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Stephen Goldsmith on Rebuilding New Orleans

The complex challenge of rebuilding New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina has begun in earnest - with federal, state and local resources directed toward delivering crucial public services, supporting business districts, and reconstructing neighborhoods. How government can and should carry out these essential tasks is changing rapidly, affecting not only New Orleans, but cities and states throughout America.

Stephen Goldsmith is Daniel Paul professor of government and director of the Innovations in American Government program. He is also the principal national consultant to the 'Government Effectiveness Committee' of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's Bring Back New Orleans Commission. As a former two-term mayor of Indianapolis, Goldsmith focuses his research on government management and reform in the 21st century.

Q: What are the most unique and difficult challenges facing officials in New Orleans?

Goldsmith: The total collapse of the infrastructure - the government infrastructure and the physical infrastructure, the civic infrastructure - creates challenges in New Orleans that are almost unmatched in any recent American city. So it's a hugely difficult situation because you have to create confidence that the city is going to come back. Tangible activities have to occur. At the same time, there has to be inclusive planning that brings people together. There has to be telegraphing, if you will, about what infrastructure is going to be put back in place first. Urban challenges are pretty significant anyway, and mayors face enormous obstacles as they go about their daily work. The challenges in New Orleans are at a scale and a complexity that, maybe with the exception of part of New York City and 9/11, have been unmatched in recent history. But the tools are in place and the will is in place, I really think, to have New Orleans come back.

Q: How should limited reconstruction monies best be channeled to most effectively rebuild the city?

Goldsmith: We've been talking a fair amount at the Kennedy School and in the new book 'Governing by Network' about the fact that government has inherently changed. The idea that bureaucrats tell other bureaucrats to tell other bureaucrats what to do, and that produces enough good to make the country or the state or the city work well just doesn't fit anymore. There's just too much public demand and too few resources. New Orleans is right square in the middle of this new concept of governing by network because there isn't enough government, by itself, to put New Orleans back together again.

So, what's the role of government? Well, the roll of government - city and state in particular, and to some extent federal - is to marshal and leverage resources: faith-based providers who have been heroic in the aftermath of Katrina; for-profit companies that can produce goods and services efficiently; the secular community service groups that are out there working diligently, like United Way, the American Red Cross and the like. So the role of government is to activate that network and to demand accountability for public money, to produce goods and services that are necessary for New Orleans to come back. It's a very different role for New Orleans - it's a very different role for government generally - but governing by network is really the future of government, and is the present in New Orleans today.

Q: Then would you say that government itself will be different in New Orleans?

Goldsmith: The problem with government is it's very good at narrow, vertically delivered services where there's a series of rules that need to be enforced fairly and consistently and you have to do 'this.' But when a city collapses - or even a family collapses - that person looks at his or her problems horizontally. They have work problems, they have transportation problems, they have childcare problems, they have 'name-the-problem.' And so you have to integrate the solution. And a city is an even more complex situation because it puts together all these complexities in every family in every situation. So, how can government respond? Well, government needs to take responsibility for making sure the services come together, but it can't do all those things itself. So, New Orleans could very well, if it engages the civic society and the not-for-profit and the faith-based and government, and holds people accountable - public money needs to be held to a high standard, so there has to be accountability. But you can put things together in a way that produces an ever-better government for New Orleans, and a model for the rest of the country, if they choose to do it this way.

Q: How can public leaders throughout the country resolve the apparent conflict between making government smaller, on the one hand, while at the same time making it more efficient and responsive to the taxpayer?

Goldsmith: I've never thought that saving money means that you have to either do things worse or do less of them. Anybody can save money by doing things worse - that's not much of a manager's challenge. The issue is, how do you produce more public goods, and a higher quality of public goods, and spend less money per unit in doing it? So you can either grow the number of things you do, increase the quality you do, or if you wish you can save money and reduce taxes. Those are policy decisions. And the idea that you have to do things worse to save money is, I think, kind of like saying the way to lose weight is to cut off your left arm. It's not the most appropriate way to go about it.

So how do you manage productivity? How do you manage performance? How do you leverage for-profit providers to help you do things? How do you give incentives to workers so that they have more reason and more tools to produce better resources? So whether it's performance pay or more discretion on the part of the worker or better management/labor relationships - there's a whole range of tools. And even competition - public vs. private - produces the kind of successes that are written up in Kennedy School case studies and provide a lot of meaningful grist for public leaders around the country.

Q: What are the key roles that the private and nonprofit sectors can play in partnering with government in delivering necessary public services?

Goldsmith: Each sector has a role to play - and remember that a thriving New Orleans, or a thriving city, is based on thriving communities and neighborhoods which are based on thriving families. So we have these building blocks and they all have to succeed. And we saw, many of us who worked in the 'model cities' days, that there's no huffing and puffing by governmental loan that, if civil society doesn't come back, will work. So you have to deploy those public resources in a way that builds up the capacity and the commitment and the buy-in of local communities. And when those things come together - as civic infrastructure is resilient and it will come back - but it has to be supported by government. And so we see-in New Orleans and Arkansas and Mississippi - the faith-based providers are doing really heroic work with respect to housing and shelter. But they need public money because the demands are so great.

So it's the arranging of those sectors, it's bringing them together, it's understanding what each adds to the total mix that will allow a really successful future outcome for New Orleans and other cities in similar situations.