Distributive Justice vs Corrective Justice

Departmental thinking/ Departments have divisions. Nomenclature shift to ‘agency’ so that agencies have missions and agent who work toward them. Why build roads? Econ dev. Lack of roads prevents growth, hence build roads.

Key shift among agencies’ missions - horizontal connections. Example: economic development and education are interlinked, but cultures are different.

Key shift - stop creating job descriptions and start attracting and managing talent

Overall, get away from mechanistic thinking and replace it with systems thinking.

Q: How does this talent management work?

KP: Effective workers are always working beyond their job description. Personnel systems need to be flexible, less oriented to longevity/seniority.

Obs - RI gov HR is doing exactly what it’s designed to do. It’s the wrong thing to do, but the system is working very effectively.

Q: If structure follows strategy, then strategy follows vision. Who coordinates the vision?

KP: Governance is key - NGOs and communities need to bring their vocabularies to bear.

Reference: Kwame Appiah

Q: You can’t have the re-visioning until you can a crisis. Now we have a looming crisis. How do we take advantage? What are the downsides? Corruption.

KP: Planning is key. You can’t have autocratic visioning. Or republican (representatives). Community planning groups must participate. Messy and less used, but much more evolved sense of participation.

Q: Systemic problem in city/state structure. System breeds inefficiency. Correctable?

KP: Local government is profoundly atrophied. Doing the same things as 50 yrs ago. Hasn’t added anything but has shed health. What does it do? Public schools, police, fire = 85% of budget. Public works, parks and recreation, vital records, planning are all tiny parts.

Q: Do you see a state in the US that we can use as a model?

KP: No. Most states are so much bigger. We should look for an urban county government that has state-like powers. Also, the US doesn’t match us well. We’re more like Holland than Texas.

Reference: False Flat - Dutch community development.

Obs - Stop thinking about US as 50 states, but rather 300+ metros. A new federalism. Is there something in this?

KP: Yes. US is a commonwealth of metropolitan economies. State economies are a function of metro economies. RI is essentially a metro area of about 1,000,000 people. Governments tend to think within their own boundaries, not outside. RI’s great hope is to participate in the greater Northeastern economy.

NYC planning - realizes position in global game, but also needs to adapt to maintain position. NYC leading transit thinking. They need to link the region via high speed rail to reach the talent base to stay a leader. We need to think this way too.

Obs - The cesspool law. A missing opportunity to improve enviro/water/coastal issues.

Obs - Maritime cluster is strong, but under supported/disorganized. Lots of expert talent.

KP: Both good points. Maritime talent is excellent. Best underwater workers in the world: Electric Boat. Oceanography from eastern CT to Woods Hole. Even MIT.

Obs - Globalization reveals regionalization. Example: Cascadia=BC, WA, OR. Also, Boston-DC metro axis.

Obs - How about New Zealand as an example? Transit department now 3 from 2,000. Gov doesn’t provide services but ensures that services are provided. Privatization done in conjunction with existing union structures. Agencies can’t assess the quality of the services they provide, but CAN assess the quality of services provided by others.

Obs - Metropolitanization: Jim Capraro approach creates lots of energy, but it’s messy. Overall, very successful approach yields good results. Also, non-linear appoaches: working on reforming City of Prov gov. Five and Ten.

Q: Can we really combine our 39 fire departments?

KP: Small jurisdictions are inefficient, as are very large jurisdictions. There’s a sweet spot around 25k per unit. RI doesn’t have lots of very small towns. MA worse off than us. Key question: how doe you get efficiency and productivity out of what’s already there.

Boundaries are antiquated, but there’s no structure for communication/coordination.

Q: Could RI create a fulltime “Senate” that focuses on vision. Then Assembly stays in tactics.

KP: No limits as long as you have proportional representation. I would fear a winner-take-all mentality.

Q: Very few people can run for office. How can we get more ‘regular’ people involved in government?

KP: Key question. We have a ‘citizen’ legislature, but they come from a narrow slice of society. They’re ‘people people’ but not that good with technology and maths. Need the ability for quantitative assessment.

Q: Do you have an insider’s view of how the state is using technology?

KP: It’s used in the mechanistic context. It replaces job descriptions. More vibrant use is not highly developed. Email replaces telephone. State doesn’t appreciate how much it is a knowledge employer. How do you build a road? It’s a knowledge decision.

Q: State has so much information, but they never push out realistic information.

KP: They have data, and some gets made into information. Then some of that is made into knowledge. Did a police analysis on Driving While Black. They had the data, but the agencies resisted. “Our job is to do things, not to think about what we’re doing.” Not enough people in state government are paid to think. They’re only paid to do.

Q: How do we get government to think creatively?

KP: We have to take over government. As economics emerged as a science, they started to look at voter behavior in terms of economics. Candidates  marketed themselves and the citizens participation was to vote.  Democracy is then transactional. Another approach: involvement in governance is part of the healthy community life.