Episode 28: Why does local politics matter so much?
More and more, it seems like all political conversation is happening at the national level--Presidential elections, Congressional ratios, party divides and infighting. So much so that we forget just how much of our lives can be affected by our local politics right at home. Your mayor, your sheriff, your county Board of Supervisors--these are the people who decide where to build your neighborhoods and roads, how to fund public education, and what police officers focus on. That's a lot of important stuff.
In this episode, we sit down with Rich Meagher, Associate Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College and author of Local Politics Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Making a Difference, to discuss how local government works and the ways that we citizens can have a hand in shaping our communities for the better.
Episode Transcript
Nathan Moore: This is Bold Dominion, an explainer for state politics in a changing Virginia. I'm Nathan Moore.
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NM: Unless you've literally been living under a rock, you've heard about national political happenings in America. And since you listen to the show, I know you don't live under a rock. In fact, you're probably pretty keen to understand how state politics works--how Virginia policymakers have to deal with the national political environment.
And yet, as former US Congressman Tip O'Neill famously said: "All politics is local." Or at least a lot of it is. I mean, our national polarization has tended to seep into every other political conversation. But still, the local matters-- it matters a lot. Those local relationships spawn leaders who serve at the state level, and when democracy works, the way it's supposed to, state policy is driven by the things local people care about. Your mayor, your sheriff, your county Board of Supervisors: these are the people who decide where to build your neighborhoods and roads, how to fund education, what police officers should focus on. Those decisions often fly under our collective radars, but they have a huge material impact on our daily lives.
Rich Meagher: A wise leadership, whether it's a mayor or a county board or even a planning or zoning kind of function of government can really envision what the advantages of a city are, think about what kind of infrastructure a county needs, and build around those strengths, rather than say: "well, we want to be just like everybody else, so let's slap something that we found work somewhere else."
NM: That's Rich Meagher. He's an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Social Entrepreneurship at Randolph-Macon College. He's also the author of the book Local Politics Matter: A Citizen's Guide to Making a Difference. Professor Meagher looks at the many ways that local governments have fallen prey to the interests of big business, and how they too often pursue short-term goals at the expense of long-term public welfare.
In this episode, Rich sits down with Bold Dominion producer Charlie Bruce to discuss how local political decision-making works, how those decisions interact with our history and our future, and the ways that we citizens can make a difference.
RM: I wrote this book for a couple of reasons. One is that I've been teaching state and local politics for years. And one thing that has always struck me about my students, even the ones who have been most interested in politics is they tend to think about politics at the national level. When they think about the executive power or legislative power, they're thinking about Congress and the presidency, less often do they think about the governor and the state legislature, and rarely do they think about their city council or a Board of Supervisors. And that stuff's still very much important, and becoming more so. The other more specific trigger for this book was the 2016 election, which obviously had some dramatic changes in policy and political environment at the national level, which is very dispiriting to a lot of people--just to kind of rhetoric that came out of politics at that time. But at the same time, at the local level, there was a lot of exciting things happening. But particularly where I lived, in the city of Richmond, we had elected a new young mayor, we have a whole new school board and some new blood in the city council. And the contrast between the two was really striking at the national level, it seemed so dark and disturbing and a torrent of bad news coming out of Washington. And at the local level, there was exciting stuff going on. There were new policies and new ideas. And that reflected a lot of the stories that I try to tell to my classes, about state and local politics. Local politics is where there's a lot of stuff going on a lot of things that are under-studied, and also where there's all this ability to get involved.
Charlie Bruce: And in your book, Local Politics Matters, you were--specifically in the city of Richmond, there was a development project between the mayor and city council and the Washington Football Team. And correct me if I'm wrong, that was on the referendum--on the ballot in 2016. Or was it not on the ballot?
