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American Singapore(s): Competent city governance hiding in plain sight

85 points by baud147258 2y ago

sbarre 2y ago
TL;DR: Investing money smartly at the local level and cooperation between stakeholders on a long-term vision produces positive outcomes.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Agreeing on long-term outcomes is not always so easy and is vulnerable to extremists from either side. Only with this agreement in place can stakeholders cooperate.
walthamstow 2y ago
This isn't Singapore anything, it's just competent local government.
- lisper 2y ago
  That's kind of like saying, "This isn't Space-X anything, it's just private space travel." Singapore is the canonical example of competent local government. That is the whole point.
  - JCharante 2y ago
    The listed examples are very mediocre compared to Singapore though. Truthfully the US has no square mile of land that is comparable to the demographics and infrastructure of Singapore.
    - harimau777 2y ago
      On the other hand, Singapore has some significant civil liberties issues. I think it's plausible that it may be better to accept somewhat less efficiency than Singapore in exchange for greater civil liberties.
  - onlytime 2y ago
    Singapore as the benchmark for "competent local government" seems flawed. Ignoring decades of corruption incidents[1], it's also plagued with human rights abuses, including significant volumes of human trafficking[2]. As a nation-state, it's still extremely enthusiastic about draconian punishments and the death penalty. The state is full of moral decay; worst of all, its former prime minister is reading about Haskell in his semi-retirement[3]. The latter example of moral decay is not unique to Singapore (he is not the only senior national government official to decline into Haskell usage in Southeast Asia), but it is not a good sign of national health. There are better "canonical examples" of competent local government, like Zurich, Geneva, or Vienna. All of which are generally rated higher in HDI than Singapore, none of which have the death penalty, and none of which have government officials who are Haskell programmers. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Singapore#Notable_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Singapore#Notabl... 2: https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/singapore/ https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/singapore/ 3: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/prime-minister-of-singapore-shares-his-c-code-for-sudoku-solver/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/prime...
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Functional programmers ruining cities as well as codebases.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        I had the same questioning reading about haskell in this thread. And my search tool is so biased by past searchs that it won't tell me what else haskell means.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        You got me. Normally, I downvote these Reddit-type of comments, but this comment just has too much bloody wit. And, I say that with no hate for functional programming concepts.
      - Trexman 2y ago
        >“Functional programmers ruining cities as well as codebases.” The information [and communication] technology {I.[C.]T.} boom at the beginning of the millenium & especially at the beginning of the 2010s – where you've had banks, investment firms, and angel investors just throwing away their money to anything relating to computing, communications, hardware, and software – had two aims that are publicly known: quantum computing and machine-learning technology (later known as artificial intelligence). They figured out quantum computing sometime in the ±2015. Machine-learning, A.I., took a bit longer but it's here – confirmed at the beginning of the 2020s. Now, I.T. has served its original mission and it's relegated to maintenance & routine work for the [already] existing infrastructure. Self-serving, self-important, self-fulfilling prophecy; who knew!?
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Taking on debt loads with the expectation that future generations of your city will pay it off is not, in my opinion, ‘competent local government’. Again, I wish them the best of luck, but philosophically I am an old line conservative. The fiscal kind, not the Jesus freak kind. I’ve seen this end badly before, and have seen no evidence to indicate this time will end any differently. But again, I’m happy to be proven wrong and hope they pull through. (Or rather, I guess I hope their children pull through.)
lisper 2y ago
To this list I would add: San Mateo county, California. I live there. Our house is located in a valley below street grade and so we have a sewage ejector pump. That pump is maintained by the county. In the ~15 years we have lived here it has failed twice. Both times we called the county and a crew came out to fix it without an hour. Both times we had to pay nothing. It was, quite literally, our tax dollars at work. This is the thing that drive me batshit crazy about the libertarian tech bros who live here. They appear to be willfully ignorant of the fact that the reason quality of life here is so high is not because we have no government, but because we have competent government that quietly and without fanfare just takes care of business behind the scenes so that the tech bros can do their thing without having to worry about fixing their sewage ejector pumps.
- FredPret 2y ago
  There are some policies and government functions that are not that expensive and have a huge return on investment for society. It’s when there’s either no government or a huge government that you run into problems.
- strikelaserclaw 2y ago
