Cities Running a Profit Is Sexy
Image Credit: Damir Spanic on Unsplash.
Eighteen years ago, when I first started dating the woman who would become my wife, I told her, “When I die, I want to bounce my last check.” What I was trying to say, in language meant to impress (it didn’t work), was that I wanted to take risks—even potentially catastrophic risks—for the sake of a good story and a life fully lived.
I had completely forgotten about this conversation until recently, when Kate, my wife, brought it up. I have since reflected on how time, experience, and responsibility have changed my perspective on, well, pretty much everything. I still want to “live deep and suck the marrow out of life,” as Thoreau put it, but that looks very different now. As a husband, father, and neighbor, I must think beyond the thrill of the moment. The decisions I make effect not just me and not just the present, but ripple beyond me and into the future. For the sake of my family and community, I take the long view. My job is to make it more likely that my kids and their neighbors will be able to thrive long after I’m gone. This has implications in every aspect of life. But from a financial standpoint, that probably means not bouncing the last check I write before I die. Put another way, it means my family and I must run a profit.
In his book, Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, Chuck Marohn describes the reactions he gets when he asks audiences whether or not towns and cities should run a profit. The feedback, he says, generally falls somewhere between contempt and disgust.
The very suggestion is offensive for many people who believe that government is about serving people. It is the way we work together to do things—services that a marketplace focusing on profit just can’t accomplish.
As Chuck goes on to say, the audience’s reaction, while wrong, is understandable. For some, the idea of a municipality running a profit is incompatible with their belief that local government should be altruistic. Others consciously or subconsciously associate profit with profiteering. They think of slumlords collecting rent on substandard housing, or of greedy corporations taking advantage of employees and customers alike to nudge share prices even a little bit higher. City Hall, at least, should be a place where we don’t have to worry that someone is cutting corners to save a buck, or squeezing every last dime from the people they’re meant to serve.
I hope it’s obvious that’s not what we mean at Strong Towns when we say cities must run a profit. (Nor do we think businesses should be operated that way.) The word “profit” carries a certain amount of baggage today, yet its etymology is interesting, stretching back to Latin words that implied doing something on someone’s behalf and being useful. The word “profit” is also closely related to the word “proficient.”
When we say cities should be profitable, we mean, very simply, that expenses don’t exceed revenue. The way to do that is by being relentless about our current finances; by not betting our futures on huge, irreversible projects (cities shouldn’t “bounce their last check when they die”); and by being genuinely useful, meeting the actual needs of neighbors.
A city that is profitable, proficient, and useful is well on its way to being enduring...and enduring is a city’s primary goal. In Strong Towns, Chuck describes it as “an infinite game.” An insolvent city—like a bankrupt family—doesn’t cease to exist: life just gets more difficult.
An insolvent city will linger on, performing its functions poorly, failing to serve—and in some instances, doing harm to—the people that form the community it governs. For cities to function properly, running a profit is essential. For those involved in local government, it must be a functional obsession.
My wife made it clear to me all those years ago (and numerous times since) that living so close to the edge, to the extent that I would bounce my last check when I died, wasn’t as sexy as I thought it was. In fact, it was unwise and even selfish.
It’s time for towns and cities to rethink sexy too, and for the same reasons. If we’re not careful, our legacy will be the mess we leave for others to clean up.
Want to read more on this topic? These articles are a good place to start:
John Pattison is the Community Builder for Strong Towns. In this role, he works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. John is the author of two books, most recently Slow Church (IVP), which takes inspiration from Slow Food and the other Slow movements to help faith communities reimagine how they live life together in the neighborhood. He also co-hosts The Membership, a podcast inspired by the life and work of Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, writer, and activist. John and his family live in Silverton, Oregon. You can connect with him on Twitter at @johnepattison.
Want to start a Local Conversation, or implement the Strong Towns approach in your community? Email John.