I only scratched the surface of my topic in “Form over
function” (Jan. 26, 2017).
Under the old commission government, each of the five
commissioners were both administrative and legislative—as individuals they ran
major departments and, as a council, passed laws. Whatever the system’s faults,
it did demand that every one of the five had to learn a little something about
the power plant, about the streets, about the cops and the library and the
finances.
Under Springfield’s successor aldermanic government, council members under a ward system bring a
neighborhood perspective to their deliberations on citywide matters. Recently,
an incoming alderman listed among his priorities for the new term the need for
a new traffic light. Add up similar priorities from similarly inclined colleagues and you
usually get a transportation program that consists of installing ten traffic
lights, not an energy-efficient mode-balanced, coordinated
pedestrian-and-bike-friendly public-private transit system.
No one thinks about the city as a whole save the mayor. And one against ten is not a fair fight.
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2017.
