In response to undecideds who said they want to hear about substantive differences in the Boston mayoral candidates’ visions, I decided to make my case for Marty Walsh in a series of posts comparing Walsh and John Connolly’s policy proposals. So far I’ve covered education and housing. Today I look at economic development, a very broad topic that includes job creation, workforce training, business growth, and land use. For many people, this is the most important area of policy, and the area most in need of a dramatic new vision. And unlike other categories, it reaches beyond the city: everyone in Greater Boston, Massachusetts, and even New England has a stake in the city’s economic progress.
Connolly’s ideas for economic development are focused on fostering entrepreneurship, keeping successful start-ups in Boston as they grow, and boosting small businesses with the goal of “making Boston a competitive job creator.” He frequently mentions these elements of his plan:
- A “start-up clearinghouse” to help new companies navigate bureaucracy, find partners and job-seekers, and get access to low-cost office space;
- A “Buy Boston” marketing program;
- A “Made-in-Boston” venture capital firm that would “encourage” local banks to “pool their resources to invest” in local businesses.
Other aspects of his plan include recruiting “anchor” companies in various industries; studying disparities and supporting women and minority-owned businesses; removing barriers to small businesses and creative professions; and creating pathways to law enforcement careers. Connolly also has articulated the belief that education is the single most important factor in the city’s progress in the long term. His education plan is essential to his broadest vision for Boston’s economic development.
Walsh’s economic development plan is led by the major restructuring proposal he recently announced. In it, “all planning, development, economic research, tourism and other related activities would be consolidated” under an Economic Development Cabinet, charged with operating a Boston Economic Development Authority. The plan explains how this new agency would be structured, before outlining the areas of development it would focus on: full-scale community planning in the neighborhoods, downtown revitalization, unblocking stalled developments, recruiting new businesses, and addressing disparity issues.
Walsh’s fuller vision of economic development also includes his proposals for “workforce development” and “technology and innovation.” In job training, he expands on his experience bringing underrepresented people into the trades to create a multi-industry plan with programs for people facing different types of challenges. His “Technology and Innovation” brief contains ideas similar to Connolly’s about supporting start-ups in neighborhood settings, as well as, for example, providing the highest standard of data infrastructure throughout the city. Like Connolly’s, many of Walsh’s economic development plans also link back to his education plan, especially in the area of high school reform.
As in the other policy areas, you can see the difference made by Walsh’s months-long volunteer advisory project, in greater specificity and in wider coverage of the challenges facing the city and all its different kinds of residents. The decisive difference, though, is not in their respective levels of detail, but in their views of the big picture. Rather than simply assembling bright ideas, Walsh is looking squarely at the harder, but ultimately essential, first step of re-imagining the entire bureaucratic landscape affecting economic development. His consolidation plan is about much more than efficiency. It’s a long-overdue turn toward accountability, consistency, and transparency, qualities that have been lacking in the current administration’s approach to development and business.
The problem with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), for example, is that it already is under the mayor’s control (via the power to appoint its board), but without any mechanisms of accountability. The dispersal of smaller development-related agencies and offices similarly frustrates transparency. Boston has managed to grow in recent years despite this opaque and arcane system, but there is a feeling across the city — often quite visible in empty lots, unfinished buildings, and departed companies — that we could be doing much better. We may even be at a crossroads, facing the possibility of serious stagnation. Making the mayor directly accountable for development policies, making approval processes transparent and consistent, and giving the community a dependable forum for input are essential to sound long-term growth. The innovative programs everyone is touting will depend on that foundation of good government.
As in his housing plan, in job creation Connolly is pitching ideas that sound worthy and may produce some success stories, or may produce a storage closet full of unused “Buy Boston” stickers. Will small local banks want to carve out parts of their business lending books and pool them into a higher-risk venture capital model? I don’t know. But I don’t think these plans address a big-picture problem. Connolly has called in a general way for change in how the city does business, but has not made it his focus or proposed disrupting the established order.
Walsh’s plan is chock full of targeted ideas, but he has pledged to lead off with major structural reform around how we envision, plan, approve, and support economic activity in the city. I think this speaks again to the broader and bolder vision he has had to develop representing a dense, dynamic district, and as a labor leader at the table for major development deals.
