Back to Reforming Local Government
The problem of local government at the end of the 20th century is that it has ceased to be a government, and become a corporation. That is, it has ceased to be the means by which a community manages its own affairs, and become a self-perpetuating servce institution, managed by professionals, which happens to have a volunteer board of directors.
This is not a recent event, the change occurred early in the century...and can probably be timed to the era when civic buildings ceased to be monuments to civic pride, and instead became models of efficiency, lack of imagination and fear of risk - the managerial characteristics. However the corporate structure of local government was set firmly in place by the Local Government Act 1995 which intentially sought to model local government in the form of the modern private corporation.
The structural problem of local government can be illustrated another way. A hundred years ago a typical NSW council would have a dozen councillors and a dozen administrative staff. However in 1999 Wollongong City Council still has about a dozen councillors - but it has over 900 staff. Further, most of these staff are now professionals engaged in complex managerial functions - each with it's own technical jargon and weighty body of systematic knowledge.
Yet we have the same 13 amateur councillors we probably had a century ago. Most of these councillors are volunteers with busy day jobs (except the Lord Mayor who has a full-time position). Yet they are supposed to oversee the business of this immensely complex bureaucracy, as well as representing the needs and problems of 180,000 residents.
In other words, over the last hundred years the managerial side of local government (where efficiency rules) has swelled to huge size and complexity, while the democratic side (where the public good should rule) has withered to, by comparison, almost inconsequential size.
This imbalance has had destructive consequences -
It's not our local government
The community of the Illawarra, or any other part of Australia, no longer feels that they own, or could influence, their local government. It has passed beyond their control, and now works to alien rhythms. This is revealed in the universal cynicism and loathing of Illawarra citizens for their local government.
We are treated with contempt
Managers, who are devoted to structure and live or die by the control of information, simply cannot, in their bones, understand that power has something to do with consent. It follows that they don't respect democratic communication as an art or an obligation. Knowledge is simply a weapon that the public might turn against council and community consultations are simply processes to be manipulated. Worse, the elected councillors and Lord Mayor easily fall into the same state of mind - fearful of trusting the community and relying instead on professionals, including, inevitably the smooth professional advisors of developers and land speculators.
This may sound mean on our managers and politicians, but I'm not telling them anything they don't already know. We all know it. It does not mean there are not mostly good people in councils. These are not problems of individuals - these are problems of structures.
Our community's confidence is damaged
When members of a community find they are unable to defend themselves against powerful forces, when they feel betrayed by their leaders, when they are denied information, when they have lost the feeling that they can control what happens in their own neighbourhoods, what results is anger, passivity, cynicism, and loss of confidence.
This is where we are now as a community. Even our neighbourhood committees, who should know better, are infested with these qualities.
It's important that we look around and say 'this is not good enough'.
If there is one word for the state of our local government, it is 'failure'. An institution in this state may look stagnant or triumphant, but in fact it is extremely fragile. Without strong public understanding or support, local government is open to dismantlement, as in Kennett's Victoria, or to being exploited from inside by greedy or corrupt individuals.
In the early 1990s battles were won which established neighbourhood committees throughout the City of Wollongong. The easiest way to increase the compensating power of democracy in our council is to make these neighbourhood committees elected positions, with genuine power to make local decisions and affect the quality of neighbour hood life.
Devolving decision-making over distinctly local issues like commons management (streets, shopping centres, parks and gardens), and allocating control over a set proportion of the council budget, would be strong ways to empower our neighbourhoods, and rekindle commuity involvement, confidence and pride.
The steps would be -
One of the irrationalities of government is the fact that services are planned and managed according to function, not place. So, a council manager is responsible for parks and gardens, another for sports facilities, another for community services, another for planningbut who is responsible for, say, Warrawong, or Woonona? Nobody, that's who. And that means that there is nowhere the administrative buck stops when making sure that Warrawong or Woonona function as effective communities. We all blame our councillors, but they have noone to make responsible.