  i mean, San Mateo is like one of the richest counties in America - i'd hope they would be able to do basic things like what you stated.
  - rob74 2y ago
    Well, the US are one of the richest countries in the world - so it's a bit mind-boggling that most cities (apparently) have problems providing basic services...
  - lisper 2y ago
    You have to ask which way the causality runs. Is SMC government good because SMC is full of rich people, or is SMC full of rich people because it has good government, which attracts rich people to move there? Or is it both working in a virtuous cycle?
AdamN 2y ago
I'd like to see some of the leading benefactors donate to cities that demonstrate this level of civic service and professional delivery. There's no reason that governments can't receive donations like non-profits and charities do.
- teitoklien 2y ago
  > There's no reason that governments can't receive donations like non-profits and charities do. They do, it’s called taxes. If a government starts having a donation culture, it’ll just end up becoming a legal way to pay for government favours and exacerbate rise in corruption. (Corruption has been rising more and more now that local journalism is declining, which previously used to bust out local events, embezzling tax payer money by municipalities, etc). Look at what has happened to colleges which have donations as a major chunk of their income, or colleges which subsidises local students education with international students. Colleges have easier admissions for children of donators, local students are neglected for international student programmes (happening a ton in Canada right now, a lot of their previously reputed colleges are becoming blacklisted by employers as diploma mills, e.g Conestoga College, Ontario) When you’re not the payer/customer, YOU. DONT. MATTER. Corporate lobbying is making votes ineffective, politicians are listening to lobbyists and their donations to campaign funds, than the voter who gets out to cast their votes. Donations are bad, and should be discouraged for powerful organisations like Gov, College, etc which have a lot of power. You’re local orphanage would benefit from donations and there’s not much power in their hands over majority of society. But when you introduce donation culture in more critical places, it becomes a method of corruption.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    > When you’re not the payer/customer, YOU. DONT. MATTER. This is why I prefer local governments to be indexed to sales taxes, property taxes & income taxes. It encourages them to create economic activity. I dislike it when local governments rely almost entirely on funding from central government. There's little incentive to create economic activity because it often creates more work in building infrastructure & social services. And less political incentive to improve public services, because you can always blame central government for a lack of funding.
lgvln 2y ago
There are probably better examples to be found. The "competence" comes at a price - extremely high levels of inequality, utter lack of civil liberties, a one-party authoritarian regime and so forth.
- alan-hn 2y ago
  Do you have any specific examples of this happening in the cities listed in the article?
  - lgvln 2y ago
    What I mean is Singapore is hardly the ideal city to be measured against if we take into account the non-materiale aspects of life.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    He's referring to Singapore.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  A lot of places have all those problems, without the competence.
  - elteto 2y ago
    The only difference between an efficient, totalitarian regime and an inefficient totalitarian regime is time. Just give Singapore some time. A system in which there are no or few effective feedback mechanisms are bound to diverge over time.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      There are a couple of dimensions to consider. It's like how in a control system you can get better performance by reducing the level of damping, but at the expense of reduced stability or oscillation. It's possible to have too much damping, but stability is crucial too.
squeegee_scream 2y ago
> Las Vegas, Nevada, has tackled a historic drought by pioneering water conservation strategies, cutting per capita usage by nearly half despite rapid population growth Emphasis mine. Per capita does not necessarily increase when population does, and definitely shouldn’t increase at a similar rate
- loudmax 2y ago
  Agreed. The word "despite" in that sentence makes no sense in that context. The author either doesn't understand the meaning behind the statistics, or they're deliberately misleading.
- Jyaif 2y ago
  I would say that it's thanks to rapid population growth that water usage per capita got lower. They kept the same number of golf courts and enormous swimming pool, but increased their population.
  - supertrope 2y ago
    Vegas is very water efficient. Those fountains and golf courses use reclaimed water. The problem is the absolute amount of water demand is still going up. In a desert. Vegas' water utility has an intake pipe at the very bottom of Lake Mead so they will go dry last. They dump their treated wastewater into the Las Vegas Wash so that they can get credit to draw more water. They bought up nearby land to get the water rights. But actually capping system wide water usage directly or by limiting urban growth is economic and political suicide.
blitzar 2y ago
Americans might like the results; but they would take up arms against the big overbearing state and its socialism if anyone suggested any of the reality.
- alan-hn 2y ago
  That sounds to me like Americans aren't that bright, or they've been tricked by typical party propaganda. Cities need investment and if Americans aren't willing to invest in the places that they live, so they deserve nice things?
