Phil Gordon has apparently decided to play mayor against type.
Gordon has proved himself quite skilled at detailed problem-solving, especially in bringing people together with clearly or potentially conflicting agendas.
This is no small talent, and particularly useful in a mayor.
But it has left Gordon open to questions about the "vision thing," to use the phrase of President Bush 41, who also struggled with it.
When Gordon was running for mayor, political kibitzers worried whether he was capable of providing sufficient "vision" to lead the city. After he was overwhelmingly elected, the same doubt was expressed.
If Gordon’s maiden State of the City address last week is any indication, he has severely overreacted to the "vision thing" criticism.
To begin with, he said he wasn’t giving a prosaic "State of the City" speech. Instead, he was giving a "Future of the City" address. Vision, after all, is about the future.
And not only was Gordon going to be the big-idea mayor, he wants Phoenix to become "A City of Big Ideas."
The framework of Gordon’s vision for Phoenix’s future is a fairly superficial mixture of pop sociology and economics.
He borrowed Richard Florida’s concept of the "creative class" and then decocted it of any meaning.
Florida believes that people who "create meaningful new forms" are the engine of the modern economy and that regional economic success lies in persuading them to live in your community.
This is a debatable economic proposition, to put it mildly, but in Gordon’s "vision" it becomes incomprehensible.
According to Gordon: "The creative class is not an age group. Not Generation X. Not gender specific. Not just Ph.D.s and programmers. It’s blue-collar, white-collar and no-collar. It’s the high-rise architect and the person who fixes high-rise elevators. It’s an attitude. It’s the future. It’s now. It’s you."
Of course, if the creative class is everyone, it is really no one.
In any event, when we all get a creative class attitude and a downtown university campus, Phoenix will be "the knowledge center of the country."
As usual, the "vision thing" requires spending lots of other people’s money. Gordon wants to bulldoze Patriots Square and replace it with something that’s a signature symbol for Phoenix, like London’s Big Ben and Paris’ Eiffel Tower. And what might that be? Gordon didn’t say. Apparently not enough of us have the right ‘tude yet.
The county needs to build a new downtown hospital, and the University of Arizona needs to open up a new medical school next door. A really big idea, however, would be for the county to acknowledge government isn’t very good at running things like a hospital and get out of the business rather than spin it over to a special taxing district.
And taxpayers need to contribute to a $100 million Knowledge Economy Capital Fund to support ventures with insufficient merit to get people to invest their own money.
Sometimes the "vision thing" was downright creepy. Gordon wants schools to drug-test kids but tell only parents about dirty results. And cams in every neighborhood.
It was almost enough to make me run back to the office and join the ACLU.
Vision in a politician is a vastly overrated commodity. In fact, it’s usually a threat to the liberty and pocketbooks of the body politic.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan once titled a book of essays about public policy Coping. His point was that successful government was mostly about competently coping with problems as they arise, which happens rarely enough to merit a cheer when it does.
Coping is something Gordon would be good at. In fact, the best parts of his speech were when he addressed real-time problems, not a misty future. Fight crimes by targeting repeat offenders; that sort of thing.
Watching Gordon attempt to be a visionary, to play against type, was sort of painful. Hopefully it’s now out of his system.
Fortunately, there will be plenty of problems to be solved on his watch, which will undoubtedly productively occupy him.
The bet here is that Gordon will acquit himself well at it. He ought to be satisfied and proud of that.
And tell the kibitzers for whom it’s not enough, who are hung up on the "vision thing," to go suck a lemon.
Robert Robb
Republic columnist