RM: It was not on the ballot. There was never a referendum about it. And that's what happens often in these kinds of big-scale developments. Local politics is often about land use. It's one of the things that local governments have the most control over. And it's one of the things they try to do to try to spur the economy and make policy. But it also means that developers have a big say in what goes on in local politics. And unless people organize to raise questions, to change plans, sometimes it's just the interests of those developers that get reflected. And what had happened with the Washington Football Team at that time was they wanted to have a training camp--wanted to extend their sphere of influence down deep into Virginia, and had cut this deal with the state as well as the city of Richmond to build a training camp in the middle of town. But it ended up to be a really bad deal for the city, and no one was really paying attention to it.
It followed the same pattern that these proposals often follow, which is a big announcement, lots of great benefits that are going to happen, and then an urgency to sign and get the deal done. And it's only after the deal is signed, and the problems start arising--the unexpected costs and the lower benefits than what was promised. So you get these big promises and, and small responses. And this is not a new story. I mean, one of the things I tell in this book is that this is a story that seemed fairly obvious to me, because I'd seen it so many times before. And we've seen it since then, more than once in Richmond, as well as other places.
So Richmond just recently went through a whole proposal to build a stadium and arena downtown, called Navy Hill. And it follows the same pattern, right, of huge announcement! "This is gonna change the world and bring in jobs and economic development and affordable housing!" And then you scratch the numbers. And it turns out, well, it was 680 affordable housing units. But now it's really just 480. And we don't know where 200 of those are going to come from, and where they'll be. And then the numbers get smaller and smaller, and then the benefits get smaller, and the costs get bigger. It happened with the Football Team deal. It happens with the stadium proposal, and it happens all over the place. Whether it's out in Hampton Roads, or whether it's in Richmond, or whether it's in Northern Virginia, these same kinds of large development deals follow the same pattern.
CB: It's funny that you mentioned this pattern, because we just did an episode about the casinos in Virginia, and how when developers came to the city council meetings, they offered these very rosy pictures of how many jobs it was going to bring in, what kind of economic impact it was going to have on the area. And so often there was very little pushback from the city council and even from constituents. And one of the questions that I had for you is how can voters hold both the representatives accountable and the developers accountable in making sure that these deals don't just become a wash?
RM: Yeah, it's really difficult to get what you want out of a development deal when the developers seem to hold all the cards, where it seems like the city council or county board that's responsible for making the decisions are gung-ho about economic development, and everybody wants something to happen, whether that something is good or not. And so citizens need to organize. That's possible. It has happened in the past and, and just recently in Richmond, the city said no to a major development deal, in part because citizens organized against it.
The other thing you need to do is to get your representatives to try to think a little bit longer term than just their next election. Because the large development deals like casinos, like stadiums, they extend past the next election, usually. It might take 5, 10, 15 years before you really see the results of those development projects. So putting real teeth in the development agreement, making sure that there are commitments to affordable housing, say or hiring--one mechanism that's been recommended recently is something called a community benefits agreement, where you involve members of the community, nonprofit groups, citizen groups. And that can help too, because enforcement is not so great from the city council or the local government, because they're just trying to get development deals done and hopefully claim more tax revenue. And they certainly don't want to stand in the way of powerful local developers. But these community benefits agreements are ways that community members can have a voice in holding developers accountable, holding local government accountable for meeting targets of affordable housing, or hiring or minority contracting, for example. And so that's one way to go.
Another thing you can do is to say no. One of the things I mentioned in the book and talking about, you know, stadium deals and these kinds of thing was a group out in Seattle that called themselves the--I forget, it was a terrific name for a nonprofit. It's like the "People Against Dumb Things." But they basically helped organize referenda, helped organize, just stopping the big project when they thought it was a bad idea. And you don't want to say no to everything. But you don't want to say yes to something just because it's the only offer on the table and you think you can't get anything better.