  - blitzar 2y ago
    The government you elect is the government you deserve.
    - resource_waste 2y ago
      I am 1 person. I live in a city of 100,000. Why do I deserve the outcome of 50,000 people's choices? (and if you say, 'just get involved in politics') Okay, lets scale this, I'm 1 person, 100,000,000 people will be voting in November, why do I deserve the outcome? (btw, I'm currently leaning less on democracy due to fear of populist demagogues, I want a republic where educated people have disproportional power to those who are less educated and produce less value)
      - poincaredisk 2y ago
        >I want a republic where educated people have disproportional power to those who are less educated and produce less value I assume you see yourself in the educated and valuable group? And consequently, your choices and happiness is more important than some poor rural farmer? This sounds backward and feudalistic to me. You deserve the outcome of 50000 people's choices the same way they deserve outcome of your choices.
        resource_waste 2y ago
indymike 2y ago
Carmel Indiana is an example of focusing on growth. * They didn't do austerity. The whole low taxes run the place on a shoestring wasn't the game. Carmel did not do extravagant government buildings until they were affordable, and paid for by the development around them. For a long time city hall was almost a re-purposed dentist's office. * Carmel did not invest in poverty. Carmel pushed it out of town. Now it is extremely wealthy per-capita. * People laugh at the sheer number of roundabouts, but those have had a huge effect on public health by reducing both the frequency of accidents and more importantly, most accidents are now lower speed with less damage to life and property. Yes, Carmel took on a lot of debt. Yes, they invested that debt heavily in making Carmel a nice place to live and work. jim Brainerd, the mayor, knew one thing the article missed: if you are growing, the tax base is always expanding. Carmel was also extremely long-game focused on development: as bonds mature, tax abatements and incentives expire in a way that will enable rapid retirement of the debt.
- Idiot211 2y ago
  > Carmel did not invest in poverty. Carmel pushed it out of town. Now it is extremely wealthy per-capita. What exactly does that mean, I'm reading it quite negatively, but the rest of this is positive, so I might be missing your true meaning.
  - richrichie 2y ago
    I am assuming that means no drug shelters, free services for homeless etc.
  - tecoholic 2y ago
    Yeah. Me too. Does it mean, they just gentrified the entire town and only rich people live there? Or is it more like they created enough opportunities and incentives that poorly paid jobs became better paid jobs? I can see how the latter is “not invest in poverty”. But I have doubts that the trickle down effect can be that effective. Maybe it works well in a small population?
    - Camus134 2y ago
richrichie 2y ago
Singapore cannot be a benchmark for a city in the US. The tradeoffs are not worth it.
- waihtis 2y ago
  The tradeoffs are plenty worth for people who enjoy living in a clean, peaceful and prosperous environment
  - lgvln 2y ago
    Who are these people that you speak of/for?
    - popcalc 2y ago
      Worth it for Eduardo Saverin.
  - Trexman 2y ago
    Was this comment written by the hands & fingers of an alderman from Chicago/Illinois? If so, why are you sending money (eg. from parking meters...) to Qatar?
atlasunshrugged 2y ago
I would also mention Reno, Nevada which what managed to hugely transform the downtown/midtown area from what was an incredibly seedy place with hourly motels and homeless to something closer to average that you can take your family to. Lots more hip bars and restaurants, walkable areas, upgraded bus transport in the downtown/midtown area, and the UNR campus which abuts the downtown is significantly upgraded from what it was 10 years ago with beautiful new buildings and lots of new student housing. Key actions: - Far more housing built, especially mid-upper end apartments - Actively partnered with real estate developers to get rid of unutilized land in downtown/midtown and purchase and upgrade what were once sketchy motels - New transportation options in the area to make it more walkable/accessible with a scooter partnership (geofenced to the area) and bus service Edit to add: Almost all of this has been under the leadership of the current three term mayor who is an independent (or nonpartisan, forget exactly how she bills herself) showing how impactful local office can be. However, she does get some flak for not solving the local homeless problem, but personally having lived in SF, I understand how that's a much more difficult/intractable issue.
chasd00 2y ago
Some of the northern suburbs of DFW have done a good job managing explosive growth. Lots of parks, trails, mixed use development and places to actually live a life and not just work/getdrunk. It wasn’t that long ago when Frisco was just a blinking yellow light and a row of “massage parlors” in trailer homes (quite literally). Now it’s the poster child for successful suburb.
- senkora 2y ago
  +1. I'm less familiar with Frisco but its neighbor Plano is similar and has a comprehensive development plan for the next 20 years available online: https://planocompplan.org/DocumentCenter/View/1951/Executive-Summary https://planocompplan.org/DocumentCenter/View/1951/Executive... Both are great places to live for families with kids.
dzdt 2y ago
