Mayors: Against the Wind

ONE OF THE INSIGHTS YOU DISCOVER IN RESEARCHING how successful mayors around the world operate is that virtually none of them claim to run their respective cities like a business. In other words, accomplishment is found in something else than a mere corporate model. This isn’t to downplay the importance of sound economic management or the claim that good business leaders can’t be good mayors. It’s just that their success is found in a more expansive and complex view.To claim that a city is just like a business and should follow the same disciplines does a great disservice to both cities and businesses. Good businesses provide goods and services, and hopefully research and development, only insofar as it is profitable to do so. It's how they function. It's a highly competitive model. We understand the concept and appreciate the choices it provides for the consumer.But civic governments are required to deliver public goods and services, and in order to be successful they must provide them often in ways that are sometimes unprofitable. No civilization is worth anything that cuts out the frail, elderly, infants, those suffering mental illness, the natural environment, or the jobless. There have been governments like that in history and they aren't what we'd like to emulate.Cities shouldn’t just provide choices, but one clear choice: the right to live life as fully as possible whatever a person’s status, and the opportunity to do so in community. For this to work there must be wheelchair ramps and not just sidewalks, daycare and not just babysitting, meaningful work and not just servitude, sustainability and not just abundance, health and not mere healthcare, compassionate wealth and not just money, citizens and not just consumers. The list goes on and on.At their very essence, cities aren’t businesses, but a public good designed to serve the entire citizenry, not just those that can compete or who can afford it. A CEO might very well sack people in order to achieve some kind of efficiency, but a mayor has to find ways to get people back to work. There is a difference and to confuse the two is to bring havoc among citizens. To do so would be to harm the broad public collaboration that made cities work in the first place. Successful communities are those that mobilize the most citizens possible.The very best mayors are those who operate as though a city is an ethical and human enterprise aimed at promoting the success and well-being of everyone. And if that doesn’t happen, then we get the ironic situation where governments can actually suffer the same fate as poorly run businesses. Citizens are getting fed up with the mere financial model of many governments and explore other alternatives (products, if you will). Paradoxically, as with business, citizens and voters desire to take their democratic shares and invest them in people and programs that bring them the highest public good. So those who claim cities should be run like a business had best be careful what they wish, because the result could be a takeover or a loss of citizen market share.To be truly successful, a mayor must comprehend that a city’s greatest asset is it’s human capital and that its bottom line the welfare of all citizens. To say that running a city is like running a business is as shortsighted and foolish as saying a family should be run like a corporation. This is something all the mayors in these posts have agreed upon, and that's why they're different.For too many years cities were told to go along to get along by more senior levels of government, private industry, and special interests, and mayors historically played to that tune. The sand is now running out of that hourglass and it is a new breed of mayors who fight for the uniqueness of their respective communities, as found in their human potential, that are succeeding. Those kites that fly the highest are the ones that fight against the wind. Cities are where democracy is being reborn and where citizens are finding an identity – collective and individual.  Citizens are investors and not just taxpayers, and they wish to be part of creating their own future.  Businesses can be effective, but a city run along the same corporate lines? It’s so much more, and it requires someone who understands that reality to take our communities to new elevations. Mayors only matter as they are able to rise to the height of citizens' potential.