Many years
ago, I took a ten-day trip with a good friend.
Ben and I were among the owners of a minor league baseball team. We followed the club on its first roadtrip of
the season, watching ballgames in Rohnert Park, Salinas, Long Beach, and Palm
Springs before returning home to Central Oregon.
As is evident
from the itinerary, we had lots of road time in Ben’s 1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV. (It wasn’t the most environmentally friendly
roadtrip.) We used the time to challenge
each other’s beliefs on a wide range of topics.
Advanced
baseball statistics, gun control, local politics, gay rights, drug policies,
even linguistics. All were discussed,
with the verbal give-and-take further honing our philosophies. On many subjects, we found our positions
surprisingly similar, including our thoughts about vetting candidates for public
office.
In
retrospect, the election discussions were ironic. At the time of the trip, I don’t think Ben
had any thought of running for office.
But a year later, he was convinced to run for the Oregon
legislature. He won and went onto a long
career in both the State Senate and State House before winning state-wide
office. I suspect that he had his eye on
the governorship, but passed away before pursuing that dream. He was a good and loyal friend who I miss
greatly. He would have enjoyed following
this blog.
Our thoughts
on voting for public officials came down to two points, (1) not relying on a
single issue to select a candidate and (2) looking for candidates who share our
values and thought processes, even if not our positions on every issue.
The latter
point was particularly crucial. We
recognized that elected officials had access to more data, and more informed
people, than we did. And they had more
opportunities to test their thinking in the crucible of the legislative process. If an official, whose values we shared and
whose thinking we admired, reached an unexpected conclusion, then it was likely
that we would have reached the same conclusion if we had the same additional information.
With another
election upon us, the memories of those long-ago conversations have been in my
mind. During every election season, I’m
asked for my thoughts on the candidates, particularly for local office. And I use the long-ago rules to help with my
responses.
To begin, I
won’t mention the names of any candidates.
Urbanism is a single issue. The
first rule from Ben and me precluded picking a candidate based on a single
issue. I ask that you consider urbanism
when you mark your ballot. And I suggest
that you put it near the top of your criteria.
But I don’t propose that you make it your only standard.
There are
many other non-urbanism issues that affect North Bay communities, such as
municipal budget priorities, supplemental taxes, public employee pension reform,
and even potholes. The positions of the
candidates on these issues should also matter.
Second, in a
rule that Ben and I didn’t discover because we lacked the vocabulary, your
consideration of the urbanism of a candidate should include “effective
urbanism”, not “ivory-tower urbanism”.
The
long-term goal of urbanism is marvelous, inhabited with people living happy,
fulfilled, and sustainable lives, while completing many of their daily tasks without
a car and engaging in regular face-to-face interaction with friends, neighbors,
and a few strangers. But it’s truly a
long-range goal, one that many of us are unlikely to see in our lifetimes. (There is a saying that one doesn’t truly
understand life until planting a tree under which one will never find shade. Urbanism advocates can relate.)
In the
near-term, it can be easy to be distracted by the long-term vision and to miss
the intermediate steps needed to build toward a better future. Electing a candidate with that blind spot may
be almost as harmful as electing one who doesn’t believe in urbanism.
And that
blind spot is common, so common that many urbanist public officials are tagged
as “no growth”. It’s an untrue
label. Most urbanist public officials
are eager for urbanist development. But
they’re so enamored of the long-term vision of urbanism that they can’t find a
way to get behind incremental urbanist projects. It’s a weakness.
In many
elections, I find myself torn between candidates who seem able to get things
done, but the wrong things, and candidates who share my urbanist bent, but are
so distracted by the ultimate vision and near-term political considerations
that they seem ineffective. Finding an
effective urbanist candidate can be a challenge.
Third and
last, following the most important conclusion that Ben and I reached, if you
trust the effective urbanist thinking of a candidate, don’t be concerned if he
or she reaches a different conclusion on a particular urbanist subject than you
do. They may have more or better
information than you do. Besides, any
particular urban project is only one small step on a long path. If you share a good vision and a commitment
to incremental steps, don’t worry about individual decisions.
And that’s
all I’m going to say about the upcoming election, at least in writing. But if you want to buy me a beer, we’ll see
where the conversation goes.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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