The leading example in the article is Carmel, Indiana. I am not sure what has been done there should be described as a model of competent governance. This is a small city (100k people/50k workers/37k households [1]) where the city has taken on major amounts of debt (1.4$billion/14k per person/28k per worker/38k per household) to create public amenities. The financial logic of what Carmel is doing centers around zero-sum competition with neighboring communities. Carmel is betting that by being the nicest place with the fanciest amenities, they will attract the richest families and be able to support that heavy debt burden in the coming decades. This is explicitly not a model that every community could follow! It relies on spending more than would be prudent for the current tax base, in the hopes of standing out in comparison to other communities. And for sure its a bet that could fail badly, depending on general economic conditions. Its too soon to tell if the gamble will work out successfully, and very hard to tell even in hindsight how risky it was, succeed or fail. [1] https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/IN/Carmel-Demographics.html https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/IN/Carmel-Demogr...
- RetiredRichard 2y ago
  Didn't the guy also refers to Mike Dugger's work in Detroit
  - yawgmoth 2y ago
    Comparing Detroit to Singapore is pretty silly in my eyes. The second derivative for Detroit has been good for about twenty years, but the city has been decaying around economic events and poor business diversification. Connect the Q-Line out towards Oakland County and to the People Mover. Get that train going to the airport. There are real infrastructure needs here and it doesn't take a lot to imagine them.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  If you look at the average household income in Carmel, IN. Then compare it to, say, Darien, CT. Then consider, Darien's per capita debt load works out to about 2% of the average annual per capita income. Carmel's per capita debt load works out to roughly 25-30% of its average annual per capita income. (And that's being kind and using the average per capita income. It gets even uglier for Carmel if we do these comparisons at the median.) Given all that, it's not hard at all to bet on failure. You can play at being Darien if you have Darien money. If you don't, you're just being fiscally irresponsible. There's nothing about the Carmel story that says 'competence'.
MrMan 2y ago
[dead]
closetkantian 2y ago
Singapore is the most boring, sterile place I've ever been. I'd take Tokyo, Taipei, or Hong Kong over it in a heartbeat. The entire country reminds me of a mall. William Gibson's 1993 Wired article "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" (https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/) is still as relevant as ever. I saw a fascinating talk that convincingly argued that the Chinese Communist Party has taken its game plan over the last 30 years from Singapore, a de facto one party state led by the People's Action Party. It's interesting to note that this party was founded on socialist principles but is now firmly capitalist.
- lgvln 2y ago
  Here’s a book that argues for the same. [0] Makes one wonder whether such articles (OP’s) are part of a spin campaign.. [0] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211411/spin-dictators https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211411/sp...
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Should Singapore really be put on a pedestal? They have inhumane laws and violate human rights regularly. Even free speech doesn’t truly exist there - some topics like criticizing religions are off limits. Competency in some areas through authoritarianism isn’t a sign of competency in general.
nottorp 2y ago
Isn't Singapore basically relying on the cheap labor of malaysian workers from right across the border?
- rangestransform 2y ago
  Why can’t the US set up a second class temporary worker program a la Singapore for people who are otherwise illegal immigrants
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Why do you think all of Singapore's immigrants are legal :)
    - ValentineC 2y ago
      Singapore actively catches, jails, and canes illegal immigrants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Singapo... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/repeat-immigration-offender-jailed-caned-swim-back-singapore-abandon-sampan-4250161 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/repeat-immigration...
- ValentineC 2y ago
  Malaysians dominate the lowly paid and unprotected accounting industry. F&B and hospitality is a mix of south-east Asian nationalities. Construction comes mostly from Bangladesh. Undereducated and/or burnt out Singapore citizens and permanent residents have the privilege of being able to do gig work, being private hire drivers and food delivery.
GreatLdisisp88 2y ago
My goodness, nowhere near Singapore efficiency. 10 years to reduce to 60% homelessness. Singapore did to 90% in less than 10 years with near nothing other than pure debts and human capital in the 70s. And not only that they managed to maintain that for more than 3 decades. I would like to see Camel in 10 years time when they flip or some incompetent mayor voted in. When they able to do it 3 decades in a row, come back and let me know. PLUS all the example cited spread across multiple cities. Singapore had done it all in one single city and much more with less than 3-5M people. Again when you have something like that in America then I am impress. Otherwise, American achievement mentioned there dime a nickel many spread across Eastern Asia. Don't ride on Singapore tailcoat. USA is one of the worst country in a lot of metrics to benchmark against Singapore. Even the so call journalism freedom metric is just mirage in USA....look who employ those journalists. Their news outlet are so bizzare is like they reporting an alternate multiverse USA that I am not aware of.

