Municipal Research Prompts

Ideas in search of collaborative responses

As I continue to explore the changing economy with the rise of “sharing” or “peers” or “platforms” or “disaggregation” or “access” or whatever you choose to term it, there become more questions than answers.

We clearly need to take all of the tools of government, and use those to reorder what we are doing to both accommodate change, but moreover to soften any harmful unintended consequences — of which there are many that loom.

It is clear that we are undergoing a major change in terms of labor, property, and our relationship to the standard structures of law. It is clear that cities and municipalities are the front lines in this change, and that we will see successes and failures in regulatory entreprenuership. The workstations in the laboratories of democracy will become the same for the economy, and in that midst of disruptive change will either catch or let slip the harms that will continue to crash down on those who are already disenfranchised.

Thus I wonder

Could and should we manage the rising cost of city property with any combination of the following:

1. City government as property ower with long term leaseholds, ala Hong Kong?
2. City government as the TOPA purchaser, ala Paris?
3. Commerical rent control?
4. Disaggregation of the high street model?
5. Municipal regulatoyr design for required temporary use of empty storefronts?
6. Other structures of incentives or interventions?

Can we forestall the detrimental impact of gentrification on communities with a combination of the following:

1. Community benefit land trusts with affordability market caps?
2. Required ROI to impacted residents from underlying REITS or other financial vehicles?

Are 1099 contractors:

1. Employees
2. Part-time employees
3. Contractors
4. Micro businesses
5. Consumers
6. A new thing all together
7. Some combination of the above

If Obamacare was the first pillar of Federal structures to support the “sharing” economy, what comes next? What is needed?

If “data” is so valuable, should a certain amount of data become a public good to create an open platform for the new economy? How do we smooth this out:

1. Individual information privacy to
2. Business data collection/creation and ownership to
3. Government monitoring to ensure regulatory compliance to
4. Public interest in government data transparency to
5. Open data as a public good that drives economic growth.

Can we withstand a municipal framework for regulatory choice? That means:

1. Can we have government maintained regulations co-exist with private, self-regulatory structures?
2. Can we create a space that allows industries or industries players to reasonably opt-out of public regulation with appropriate monitoring?
3. Can we monitor self-regulated industries or industry players fully, accurate, and fairly?

Can we transcend the harms of the current professional licensing structures by transforming these spaces with the option of regulatory choice?

Can we create a fair baseline for dispute resolution at the municipal government level that helps offset the potential for discrminatory or fraudulent harm within the private platforms?

Can we redesign background checks to have fair and effective gradiations? Can we manage public safety while mending the detrimental scars that the drug wars left on American communities and families? Can we find a workable system to help people get back to work?

Do we need to apply the principles of international conflict resolution and international development to our own communties? Can we do with with humility?

What are the harms to DC — beyond the obvious harms to the dispossessed — if the city fully gentrifies?

There are more questions than answers. But first we have to ask the right questions.

Responses are welcome.