does not entirely strip Congress from the equation, however; it will still have a period in which to review the budget and vote on a “statement of disapproval” that would also have to be signed into law by the president. While oversight of the District remains with Congress (as proscribed in the Constitution), this new arrangement would distance Congress from the formative budget process and require members to make and up-or-down vote on the final product.

Read the full story at Roll Call.

New concepts designs for the Mall, or "@__@"

The Trust for the National Mall released on Tuesday concept drawings of a dozen finalists in a competition to redesign the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Since last September, architects and designers have been competing for the chance to make over areas near the Capitol, Washington Monument and Constitution Gardens, which was once imagined as a pastoral park near the Lincoln Memorial. Each of the areas under consideration were selected in order to enhance their utility as public spaces, and refurbish features that have decayed over years of use. Each of the designs would bring major changes, adding amenities including food options and restrooms.

While the proposals have been largely welcomed in feedback in social media, there have also been voices of concern that the new designs might undermine the district's historical features. But to be fair, the current theater is pretty lame compared to most of the new concepts. I mean, the new one would come with fireworks and thousands of engaged audience members > >
Some renovation would probably be good for the District's less than premium public spaces.

Check out the rest of the ideas at the Trust for the National Mall's REACT webpage.

By The Books, or "Welcome to the District (Part 2)"

Let's start this introduction with a basic profile before we get into the gritty stuff.

Hey look the Census made a profile graphic for just the occasion!

The District of Columbia is home to approximately 618,000 residents as of July 2011. Of that number, 50.7% are Black or African American, 38.5% are White. 9.1% are Hispanic or Latino (among all races) and 3.5% are Asian. The total population of the District grew by about 2.7% between the 2010 Census and the July 2011 survey. The federal District itself is only 68 square miles, including about 7 square miles of waterways.

One of the most interesting demographic features of Washington is the age distribution of its residents. Nationally, 24% of American residents are below the age of 18 years; but in the District of Columbia this rate drops to 16%. That means there aren't a lot of kids or teenagers around. Nonetheless the median age of Washington is 34 years, the lowest of any US state.

"So... DC is full of mid-thirty year olds," you might suppose. Cool, a young city! In reality though, the city is even "younger" than that. Who likes population pyramids?!