CB: Right. And I thought what was really interesting in the book is this quote from Richard J. Daley, the former mayor of Chicago where he said, if you want people to see progress, you make a building. And the irony of that is in Charlottesville, where I live, downtown, a decade ago--when this really big developer came into the city, said he was going to build a shiny new hotel on the Downtown Mall, it was going to bring in a ton of business, a lot of money for the tourist economy. And then he ran out of money! And now it's been a shell of a building for over 12 years. And nobody knows what to do about it. And so to your point, it's so important that we have to look beyond the short term gains. And think about what are the long term costs? Which was a question I posed to Dr. Koch in our casino episode about: "If these casinos go bust will, what are we going to do?" I mean, we have these buildings that are zoned for this specific purpose and really hard to turn into anything else.
RM: Yeah, and you really put all your eggs in one basket, when you go for these large scale development. More and more urban planners are encouraging localities, to think about what their distinctive advantages are, what their distinctive identity is, that can be to some extent engineered, you can create a kind of tourist identity or a kind of local identity. You know, here in Richmond, we have the river, which is a really important part of the city's identity, and also just a way to attract people to the city for economic development purposes and for creating jobs. As well as, you know, all throughout Virginia, we have history as a kind of tourist model. And there's so there's a way to develop based on that rather than a kind of cookie cutter approach, which is often what developers do, because that is their model, their business. And so they say, "Well, I built a hotel somewhere else, I'll come and build a hotel here, whether or not it fits the needs of the community or what the community wants." So it's not that you can't do development, that you can't have growth. You can't do that smartly. But a wise leadership, whether it's a mayor or a county board, or even a planning or zoning kind of function of government can really envision what the advantages of a city are. Think about what kind of infrastructure a county needs, what a town offers, and build around those strengths. Rather than say, well, we want to be just like everybody else, so let's slap something that we found worked somewhere else, maybe.
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NM:
Rich Meagher is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College and author of Local Politics Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Making a Difference. We'll hear more from him after a short break.
You're listening to Bold Dominion, a state politics explainer for changing Virginia. Visit us online at BoldDominon.org. Have a friend who's trying to figure out Virginia state politics? Well, tell him about this show. And then subscribe in Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever find podcasts are served up. And hey, while you're there, go ahead and leave us a five star review. We like those.
Bold Dominion is a member of the Virginia Audio Collective online at VirginiaAudio.org. Check out all the podcasts from the Collective including Charlottesville Soundboard. So I mean, today we're talking about local politics in this episode, and Soundboard is WTJU's look at news, culture, and community in and around Charlottesville. Each episode features a rundown of the latest happenings with Charlottesville Tomorrow's reporters. Check it out at VirginiaAudio.org.
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And we're back with the second half of producer Charlie Bruce's interview with Rich Meagher, author of Local Politics Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Making a Difference. Here, Rich and Charlie focus on the nationwide housing crisis, something that's only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but which has been brewing for much, much longer.
CB: One of the parts of the book that I really liked was your section on affordable housing and why we are facing, in so many cities and localities throughout the United States, an affordable housing crisis. Can you talk a little bit about the history of that?
RM: Sure, it is a crisis. And it's reached crisis proportions in many, many localities across the country. And you can think about big cities like San Francisco and New York which have become so expensive that they priced out anybody but the wealthiest citizens. But it's also felt at the town city, county level. I think I mentioned in the book, there's one study that suggests that without federal subsidies, there's not a single county in the country that would offer enough affordable housing for all of its residents. So this affects everybody, everywhere.
And it's a number of things like--even places that are growing or that are attractive, you know, the beautiful Charlottesville downtown. It's great. But at the same time, it's become a place for young professionals, it's become a place where it's harder for lower-income workers to be able to live near where the economic opportunity is. So you get these urban cores where all the jobs are. But then you have to look for workers. The workers are living farther and farther away from those urban cores, which is, you know, it's not only an equity problem, it's a moral problem. It's an equity problem. It's also an inefficient economy, it means that you can't get good workers where you need them because they can't afford to live near where the jobs are, that you're trying to pay them for.
