In Whitewater, we’ve had any number of local projects, some involving millions, in a town of only thousands.
Broadly, one may assume three motivations for local intervention: (1) genuine if mistaken efforts at community betterment, (2) the vanity or economic interest of parties to a project, or (3) a desire to prevent demographic and cultural change within the community through regulation.
Of the first, a genuine desire for community betterment, one may say that often the benefits are over-stated, and the costs scarcely stated at all. Still, the motivation is good-hearted if otherwise ill-considered.
Of the second, motivations from vanity or manipulation of government for the economic gain of only few, we have had too many projects. These vanity pieces are without legitimate justification, but instead cloaked in sophistry, relying on flawed or deceptive claims. Here lies crony capitalism wearing the garb of ‘progress,’ ‘development,’ and public-private ‘partnerships.’
The third, regulatory attempts to forestall cultural and demographic change, have been around for a while, but now have greater intensity as a few seek to prevent a new, emerging culture for the city.
One sees it, for example, in the strident and reactionary attacks on an emerging, new restaurant scene.
Sensing that the community wants new opportunities, a few who cannot appreciate culinary diversity seek to ban, or regulate to infirmity, any new proposal. An Old Guard, mostly without desire or appreciation of new choices, now sees claims of fear, uncertainty, and doubt as its remaining means to assure an unchanging, city-in-amber culture.
Having lost in the marketplace – because after all a whole class of sharp and smart patrons seeks new possibilities – the Old Guard seeks regulatory obstructionism to stifle the free choices of others.
This is, of course, a sign of their weakness: they’ve nowhere to go except through scheming. They can cause a great amount of short-term damage, but still – for them – the demographic dustbin awaits.
One can expect the third motivation to grow ever greater as Whitewater’s culture shifts.
Finally, there’s one motivation of local government action that’s mostly missing: toward the poor and vulnerable. If we are to have government intervention, here’s a place of legitimate emphasis: it costs less than grand construction schemes, and does more than those schemes ever could.
We have, if anything, too little of legitimate anti-poverty plans. Contending that crony capitalist projects (e.g., Generac’s bus) are anti-poverty programs is a stretch at best, and unconvincing.
We’ve three main motivations for government invention that we often don’t need, and not enough motivation for the one kind of intervention of which we could use, candidly, much more.