A lot of Australian councils, and other government agencies, and using the idea of 'place management' as a solution to this problem. Under this model there would be a senior council manager who would be the Warrawong Manager or the Woonona Manager. They would have the responsibility for making sure that all the services come together in a way that responds to the needs of the people of Warrawong.
The place managers would, of course, be primarily responsible to the newly empowered neighbourhood committees, and would be the main tool each neighbourhood committee would use to ensure that council responded to its needs.
The zoning system is one of the main causes of the degradation of the character neighbourhoods, and for feelings of disempowerment of communities. The problem is that Zone 2 (b) Residential, for instance, is the same in Bulli as it is in Port Kembla. You can never say there is something special about your area that can protect it from unsightly developments. Further, as soon as one unsightly or out-of-scale development occurs, it becomes a precent that allows more.
A powerful solution is the idea of 'place-based planning'. Warringah Council, a municipality of comparable size on Sydney's northern beaches, has recently replaced it's entire zoning system with a place-based system
It works like this. The urban parts of Warringah now consist of 64 separate 'places' or precinct. All development in each of these precincts is now controlled by a 'Desired Character Statement'. The statement is different for every precinct, and reflects the DESIRED character of an area, rather than its past mistakes. Because each neighbourhood was involved in designing the statement for its place, there is now a unique degree of community influence over developments. All future developments must fit into the kind of place its residents want it to become in future. It's now very hard to stuff up Warringah.
Introducing such a system in Wollongong would not be difficult. And provided it was done democratically, would provide a wonderful opportunity for neighbourhoods to start to take more responsibility for their futures.
There are two important initiatives which could bring back a lot of life and vitality to our traffic-ravaged town centres - places like Warrawong, Figtree, Fairy Meadow, Corrimal, Woonona, Bulli and Thirroul.
First, we need to actively design and construct places which encourage people to act like a community and meet each other in safe, people- friendly envionments. That is, we need to construct local civic precincts which are safe, attractive and traffic calmed.
This should not be a great challenge for our council. Most councils in Sydney have invested plenty of time and effort in creating high quality, protective public spaces, filled with outdoor chairs, trees, shade-sails, coffee shops, restaurants and child play facilities, which encourage a spirit of community life, letting neighbours meet each other and converse in a pleasant and easy atmosphere. This is what planners are for - they just need to be directed to get do it.
Second, we need to have an industry policy which explicitly bans large shopping malls. More than any other single influence, the large drive-in shopping malls are responsible for destroying the quality of neighbourhood life, and making our shopping centres economically depressed and unsafe, and hollowing out what ought to be the natural centres of community life.
Here is what Patrick Troy, Professor of Urban and Environmental Research at the ANU says about large shopping centres-
"Local suburban shopkeepers used to be the cornertone of their communities.
"They lived in the area, they ran their local footy teams, they knew the people who stopped in their shops and they knew the parents of the kids who are causing trouble.
"Malls, on the other hand, have been very good for big business but they have been terrible for communities.
"Malls just don't provide the same social interaction that community shopping centres do. They are a place where people park the car, get their goods and get out. They are not meeting places."
- Sydney Morning Herald, Scars of a suburb in decay, 3 May 1999.
Worse, shopping malls export their profits to shareholders in Sydney and global markets. Little of the money we spend in them to our communities and supports local businesses and jobs. Big shopping malls and chain stores like Woolworths, Macdonalds, Office Works and Home Hardware are like machines that pump our money elsewhere, preventing the development of a strong local economy capable of sustaining much employment. The kids who work in these places will have to move to Sydney if they want work when they move off junior rates.
This is something that is within the planning powers of local government and can be easily acted on as part of an broader industry policy aimed at encouraging and supporting local businesses.
This is a vital area for imagining new policies. I think it is essential that council stops merely pleading for investment by big companies and works creatively to build local businesses and a vibrant local economy.
There are a lot of good ideas going around - here are a few...