To Combat Trump, Make the Philadelphia City Charter a Moral Document

Answering Trump

In the first of a series about responding to Trump's election, a Drexel professor imagines iii local game-changing initiatives. First up: Change the City Lease

Jan. 18, 2017

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in the election of 1860, it fix off a clash betwixt Northern and Southern states. White Southerners could hardly have been expected to turn down the economic reality of a slave society on which they depended. Meantime, the urbanizing, industrializing North was on an economical trajectory in which slavery had ceased to exist useful, and thus a moral position against it could take concord. Both were understandable in that they represented economic realities from which people could hardly escape, but one conspicuously represented progress while the other represented capitulation to the by.

So information technology goes today, when, to speak in gross but reasonably authentic generalities, the Trump one-half of America is rural and exurban. The other half lives in the core cities and their closer-in suburbs. Both sides see the other as an existential threat.

These are two separate worlds because they are based in separate material realities. Trump Earth finds its economic basis in the industrial and manufacturing economy, the military, and in domestic law enforcement and corrections—prisons, in other words. Urban World finds its economic ground in high-end service sectors that tend to cluster in larger cities and their nearby suburbs, such as higher education, wellness and medicine, the police, and finance; and their coincident, lower-end service sectors, namely hospitality.

Trump World is concerned with the lack of good jobs, about which it believes elites largely don't intendance; the erosion of a sense of customs and a traditional American style of life; the declining significance of American power in an increasingly chaotic globe; and the inroad of that world into America through immigration. The Urban World believes that the traditional American way of life is premised on intolerance, and that new traditions more than accepting of departure are needed; that large cities are the ground for both a new economy and a new sense of American community; and that national borders are fake constructs that encourage nationalism and war machine-based solutions, and which divert us from crises that crave global solutions, most notably climatic change.

Like to the U.South. Constitution, the Home Rule Charter of Philadelphia is a rule book that reflects the ethics of our city. Withal unlike the Constitution, there is very little of a narrative surrounding our Charter which explains its ideals in a way that socializes city residents into a greater recognition of what it ways to be a denizen of Philadelphia.

Maybe nada better captures the progressive, forrad-looking orientation of Urban World versus the regressive, backward-facing orientation of Trump World than the fact that, as Marker Muro and Sifan Liu at the Brookings Establishment have found, "The less-than-500 counties that Hillary Clinton carried nationwide encompassed a massive 64 per centum of America's economical activeness equally measured by total output in 2015. By contrast, the more-than-2,600 counties that Donald Trump won generated just 36 pct of the country'southward output—just a petty more i-third of the nation's economic activity."

The Civil State of war was premised on a user-friendly geographic divide, synthetic over fourth dimension through such things as the Missouri Compromise, the Mason-Dixon line, and the demarcation of gratuitous and slave states. The divisions between Trump World and Urban Earth are far messier; metropolitan areas exercise not coincide with country borders but are spread, roughly speaking, across the edges of the United States, surrounding Trump World. Moreover, metropolitan areas are fragmented among thousands of local governments. Whereas the conflict that defined the Civil War was one betwixt the states, the conflict between Trump World and Urban World is one betwixt local governments and the states.

How can Urban World brace itself for its accelerating crash into Trump World? We need to reconstruct American federalism then that cities accept their rightful place alongside states as sovereign powers. The outset steps are to create a stronger sense of citizenship based on the unique and fundamental virtues of cities; to strengthen the partnership between cities and universities; and to make moves toward the revival of municipal consolidation by building metropolitan-wide political coalitions. The next steps would be to then actually consolidate metropolitan areas into single larger cities, take back ability from u.s.a. or brand new city-states, and fundamentally rethink the role of our near powerful metropolis institutions, specially the police and schools.

Institutions do not change easily. But the urban center every bit an institution is as well a reflection of our ideals, and the mode to effect change is to realign our ethics with our new reality. Over the next few weeks, I'll introduce three modest proposals that should move us toward that goal, and hopefully jumpstart a conversation about how Urban Earth tin begin to caryatid itself against a newly empowered Trump World.

Make the City Charter a Moral Document

The The states Constitution is a dominion book which reflects the country's ethics with regard to governance and citizenship. Yet someone who was unfamiliar with the larger narrative of the American founding might exist hard pressed to discern those ideals merely by reading the Constitution, which is 1 reason that the naturalization examination for U.S. citizenship includes questions about American history. In fact, the ideals reflected in the Constitution are more clearly expressed in other documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the newspaper articles that comprise the Federalist Papers.

