The Middles: Who are the Middles?
The Middles are the middle management government employees, those in charge of developing new programs and finding ways to implement them. They are neither directors, nor elected and generally they are well trained, smart, and dedicated to public service.
And, they are often the ones in the bureaucracy most people point their finger at as obstructionists, but in LA they are gently and modestly pushing a paradigm change. Change has been hard to arrive at in the state. Over the past 50 years, Californians have been grappling with the impacts of unrelenting population growth and urbanization with little success. Local control over local decisions has been defended to the detriment of collaboration, cooperation and common interests. Such ideas as tax sharing, regional planning, regional infrastructure planning have all fallen on the sword of the parochial defense of local autonomy.
But where has that left localities in today’s proposition 13 era? Poor and fragmented, and ultimately, using mostly symbolic powers. Local control over local land uses takes place in a context of state control, due to the 1978 Proposition 13 and its children, touted as protecting the little guy. Local tax revenues are redistributed by the 1978 Proposition 13 formula and the state legislature, while localities continue to fight over retail establishments for tiny increments of sales tax revenues, ruining landscapes, livability and coherence in the competition for big box retail and car dealerships. Is this any way to plan for where we live?
And now, climate change. Over a thousand fires are burning in California this month, July, and far flung, fire unsafe homes are jeopardized. Tax payers will pay billions to protect our fantasies about living in the woods, near nature. Meanwhile cities are struggling to cope with $4.00 gasoline and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases. Cities are now the home of man, importing vast quantities of resources and emitting enormous quantities of waste and emissions. For cities to become more sustainable, to reduce their impacts, they must reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, and thus, the use of fossil energy.
The Middles know this, they also know that the old competitive, siloed paradigm does not work – witness the results. In the Los Angeles region, the Middles are leading collaboratives, getting together among themselves, forging common agendas, and common goals. They are leading their managers and electeds to a new set of approaches. Take Culver City’s initiatives to develop green building standards – led by the Middles. Take the Los Angeles region (county) multi-agency collaborative to reduce climate change – led by the Middles.
While these initiatives will need endorsement by elected officials, and will be arduously fought by the same entrenched vested interests that represent the status quo and fear of change, the Middles will have forged the potential of a new way of doing things, and will have shown what happens when people of good conscience, concerned about the future, think beyond today’s way of doing things, so that tomorrow can be livable. If they do not succeed – if the public and concerned individuals do not help – cities will be bleak places living in the chimera of controlling their destiny. Climate change, environmental degradation cannot be solved parochially, it needs regional solutions and collaboration.
Date Posted: 7/18/2008