So the gentrification issue is a big part of it. But it's also about decades of policies that have made it so developers, local governments, look to build houses with big lots that are profitable, that are stable, and to turn their nose up at any kind of density. Like: "Oh, an apartment building? We don't want that. That'll bring in crack houses," right? It's just one step. And this entire discourse, this entire set of arguments are racially tinged, because again, of the history of our cities and counties, and white flight and a number of dynamics that's related to that. It makes it very difficult to overcome a kind of--decades of prejudice against urban density. And urban doesn't necessarily mean in a city, it could be in a suburb, it could be in a county, could be anywhere, just where there's a center of population.
And so what we need are more apartments, we need different kinds of living, and to encourage local governments to incentivize and sometimes even demand that housing stock matches the needs of the entire community, and not just the wealthiest individuals. Not just the profit-making interests of the developers. Because if you just follow, sort of, free market principles and let everybody live where they want, build what they want, do what they want, it just doesn't work to build a sustainable, inclusive community, which is what you want and what actually produces good benefits for the city. It's not just--if you were the worst plutocrat, who just didn't want to step over homeless people on the way to your, you know, whatever, to get your latte in the morning, you still want to have an efficient economy. You still want to have a place where many different walks of life, many different, sort of, levels of income can live together in a community because that produces efficient and inclusive economies.
CB: Absolutely. You also point out in the book that this is actually one of the areas in which at the local level, you can make a lot of systematic change through advocacy and organizing. Have you seen effective models of this around the country?
RM: Certainly there are advocates for housing, who are working really hard to try to change the language and the understanding what we mean when we talk about housing. For many years, well-meaning nonprofits and advocates were arguing about homelessness. And that's still of course, a major problem. But it's a broader problem now that we want to talk about in terms of housing burden and housing insecurity. There are plenty of people who make a decent living who still can't afford to live near where they work. So it's not just a problem of the lower income folks. It's a problem that's extending upward into the middle class.
At the same time, we're recognizing that homelessness, housing insecurity and housing burdens are connected to a whole series of social issues and problems including drug addiction, opioid crisis, mental health issues, and ability to afford health care. One great nonprofit that works in Virginia is Virginia Supportive Housing. They've been very active in Richmond, they've been very active in Charlottesville area and across the state and developed these kinds of supportive wraparound communities. The Crossings is a big one near Charlottesville. They're talking about--the city and and Virginia Supportive Housing are talking about developing one of those older kind of famous hotels on the I-20, the the Route 29 corridor. I think it's the Red Carpet Inn, which is kind of like a well-known institution locally and sort of an old hotel that's fallen on hard times.
But the idea is that they're targeting that for a similar kind of community. So that's certainly the case and then there's been pushes lately for just more density, better planning, particularly in downtown cores, to not be so afraid of what density even means. It means more apartments, sure, but more affordable, mixed-use apartments. mixed-use housing, changes to zoning laws that will enable, even in areas where it doesn't seem like you can add more homes or buildings. You know, one example I talk in the book is accessory dwelling units, sometimes called granny flats, sometimes called Fonzie apartments--in the old Happy Days TV show, Fonzie lived over the Cunningham's Garage, right? And so just having the ability to split a single-family home to allow more people to live in an area, we can do more of this. We know how to do it. It just takes political will, and overcoming people's fears, which are often connected to attitudes about race and poverty that really needs to be corrected in this day.
CB: Right. Well, one of the things that I thought was interesting about the affordable housing chapter was, you talked about the home voter. So the fact that homeowners in America are more likely to be respected either by developers or their representatives, because they're seen as a reliable tax base. Like they have a lot of power, politically and economically, that renters don't have as much. And so I'm curious, like what--you talked about joining like a local Civic Association as a way of combating regressive zoning policies. But for people like myself who are young and transient, how do you recommend that they get engaged with local politics?
RM: Yeah, so the question of how to get engaged in local politics is an important one. And I do suggest a couple of things that you can do. Again, joining a local Civic Association is great if you have that kind of infrastructure. In Richmond, there's a pretty strong tradition of local civic associations, at least in some of the more wealthier areas of the city. And that's great, it's a way for people to kind of get together with neighbors and learn and build what we call social capital, right, the connections with your community members, that can translate into political power.