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The ethics reflected in the U.Southward. Constitution are sustained through didactics, possibly about importantly through borough lessons in elementary school. I ask the college students in my American authorities classes when they learned about the importance of our system of separate branches of regime that check and balance one some other. They all know what I'g talking about, and they all know its importance, but almost don't retrieve when they learned about it; they tend to have dim memories dating back to well-nigh the second or third grade.

By the fourth dimension I meet my students in college we can poke fun at their civic didactics—but generally it worked; they all take one shared sense that their land is based on a specific set up of wide ideals reflected in legitimate institutions that seem and then obvious equally to be practically unquestionable. In fact, our poking fun at vague American ideals such every bit "freedom" or "democracy" is an important office of that socialization. Beingness socialized does not mean being brainwashed; internalizing a set of values in a free lodge provides the criteria by which nosotros can critique that society for not living up to its values, or fifty-fifty suggest that mayhap other values are more important.

Similar to the U.Due south. Constitution, the Home Rule Lease of Philadelphia is a dominion book that reflects the ideals of our city. Yet unlike the Constitution, at that place is very fiddling of a narrative surrounding our Charter which explains its ideals. There are no well-known ancillary documents that explain the ideals of our urban center, and at that place is at best an anemic apparatus for educating Philadelphians—especially immature Philadelphians—about the unique and specific ethics reflected in our system of local governance.

When our Charter is discussed—typically only amidst lawyers, city officials, or other nerdy types—it is discussed in terms of technical reforms that would in all likelihood accept either minimal or unintended consequences (term-limiting legislators, for instance, frequently has the unintended result of empowering lobbyists). What might be really more impactful than technical reform would be the structure of a narrative around the Charter that explains the unique ideals it reflects, and which could be used equally a tool for socializing city residents into a greater recognition of what it means to be a denizen of Philadelphia.

In Texas, school children are expected to exist familiar with several important historical figures by the first grade—not simply folks similar George Washington, but specific figures in Texas history, such as Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, and Jose Antonio Navarro. In seventh course, students are required to study Texas history. And students at the University of Texas at Austin who take the Advanced Placement Government and Politics Examination take to pass a "Test of Texas Regime."

Education is the key to constructing civic identity, and nosotros could apply educational activity to create a stronger sense of the ideals reflected in Philadelphia citizenship. The most obvious identify to get-go is with the metropolis's unproblematic and secondary schools, for which Texas might serve every bit an example. Every bit laid out in the Texas Teaching code, school children are expected to exist familiar with several important historical figures past the get-go grade – not just folks like George Washington, but specific figures in Texas history, such as Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, and Jose Antonio Navarro – and to identify both the United States and Texas on a world map. In the seventh grade students are required to study Texas history and learn, among other things, "the construction and functions of municipal, canton, and country governments… the influence of the U.S. Constitution on the Texas Constitution, and… the rights and responsibilities of Texas citizens." For students going to college at the Academy of Texas at Austin who take taken the Advanced Placement Government and Politics Exam, that exam only counts for college credit if they besides pass a "Exam of Texas Authorities."

Besides schools, there are several other places where Philadelphia civics might be taught. For instance, when anyone buys property in the city, they could be required to take an online Philadelphia citizenship test, similar to those that corporations requite their employees on topics such as workplace harassment or data security. Having taken many of those online tests myself (Drexel requires them for its employees to be eligible for annual merit raises), I know they are annoying and easily mocked. But they work; if they didn't, insurance companies wouldn't lower premiums to companies who compel their employees to take them.

Civic educational activity tin can exist hands dismissed, especially in Philadelphia where the city grapples with and so many serious and firsthand issues. But civic didactics is a powerful tool which requires a minimal investment, and which tin can exist put to many different purposes.

The idea of having an agreed-upon dominion book for what it means to be a citizen of Philadelphia can unite our diverse population around common cause at a time when Urban World finds itself then often pitted against Trump Globe.

Side by side up: How rethinking the relationship between cities and their universities can transform the status quo.

Richardson Dilworth is the interim department head of the Section of Politics, the managing director of the Center for Public Policy and a professor of political science at Drexel Academy.

Header photo by A. Birkan ÇAGHAN via Flickr

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/change-philadelphia-city-charter/

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