85 points by baud147258 2y ago

TL;DR: Investing money smartly at the local level and cooperation between stakeholders on a long-term vision produces positive outcomes.

FredPret 2y ago
Agreeing on long-term outcomes is not always so easy and is vulnerable to extremists from either side. Only with this agreement in place can stakeholders cooperate.

walthamstow 2y ago

This isn't Singapore anything, it's just competent local government.

lisper 2y ago
That's kind of like saying, "This isn't Space-X anything, it's just private space travel." Singapore is the canonical example of competent local government. That is the whole point.
- JCharante 2y ago
  The listed examples are very mediocre compared to Singapore though. Truthfully the US has no square mile of land that is comparable to the demographics and infrastructure of Singapore.
  - harimau777 2y ago
    On the other hand, Singapore has some significant civil liberties issues. I think it's plausible that it may be better to accept somewhat less efficiency than Singapore in exchange for greater civil liberties.
- onlytime 2y ago
  Singapore as the benchmark for "competent local government" seems flawed. Ignoring decades of corruption incidents[1], it's also plagued with human rights abuses, including significant volumes of human trafficking[2]. As a nation-state, it's still extremely enthusiastic about draconian punishments and the death penalty. The state is full of moral decay; worst of all, its former prime minister is reading about Haskell in his semi-retirement[3]. The latter example of moral decay is not unique to Singapore (he is not the only senior national government official to decline into Haskell usage in Southeast Asia), but it is not a good sign of national health. There are better "canonical examples" of competent local government, like Zurich, Geneva, or Vienna. All of which are generally rated higher in HDI than Singapore, none of which have the death penalty, and none of which have government officials who are Haskell programmers. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Singapore#Notable_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Singapore#Notabl... 2: https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/singapore/ https://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/singapore/ 3: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/prime-minister-of-singapore-shares-his-c-code-for-sudoku-solver/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/prime...
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Functional programmers ruining cities as well as codebases.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      I had the same questioning reading about haskell in this thread. And my search tool is so biased by past searchs that it won't tell me what else haskell means.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      You got me. Normally, I downvote these Reddit-type of comments, but this comment just has too much bloody wit. And, I say that with no hate for functional programming concepts.
    - Trexman 2y ago
      >“Functional programmers ruining cities as well as codebases.” The information [and communication] technology {I.[C.]T.} boom at the beginning of the millenium & especially at the beginning of the 2010s – where you've had banks, investment firms, and angel investors just throwing away their money to anything relating to computing, communications, hardware, and software – had two aims that are publicly known: quantum computing and machine-learning technology (later known as artificial intelligence). They figured out quantum computing sometime in the ±2015. Machine-learning, A.I., took a bit longer but it's here – confirmed at the beginning of the 2020s. Now, I.T. has served its original mission and it's relegated to maintenance & routine work for the [already] existing infrastructure. Self-serving, self-important, self-fulfilling prophecy; who knew!?
bilbo0s 2y ago
Taking on debt loads with the expectation that future generations of your city will pay it off is not, in my opinion, ‘competent local government’. Again, I wish them the best of luck, but philosophically I am an old line conservative. The fiscal kind, not the Jesus freak kind. I’ve seen this end badly before, and have seen no evidence to indicate this time will end any differently. But again, I’m happy to be proven wrong and hope they pull through. (Or rather, I guess I hope their children pull through.)

lisper 2y ago

To this list I would add: San Mateo county, California. I live there. Our house is located in a valley below street grade and so we have a sewage ejector pump. That pump is maintained by the county. In the ~15 years we have lived here it has failed twice. Both times we called the county and a crew came out to fix it without an hour. Both times we had to pay nothing. It was, quite literally, our tax dollars at work. This is the thing that drive me batshit crazy about the libertarian tech bros who live here. They appear to be willfully ignorant of the fact that the reason quality of life here is so high is not because we have no government, but because we have competent government that quietly and without fanfare just takes care of business behind the scenes so that the tech bros can do their thing without having to worry about fixing their sewage ejector pumps.

FredPret 2y ago
There are some policies and government functions that are not that expensive and have a huge return on investment for society. It’s when there’s either no government or a huge government that you run into problems.
strikelaserclaw 2y ago
i mean, San Mateo is like one of the richest counties in America - i'd hope they would be able to do basic things like what you stated.
- rob74 2y ago
  Well, the US are one of the richest countries in the world - so it's a bit mind-boggling that most cities (apparently) have problems providing basic services...
- lisper 2y ago
  You have to ask which way the causality runs. Is SMC government good because SMC is full of rich people, or is SMC full of rich people because it has good government, which attracts rich people to move there? Or is it both working in a virtuous cycle?

