American Singapore(s): Competent city governance hiding in plain sight

Carmel Indiana is an example of focusing on growth.

* They didn't do austerity. The whole low taxes run the place on a shoestring wasn't the game. Carmel did not do extravagant government buildings until they were affordable, and paid for by the development around them. For a long time city hall was almost a re-purposed dentist's office.

* Carmel did not invest in poverty. Carmel pushed it out of town. Now it is extremely wealthy per-capita.

* People laugh at the sheer number of roundabouts, but those have had a huge effect on public health by reducing both the frequency of accidents and more importantly, most accidents are now lower speed with less damage to life and property.

Yes, Carmel took on a lot of debt. Yes, they invested that debt heavily in making Carmel a nice place to live and work. jim Brainerd, the mayor, knew one thing the article missed: if you are growing, the tax base is always expanding. Carmel was also extremely long-game focused on development: as bonds mature, tax abatements and incentives expire in a way that will enable rapid retirement of the debt.

The leading example in the article is Carmel, Indiana. I am not sure what has been done there should be described as a model of competent governance. This is a small city (100k people/50k workers/37k households [1]) where the city has taken on major amounts of debt (1.4$billion/14k per person/28k per worker/38k per household) to create public amenities.

The financial logic of what Carmel is doing centers around zero-sum competition with neighboring communities. Carmel is betting that by being the nicest place with the fanciest amenities, they will attract the richest families and be able to support that heavy debt burden in the coming decades.

This is explicitly not a model that every community could follow! It relies on spending more than would be prudent for the current tax base, in the hopes of standing out in comparison to other communities. And for sure its a bet that could fail badly, depending on general economic conditions. Its too soon to tell if the gamble will work out successfully, and very hard to tell even in hindsight how risky it was, succeed or fail.

[1] https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/IN/Carmel-Demogr...

> Las Vegas, Nevada, has tackled a historic drought by pioneering water conservation strategies, cutting per capita usage by nearly half despite rapid population growth

Emphasis mine. Per capita does not necessarily increase when population does, and definitely shouldn’t increase at a similar rate

This isn't Singapore anything, it's just competent local government.

I'd like to see some of the leading benefactors donate to cities that demonstrate this level of civic service and professional delivery. There's no reason that governments can't receive donations like non-profits and charities do.

Some of the northern suburbs of DFW have done a good job managing explosive growth. Lots of parks, trails, mixed use development and places to actually live a life and not just work/getdrunk. It wasn’t that long ago when Frisco was just a blinking yellow light and a row of “massage parlors” in trailer homes (quite literally). Now it’s the poster child for successful suburb.

There are probably better examples to be found. The "competence" comes at a price - extremely high levels of inequality, utter lack of civil liberties, a one-party authoritarian regime and so forth.

Should Singapore really be put on a pedestal? They have inhumane laws and violate human rights regularly. Even free speech doesn’t truly exist there - some topics like criticizing religions are off limits. Competency in some areas through authoritarianism isn’t a sign of competency in general.

Singapore cannot be a benchmark for a city in the US. The tradeoffs are not worth it.

My goodness, nowhere near Singapore efficiency. 10 years to reduce to 60% homelessness. Singapore did to 90% in less than 10 years with near nothing other than pure debts and human capital in the 70s. And not only that they managed to maintain that for more than 3 decades. I would like to see Camel in 10 years time when they flip or some incompetent mayor voted in. When they able to do it 3 decades in a row, come back and let me know. PLUS all the example cited spread across multiple cities. Singapore had done it all in one single city and much more with less than 3-5M people. Again when you have something like that in America then I am impress. Otherwise, American achievement mentioned there dime a nickel many spread across Eastern Asia. Don't ride on Singapore tailcoat. USA is one of the worst country in a lot of metrics to benchmark against Singapore. Even the so call journalism freedom metric is just mirage in USA....look who employ those journalists. Their news outlet are so bizzare is like they reporting an alternate multiverse USA that I am not aware of.

Singapore is the most boring, sterile place I've ever been. I'd take Tokyo, Taipei, or Hong Kong over it in a heartbeat. The entire country reminds me of a mall. William Gibson's 1993 Wired article "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" (https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/) is still as relevant as ever.

I saw a fascinating talk that convincingly argued that the Chinese Communist Party has taken its game plan over the last 30 years from Singapore, a de facto one party state led by the People's Action Party. It's interesting to note that this party was founded on socialist principles but is now firmly capitalist.

I would also mention Reno, Nevada which what managed to hugely transform the downtown/midtown area from what was an incredibly seedy place with hourly motels and homeless to something closer to average that you can take your family to. Lots more hip bars and restaurants, walkable areas, upgraded bus transport in the downtown/midtown area, and the UNR campus which abuts the downtown is significantly upgraded from what it was 10 years ago with beautiful new buildings and lots of new student housing.

Key actions: - Far more housing built, especially mid-upper end apartments - Actively partnered with real estate developers to get rid of unutilized land in downtown/midtown and purchase and upgrade what were once sketchy motels - New transportation options in the area to make it more walkable/accessible with a scooter partnership (geofenced to the area) and bus service

Edit to add: Almost all of this has been under the leadership of the current three term mayor who is an independent (or nonpartisan, forget exactly how she bills herself) showing how impactful local office can be. However, she does get some flak for not solving the local homeless problem, but personally having lived in SF, I understand how that's a much more difficult/intractable issue.

Isn't Singapore basically relying on the cheap labor of malaysian workers from right across the border?

Americans might like the results; but they would take up arms against the big overbearing state and its socialism if anyone suggested any of the reality.

To this list I would add: San Mateo county, California. I live there. Our house is located in a valley below street grade and so we have a sewage ejector pump. That pump is maintained by the county. In the ~15 years we have lived here it has failed twice. Both times we called the county and a crew came out to fix it without an hour. Both times we had to pay nothing. It was, quite literally, our tax dollars at work.

This is the thing that drive me batshit crazy about the libertarian tech bros who live here. They appear to be willfully ignorant of the fact that the reason quality of life here is so high is not because we have no government, but because we have competent government that quietly and without fanfare just takes care of business behind the scenes so that the tech bros can do their thing without having to worry about fixing their sewage ejector pumps.

TL;DR: Investing money smartly at the local level and cooperation between stakeholders on a long-term vision produces positive outcomes.