(Finalized article not yet published.)
City Laboratories of Democracy I
In 1932, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously mused that “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” These days, however, cities have had to step into the role of democratic laboratories in order to address critical issues where the efforts of state and national government leave much to be desired. On issues such as the environment and healthcare, cities are progressively creating and experimenting with public policy to address these critical issues.
A Green City
For many, the federal government has not taken enough steps to preserve the environment and mitigate global warming. In an interview with the HPR, Chicago Department of the Environment Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna stated that “the federal government certainly has not been pro-environmental. There are too many competing interests and the priorities do not seem to be where they need to be.” Lackadaisical attention to global warming and issues concerning the environment prompted cities such as Chicago to address problems at the local level that arose from these federal deficiencies.
Ever since 1989 when Mayor Richard Daley first stepped into office, one of his major goals was to the make the city of Chicago the most environmentally friendly city in the country. Since then, the city has passed legislation ranging from reducing carbon emissions, encouraging low sulfur diesel fuel in city vehicles, planting more than half a million trees, and developing almost four million square feet of green roofs. When asked about how Chicago had become so obsessed about the environment, Commissioner Malec-McKenna stated that “there was an evolution of perspective for all of us… being environmentally friendly became a part of the city infrastructure.” Newly created city departments and infrastructure allowed Chicago to utilize its unique resources, such as being able to hasten the building permit approval processes as an incentive for green development, to truly become one of the nation’s greenest cities.
Healthcare by the Bay
Despite federal deadlock concerning the state of healthcare in the United States, or perhaps because of the impasse, San Francisco decided earlier this year to phase in universal access to health care for all San Franciscans in city and county clinics. People, regardless of ability to pay, immigration status, or existing medical conditions have access to this affordable and preventative care.
Similarly to Chicago, leaders in San Francisco felt that federal and state governments were neglecting a critical need in society. Dr. Dana Hughes, Professor of Health Policy and member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at University of California San Francisco, told the HPR that “For whatever reason, healthcare is not a priority in the country. San Francisco decided that it didn’t want to wait.” Zachary Tuller, legislative aide to Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the legislation’s primary sponsor on the Board of Supervisors, told the HPR that “The city pays a lot of money to treat people who have not received preventative care. There has been no help from the state and federal governments in any meaningful way to address the situation. We had to do that independently of the state and federal government.”
Support for the health care legislation was overwhelming, as Zachary Tuller described matter-of-factly to the HPR. “It passed with unanimous vote of the board, which on controversial issues almost never happens.” It even seems to be catching on at the state level too, Tuller adds, because “since the health program has come online, new programs from the state have been formed to defer some costs for innovative health care.”
When state and federal government fail to take charge or gridlocks on important issues such as the environment and healthcare, it is up to local governments as a last resort to respond to these problems and experiment for their country through their own “laboratories.” When asked what mayors and other city leaders should think about when considering progressive urban reform, Barry Matchett, co-legislative director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, told the HPR that “Cities are flexible. They’re smaller than states; they’re certainly smaller than the federal government, so they can do things that work for their localities, that work for their business communities, and that work for their citizens.”
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