AdamN 2y ago

I'd like to see some of the leading benefactors donate to cities that demonstrate this level of civic service and professional delivery. There's no reason that governments can't receive donations like non-profits and charities do.

teitoklien 2y ago
> There's no reason that governments can't receive donations like non-profits and charities do. They do, it’s called taxes. If a government starts having a donation culture, it’ll just end up becoming a legal way to pay for government favours and exacerbate rise in corruption. (Corruption has been rising more and more now that local journalism is declining, which previously used to bust out local events, embezzling tax payer money by municipalities, etc). Look at what has happened to colleges which have donations as a major chunk of their income, or colleges which subsidises local students education with international students. Colleges have easier admissions for children of donators, local students are neglected for international student programmes (happening a ton in Canada right now, a lot of their previously reputed colleges are becoming blacklisted by employers as diploma mills, e.g Conestoga College, Ontario) When you’re not the payer/customer, YOU. DONT. MATTER. Corporate lobbying is making votes ineffective, politicians are listening to lobbyists and their donations to campaign funds, than the voter who gets out to cast their votes. Donations are bad, and should be discouraged for powerful organisations like Gov, College, etc which have a lot of power. You’re local orphanage would benefit from donations and there’s not much power in their hands over majority of society. But when you introduce donation culture in more critical places, it becomes a method of corruption.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  > When you’re not the payer/customer, YOU. DONT. MATTER. This is why I prefer local governments to be indexed to sales taxes, property taxes & income taxes. It encourages them to create economic activity. I dislike it when local governments rely almost entirely on funding from central government. There's little incentive to create economic activity because it often creates more work in building infrastructure & social services. And less political incentive to improve public services, because you can always blame central government for a lack of funding.

lgvln 2y ago

There are probably better examples to be found. The "competence" comes at a price - extremely high levels of inequality, utter lack of civil liberties, a one-party authoritarian regime and so forth.

alan-hn 2y ago
Do you have any specific examples of this happening in the cities listed in the article?
- lgvln 2y ago
  What I mean is Singapore is hardly the ideal city to be measured against if we take into account the non-materiale aspects of life.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  He's referring to Singapore.
HPsquared 2y ago
A lot of places have all those problems, without the competence.
- elteto 2y ago
  The only difference between an efficient, totalitarian regime and an inefficient totalitarian regime is time. Just give Singapore some time. A system in which there are no or few effective feedback mechanisms are bound to diverge over time.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    There are a couple of dimensions to consider. It's like how in a control system you can get better performance by reducing the level of damping, but at the expense of reduced stability or oscillation. It's possible to have too much damping, but stability is crucial too.

squeegee_scream 2y ago

> Las Vegas, Nevada, has tackled a historic drought by pioneering water conservation strategies, cutting per capita usage by nearly half despite rapid population growth Emphasis mine. Per capita does not necessarily increase when population does, and definitely shouldn’t increase at a similar rate

loudmax 2y ago
Agreed. The word "despite" in that sentence makes no sense in that context. The author either doesn't understand the meaning behind the statistics, or they're deliberately misleading.
Jyaif 2y ago
I would say that it's thanks to rapid population growth that water usage per capita got lower. They kept the same number of golf courts and enormous swimming pool, but increased their population.
- supertrope 2y ago
  Vegas is very water efficient. Those fountains and golf courses use reclaimed water. The problem is the absolute amount of water demand is still going up. In a desert. Vegas' water utility has an intake pipe at the very bottom of Lake Mead so they will go dry last. They dump their treated wastewater into the Las Vegas Wash so that they can get credit to draw more water. They bought up nearby land to get the water rights. But actually capping system wide water usage directly or by limiting urban growth is economic and political suicide.

blitzar 2y ago

Americans might like the results; but they would take up arms against the big overbearing state and its socialism if anyone suggested any of the reality.

