Harry Moroz

Public Policy In A Crunch

Economic downturns and their resulting budget crunches inspire creative (and at times misguided) ways to finance public projects. This takes the form of innovative financing mechanisms: Los Angeles, for example, is currently lobbying Congress for a package of loans and loan guarantees that could speed up investment in its subway system by 20 years. It can also take the form of privatization and public-private partnerships: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is planning to privatize 2,000 state jobs and the New York City Housing Authority just created an Office of Public Private Partnerships to foster collaboration with the private sector.

At the National League of Cities’ blog, CitiesSpeak, Bruce Calvin points out another, more boutique example of creative financing: incentive prizes. Local governments (but also the federal government), New York and D.C. are the examples Calvin provides, are increasingly using competitions with prize money to “solve specific problems”:

Two cities offered incentive prizes. New York City sponsored NYC Big Apps, which was described as “a software application challenge in keeping with New York City’s drive to become more transparent, accessible and accountable.” Washington, D.C. sponsored the Apps for Democracy – Community Edition which looked for the “best community platform for submitting 311 service requests to the city” in 2008 and 2009.

While privatization and public-private partnerships at times undermine the public goals of city projects and services, such incentive prizes – when designed to address, as Calvin notes, specific issues (rather than, say, health care reform) – can actually enhance this public purpose. Many of the Big Apps winners in New York were not designed to compete with or replace city services, but rather to improve individuals’ interaction with the city (for instance, the Trees Near You app that “helps you learn about more than 500,000 trees that live on New York City sidewalks”) and with city services. In many cases, the apps drew out inert data from and about the city and made it practical for a range of city residents, albeit a limited, smart-phone owning range.

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Posted at 1:12 PM, Mar 19, 2010 in Governmental Reform
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