Mustering the little platoons: one mayor's attempt to create active citizens - Book Review

Reason, Dec, 2002 by John McClaughry

Neighborhood residents lacked self-governance. Goldsmith launched a Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative, hoping to move toward a true municipal federalism. It was, alas, thwarted by the City-County Council, whose elected members saw themselves as the only legitimate manifestation of government in their townships (the boundaries of which bore little relationship to actual human communities within the city).

The mayor realized that residents related to their society through faith-based institutions, which had traditionally been excluded from public policy. Goldsmith created a Front Porch Alliance, enlisting leaders of grassroots value-shaping organizations as intermediaries between people and city government.

So did Goldsmith's faith in "Tocquevillian empowerment" prove a success? Not entirely. Real-world urban problems are so deeply seated and intractable that it is rare that any leader can claim an unqualified success in dealing with any of them. In many cities the measure of success has come down to, "Hey--nobody rioted."

Still, Goldsmith can take credit for an effort that produced a lot of very positive results--not by showering neighborhoods with taxpayer largesse but by emphasizing character and responsibility, devolving power, and rebuilding the institutions of local civil society. His efforts won encomia from people such as Steve Forbes ("one of the most effective, innovative mayors in American history"), Mayor Ed Rendell of Philadeiphia ("one of America's most innovative mayors"), and Jack Kemp ("demonstrated that expanding private enterprise, not government, is the key to efficient, high quality services and, more importantly, to the empowerment of the city's residents").

In 1996 Goldsmith--far from an ebullient campaigner--ran for governor of the Hoosier State. He lost by a five-point margin to the popular lieutenant governor, Democrat Frank O'Bannon. More surprisingly, Gold-smith lost Marion County (Indianapolis).

Three years after that defeat, Goldsmith abruptly and inexplicably announced that he wouldn't be running for a certain third term as mayor. (After leaving office, he became a major architect of President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives program.) He had no heir apparent. The Republican nominee to succeed him was the Indiana secretary of state, with little experience in urban management or policy. The neighborhoods that had appreciatively voted for Goldsmith in 1995 reverted to their normal voting habits.

With Goldsmith gone, the city's neighborhood organizations--only recently empowered--were not sufficiently strong and cohesive to force his unwilling successor to continue his program. The new mayor, business Democrat Bart Peterson, promptly dismantled Goldsmith's alliances and initiatives, vetoed budget items for their support, and reinstalled traditional top-down managerial government. File the Goldsmith years under "Bright Shining Moments."

Goldsmith's book reveals his impressive philosophical depth as well as his practical experience. Unlike most mayors, he saw that social problem solving goes beyond the province of experts, planners, and managers and that most baneful of concepts, "delivering services." The key to success is the transformation of ordinary people into active citizens.