alan-hn 2y ago
That sounds to me like Americans aren't that bright, or they've been tricked by typical party propaganda. Cities need investment and if Americans aren't willing to invest in the places that they live, so they deserve nice things?
- blitzar 2y ago
  The government you elect is the government you deserve.
  - resource_waste 2y ago
    I am 1 person. I live in a city of 100,000. Why do I deserve the outcome of 50,000 people's choices? (and if you say, 'just get involved in politics') Okay, lets scale this, I'm 1 person, 100,000,000 people will be voting in November, why do I deserve the outcome? (btw, I'm currently leaning less on democracy due to fear of populist demagogues, I want a republic where educated people have disproportional power to those who are less educated and produce less value)
    - poincaredisk 2y ago
      >I want a republic where educated people have disproportional power to those who are less educated and produce less value I assume you see yourself in the educated and valuable group? And consequently, your choices and happiness is more important than some poor rural farmer? This sounds backward and feudalistic to me. You deserve the outcome of 50000 people's choices the same way they deserve outcome of your choices.
      - resource_waste 2y ago

indymike 2y ago

Carmel Indiana is an example of focusing on growth. * They didn't do austerity. The whole low taxes run the place on a shoestring wasn't the game. Carmel did not do extravagant government buildings until they were affordable, and paid for by the development around them. For a long time city hall was almost a re-purposed dentist's office. * Carmel did not invest in poverty. Carmel pushed it out of town. Now it is extremely wealthy per-capita. * People laugh at the sheer number of roundabouts, but those have had a huge effect on public health by reducing both the frequency of accidents and more importantly, most accidents are now lower speed with less damage to life and property. Yes, Carmel took on a lot of debt. Yes, they invested that debt heavily in making Carmel a nice place to live and work. jim Brainerd, the mayor, knew one thing the article missed: if you are growing, the tax base is always expanding. Carmel was also extremely long-game focused on development: as bonds mature, tax abatements and incentives expire in a way that will enable rapid retirement of the debt.

Idiot211 2y ago
> Carmel did not invest in poverty. Carmel pushed it out of town. Now it is extremely wealthy per-capita. What exactly does that mean, I'm reading it quite negatively, but the rest of this is positive, so I might be missing your true meaning.
- richrichie 2y ago
  I am assuming that means no drug shelters, free services for homeless etc.
- tecoholic 2y ago
  Yeah. Me too. Does it mean, they just gentrified the entire town and only rich people live there? Or is it more like they created enough opportunities and incentives that poorly paid jobs became better paid jobs? I can see how the latter is “not invest in poverty”. But I have doubts that the trickle down effect can be that effective. Maybe it works well in a small population?
  - Camus134 2y ago

richrichie 2y ago

Singapore cannot be a benchmark for a city in the US. The tradeoffs are not worth it.

waihtis 2y ago
The tradeoffs are plenty worth for people who enjoy living in a clean, peaceful and prosperous environment
- lgvln 2y ago
  Who are these people that you speak of/for?
  - popcalc 2y ago
    Worth it for Eduardo Saverin.
- Trexman 2y ago
  Was this comment written by the hands & fingers of an alderman from Chicago/Illinois? If so, why are you sending money (eg. from parking meters...) to Qatar?

atlasunshrugged 2y ago

I would also mention Reno, Nevada which what managed to hugely transform the downtown/midtown area from what was an incredibly seedy place with hourly motels and homeless to something closer to average that you can take your family to. Lots more hip bars and restaurants, walkable areas, upgraded bus transport in the downtown/midtown area, and the UNR campus which abuts the downtown is significantly upgraded from what it was 10 years ago with beautiful new buildings and lots of new student housing. Key actions: - Far more housing built, especially mid-upper end apartments - Actively partnered with real estate developers to get rid of unutilized land in downtown/midtown and purchase and upgrade what were once sketchy motels - New transportation options in the area to make it more walkable/accessible with a scooter partnership (geofenced to the area) and bus service Edit to add: Almost all of this has been under the leadership of the current three term mayor who is an independent (or nonpartisan, forget exactly how she bills herself) showing how impactful local office can be. However, she does get some flak for not solving the local homeless problem, but personally having lived in SF, I understand how that's a much more difficult/intractable issue.

chasd00 2y ago

Some of the northern suburbs of DFW have done a good job managing explosive growth. Lots of parks, trails, mixed use development and places to actually live a life and not just work/getdrunk. It wasn’t that long ago when Frisco was just a blinking yellow light and a row of “massage parlors” in trailer homes (quite literally). Now it’s the poster child for successful suburb.

senkora 2y ago
+1. I'm less familiar with Frisco but its neighbor Plano is similar and has a comprehensive development plan for the next 20 years available online: https://planocompplan.org/DocumentCenter/View/1951/Executive-Summary https://planocompplan.org/DocumentCenter/View/1951/Executive... Both are great places to live for families with kids.