But younger folks, folks who are renters, folks who might not feel as settled as property owners might, and certainly are not as welcomed by local governments as property owners are, can still do this. And you can leverage existing institutions like tenant associations, nonprofit groups of those kind. You can also...even, you know, out in the suburbs, we have these homeowner associations, which are sometimes seen as these restrictive, you know, deals with the devil, who are determining whether you can paint your house or not. But they can also just be a basis, an institutional base to meet local officials and just get to know who people are even if you can't use them politically.
But it does take also, I think, reaching hand from local government as well. So local government needs to make it easier for people to participate, which they're not always inclined to do. Because participation can sometimes mean asks and needs and having to listen and deliver, for inviting response. But you can still do it and it's the right thing to do. And so local governments should vary meeting times, and they should make childcare available. And they should ensure that when they have meetings, they are either accessible online, streaming currently in the new world, where we're, there's a lot more virtual meetings going on to make those meetings open to the public for public comment. And also, you know, childcare and food, I think is a kind of basic thing you can do just to make it a lot easier for people to come to public meetings. So it needs to be kind of on both ends, a change in attitude and an approach from local government to welcome input and to create the infrastructure to make that input easier.
And then you need people to find the time--again, not super easy in this environment or any environment for folks who are busy trying to earn a living and trying to, you know, keep their families healthy and safe. To find time to participate in public meetings.
I do say that the sort of three ways to level up is to vote in local elections. Right, not just at the national level. If you're voting, now, these new apps like TurboVote, and others will tell you there are local elections and to get to know what's going on in those local elections. The minute you start, you start sort of paying attention to local politics. Again, joining a local group if there is one, like a Civic Association, and then going to a meeting, which again, is easier in the virtual environment, but just seeing what's going on a lot of it can be boring talks about ordinance, for even papers and, and all sorts of, you know, jargon, but at the same time, you can get a sense of what issues are being discussed, who you might like and not like, who might seem approachable, who is standing up for the issues you care about, who isn't? So those kinds of starter steps are important for sure.
CB: I should say that anybody who's looking for a primer on what are the essentials to know about local politics and how to get involved should definitely buy your book. It's very to the point and informative. Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you would like listeners to know?
RM: I mean, I would add kind of two things. One thing I would remind people is that even if they think they don't care about local politics, most folks are heavily engaged in local government and politics for specifically a 13-year period, when they send their child to public school. A public school is a government agency. It is a local government that's organized just to run the schools. And whether you like it or not, if you're sending your kids to public schools, you are engaged in local government. And so knowing what is going on with the schools, how they're funded, how the school board is elected, or appointed, and whether you're participating in those elections has a big impact on your family's lives for a very long time. And so the idea that you're ignoring it because you're not interested, you may be more engaged in local politics than you actually think you are.
The other thing I would say is just that one of the things I recommend in the book is for people to think more regionally than they might normally. You know, so for example, Charlottesville and local counties in Hampton Roads, which is probably one of the strongest examples in the country, have a regional identity where towns, cities, counties are almost forced to work together, because they are, as some people describe it, you know, it's the world's largest cul-de-sac. And, you know, they're kind of locked into this economy that's based on tourism, that's based on the shipyards, that's based on the federal government. And all of these localities have discovered that they have these shared interests, because they've been forced to, but it's true for everybody. So the divide between city and county--overcoming that divide is one way that localities can really do more for their citizens and not pit themselves against each other.
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NM: Rich Meagher is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College and author of Local Politics Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Making a Difference. Thanks to him for joining us on this week's show.
My name is Nathan Moore, and I'm the host of Bold Dominion. Big thanks this week to our producers Charlie Bruce and Aaryan Balu. Find the show online at BoldDominon.org. Go ahead and subscribe. It's just a click away. And hey, we're always on the lookout for topics for future episodes. Send your ideas to our email address, BoldDominon@virginia.edu. That's BoldDominon@virginia.edu. You can also direct message us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
Well, keep social distancing yell and I'll talk with you again in two weeks.