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I can already hear people sarcastically saying, "tax dollars at work." What's the solution, though? Obviously part of this is staggering corruption, but I woul
by endominus 5y ago
I can already hear people sarcastically saying, "tax dollars at work."
What's the solution, though? Obviously part of this is staggering corruption, but I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of the problem here is also just fundamental incompetence on the part of these middle-managers. This is exactly what I would expect to come out of the worst design-by-committee no-initiative meetings. Spiraling costs, no understanding or acceptance of tradeoffs, and zero shame about the failures of the process. This has incompetent management written all over it, but no one will be held accountable for these failures. How can that change? Should we keep a public record of the projects that city councillors are involved in/advocate for?
Or does it really need to change? It's kind of an issue of dueling narratives. There are some public projects that are massive, embarassing failures, and some that go ahead on time, under budget, and quietly. We only really hear about the first, and there does seem to be a group that benefits from pushing the idea that large government projects always and inevitably fail. I don't know how common it really is, and it's hard to trust any source as definitive on the matter anymore given the incentives involved. Although from what I understand, Cost Disease is a thing - the prices of public infrastructure has gone up an order of magnitude over the last few decades.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that there's a large amount of waste in government spending - I've worked for large companies in the past, and it's not a stretch to imagine government as just a larger, even less tightly fiscally managed enterprise - but I don't think "smaller government" is the panacea that some propose. Especially because I don't believe anyone ever actually tries to shrink the government; a solution that no one would actually implement is not a good solution. Are there any practical proposals to increase accountability and effectiveness of government entities?
- esyir 5y agoI think the first question you should be asking yourself is what are the incentives in play here? Corruption is one, but are there actually incentives to run lean for a govt government here, or do they act like money is free.
- renewiltord 5y agoSF has less than a million people. Its budget is 12 billion (10 without the airport). You know how if you leave your cat food out, you get a fat cat? We left the cat food out and now he is ever ravenous, never satiated.
- adolph 5y agoBikeshedding, also known as Parkinson’s law of triviality, describes our tendency to devote a disproportionate amount of our time to menial and trivial matters while leaving important matters unattended. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/bikeshedding/ https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/bikeshedding/
- atoav 5y agoI would add that the aspect that makes bikeshedding so dangerous is not that those working on it suddenly spend a lot of time on the colour of the shed — the aspect that makes it dangerous is that everybody thinks they can/should weigh in and develope strong opinions about shed colours. The people working on the shed probably are the ones who most likely just want to get on with it.
- nradov 5y agoCalifornia's Proposition 13 actually shrank the size of local governments by cutting off funding. That was a blunt instrument which probably needs some reform, but without that limiting factor San Francisco's city government would be even larger and more wasteful than it is today. As for garbage cans, they could just order existing inexpensive products from any of the many suppliers out there.
- nebula8804 5y agoI have always been a fan of Paris's trash bins. Simple but elegant. And then there is their Wine bottle recycling receptacle. Looks like something out of some cartoon. Looks so unique! [1]:https://myparttimeparislife.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/public-objects.jpg https://myparttimeparislife.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/publ...
- pininja 5y agoAlong the lines of unique receptacles, I ran across some public pizza box “bins” (they were basically a cube with an open top) in Los Gatos, CA. And to my surprise they had a stack of empty pizza boxes in them.
- hayd 5y agoGet something off-the-shelf, add something to it to make it San Franciscan (or just a paint job). Don't design from scratch, we're a pretty unique city but... er... not that unique enough that an off the shelf trash can wouldn't work. While we're talking trash we should scrap the CRV... the most idiotic policy whose only outcome seems to be trash/recyling gets emptied out all over the streets.
- Hermitian909 5y ago> incompetent management written all over it, but no one will be held accountable for these failures Having worked in government, seeming incompetence is not the fault of administrators more than you'd think. The ideology of "government is the problem" has led to a lot of legislation that knee-caps good decision making e.g. forcing acceptance of the lowest bid. Along those lines, as trust was retracted from government agencies expertise was often removed with it. Departments that use to keep technical personnel on staff to review policies and make recommendations were replaced with consultants who usually have many conflicts of interest. I don't have good solutions, but it's a stick and multifaceted issue. There are no easy answers sadly.
- refurb 5y agoI know that HN is know for its excess hyperbole (e.g. "the US is no better than Nazi Germany"), but after living in SF for coming up to 2 decades, I'm starting to realize the level of corruption in the gov't is probably up there with cities like Chicago. Whether it's the planning department, sanitation, government contracts, etc, it's kind of startling seeing multiple high-level people get snagged. I mean the federal gov't through the DOJ has active corruption investigations going on - I assume the feds don't get involved unless there are some big fish to fry. It would explain just how poorly SF is run despite one of the largest per capita budgets for a city/county (plus airport) in the US.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]