dzdt 2y ago

The leading example in the article is Carmel, Indiana. I am not sure what has been done there should be described as a model of competent governance. This is a small city (100k people/50k workers/37k households [1]) where the city has taken on major amounts of debt (1.4$billion/14k per person/28k per worker/38k per household) to create public amenities. The financial logic of what Carmel is doing centers around zero-sum competition with neighboring communities. Carmel is betting that by being the nicest place with the fanciest amenities, they will attract the richest families and be able to support that heavy debt burden in the coming decades. This is explicitly not a model that every community could follow! It relies on spending more than would be prudent for the current tax base, in the hopes of standing out in comparison to other communities. And for sure its a bet that could fail badly, depending on general economic conditions. Its too soon to tell if the gamble will work out successfully, and very hard to tell even in hindsight how risky it was, succeed or fail. [1] https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/IN/Carmel-Demographics.html https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/IN/Carmel-Demogr...

RetiredRichard 2y ago
Didn't the guy also refers to Mike Dugger's work in Detroit
- yawgmoth 2y ago
  Comparing Detroit to Singapore is pretty silly in my eyes. The second derivative for Detroit has been good for about twenty years, but the city has been decaying around economic events and poor business diversification. Connect the Q-Line out towards Oakland County and to the People Mover. Get that train going to the airport. There are real infrastructure needs here and it doesn't take a lot to imagine them.
bilbo0s 2y ago
If you look at the average household income in Carmel, IN. Then compare it to, say, Darien, CT. Then consider, Darien's per capita debt load works out to about 2% of the average annual per capita income. Carmel's per capita debt load works out to roughly 25-30% of its average annual per capita income. (And that's being kind and using the average per capita income. It gets even uglier for Carmel if we do these comparisons at the median.) Given all that, it's not hard at all to bet on failure. You can play at being Darien if you have Darien money. If you don't, you're just being fiscally irresponsible. There's nothing about the Carmel story that says 'competence'.

MrMan 2y ago

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closetkantian 2y ago

Singapore is the most boring, sterile place I've ever been. I'd take Tokyo, Taipei, or Hong Kong over it in a heartbeat. The entire country reminds me of a mall. William Gibson's 1993 Wired article "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" (https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/ https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/) is still as relevant as ever. I saw a fascinating talk that convincingly argued that the Chinese Communist Party has taken its game plan over the last 30 years from Singapore, a de facto one party state led by the People's Action Party. It's interesting to note that this party was founded on socialist principles but is now firmly capitalist.

lgvln 2y ago
Here’s a book that argues for the same. [0] Makes one wonder whether such articles (OP’s) are part of a spin campaign.. [0] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211411/spin-dictators https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211411/sp...

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Should Singapore really be put on a pedestal? They have inhumane laws and violate human rights regularly. Even free speech doesn’t truly exist there - some topics like criticizing religions are off limits. Competency in some areas through authoritarianism isn’t a sign of competency in general.

nottorp 2y ago

Isn't Singapore basically relying on the cheap labor of malaysian workers from right across the border?

rangestransform 2y ago
Why can’t the US set up a second class temporary worker program a la Singapore for people who are otherwise illegal immigrants
- nottorp 2y ago
  Why do you think all of Singapore's immigrants are legal :)
  - ValentineC 2y ago
    Singapore actively catches, jails, and canes illegal immigrants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_Singapo... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/repeat-immigration-offender-jailed-caned-swim-back-singapore-abandon-sampan-4250161 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/repeat-immigration...
ValentineC 2y ago
Malaysians dominate the lowly paid and unprotected accounting industry. F&B and hospitality is a mix of south-east Asian nationalities. Construction comes mostly from Bangladesh. Undereducated and/or burnt out Singapore citizens and permanent residents have the privilege of being able to do gig work, being private hire drivers and food delivery.

GreatLdisisp88 2y ago

My goodness, nowhere near Singapore efficiency. 10 years to reduce to 60% homelessness. Singapore did to 90% in less than 10 years with near nothing other than pure debts and human capital in the 70s. And not only that they managed to maintain that for more than 3 decades. I would like to see Camel in 10 years time when they flip or some incompetent mayor voted in. When they able to do it 3 decades in a row, come back and let me know. PLUS all the example cited spread across multiple cities. Singapore had done it all in one single city and much more with less than 3-5M people. Again when you have something like that in America then I am impress. Otherwise, American achievement mentioned there dime a nickel many spread across Eastern Asia. Don't ride on Singapore tailcoat. USA is one of the worst country in a lot of metrics to benchmark against Singapore. Even the so call journalism freedom metric is just mirage in USA....look who employ those journalists. Their news outlet are so bizzare is like they reporting an alternate multiverse USA that I am not aware of.