"Shaming" is a trend in code enforcement. It involves putting a big sign in front of a weedy lot or tumbledown house with the name and phone number of the owner. But it's important to be selective, a Milwaukee city official told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. If the owner can afford the improvements but just won't spend the money, a sign goes up. But if an owner can't afford them, it doesn't. Peoria, Illinois, and Dayton, Ohio have also tried shaming, while Chattanooga, Tennessee, has dropped its program. Chattanooga's mayor told the Post- Dispatch that it wasn't as effective as legal pressure. Then there's St. Louis' unfortunate experience. Eight years ago, then-Mayor Clarence Harmon delivered a news conference in front of a ramshackle apartment complex that, he said, was an example of irresponsible property ownership. Staffers hammered signs into the ground announcing the owners of the buildings. But the city had assumed ownership of the complex two months earlier. Not surprisingly, this has made officials in St. Louis gun-shy about shaming. "The reason the city backed away from it is [the] potential liability for disseminating information that could be slanderous or libelous," the city council president told the newspaper.
LIFE WITHOUT TRANSIT
There was an accident recently in Miami that pitched the city's commuting patterns into chaos. A crane at a high-rise construction site was damaged and in danger of collapsing, and for several days, police had to close busy Biscayne Boulevard. The result was commuting hell. Trips that should have taken 45 minutes took two hours. Welcome to life without a meaningful public transit system. Actually, Miami has a transit system; it's just small. Metrorail is so underutilized that, in advising people on avoiding the traffic, the Miami Herald didn't even mention it as an alternative. Now, compare that scene with what's happening in Chicago, where the Dan Ryan Expressway, one of the busiest highways in America, is being expanded and rebuilt. During the two-year project, the Dan Ryan will be at half-capacity. In other words, take the Miami situation and stretch it over two years and you have what's happening in Chicago. But, there's no chaos in Chicago. Commuter rail ridership is up 2,000 per day, and ridership on the El is up 20 percent on some routes, the Wall Street Journal reported recently. Not all riders are pleased with the suddenly crowded trains, but Chicago has an alternative to gridlock.
EDUCATING THE MAYOR
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to take over the L.A. school system. But there are differences between his situation and that of Chicago's Richard M. Daley and New York's Michael R. Bloomberg, who have also assumed control of the local schools. The most important is that the school system is bigger than the city of Los Angeles. There are 24 other municipalities included in whole or in part in the L.A. school district. How would the mayor of Los Angeles represent these other cities' interests? Also, when Daley and Bloomberg said they didn't consider taking on the schools to be a power grab, it made sense. As strong mayors, they didn't need any more power. But the mayor of Los Angeles is not all that powerful. So before he can persuade the California legislature to put him in charge, Villaraigosa will have to convince his own city council. Plus, as Daley has learned and Bloomberg is learning, there's no obvious path to success with big-city schools. This doesn't mean Villaraigosa is wrong in seeing himself as the right person to change them. But it does mean he should heed the old warning: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
