Public Libraries: The Challenge of Commercialization

An article in Forbes magazine recently caused a stir when the author argued that libraries were obsolete and ought to be replaced by Amazon and Starbucks. Why spend tax money, he asked, when commercial providers and meeting places can provide the same services? The article, however, goes beyond economic concerns, challenging the idea that a library, a service equally open to all without regard to wealth or social position, is even a public good.

 The system of public libraries is a uniquely American invention, centered on the idea that democracy requires an educated and informed populace with access to the information and resources necessary to achieve that goal. Along with the establishment of public schools, libraries were the vehicle for the education of working-class Americans, including the wave of new immigrants. They provided reading materials and meeting places, and encouraged lifelong education. Most importantly, they did so on a free and universal basis. Rich and poor, old and young, educated or not, all could meet at the library. Newly educated professionals curated the emerging system in the public interest.

Commercialization of public spaces poses a threat to the idea of free and equal public spaces open to all. In the commercial public space, access to information depends on the financial resources to obtain them, and such places often reproduce existing social and political hierarchies, discouraging a true public sphere. Imagine a poor person or a grandparent hanging out with the hip crowd at Starbucks in a book discussion group. At the same time, internet public spaces are often influenced by commercial concerns. The aim of Facebook, in the words of one of its founders, is to put eyeballs on the screen for potential advertisers. To have Amazon or a social network like Facebook curate media is to surrender the public interest to the interests of advertisers.

Calls to eliminate libraries are ironic since libraries are still going strong. In the previous decade library usage went up over 30%. Recent cuts in funding has led to a small decline but the Pew Foundation notes that libraries are especially popular among millennials. Restoration of funding cuts would stem any decline.  They are still a vital resource for young people, the elderly, and those interested in continuing education.

To maintain a vital and informed democratic public, we must put our resources into services like public libraries and oppose attempts to commercialize and monetize public goods. It is the only way to guarantee free and equal access to information for all.

 

 

 

 






 

 
 

The further adventures of the disappearing public access channels

You may have noticed a change in the new Spectrum cable channel lineup. Public Educational and Educational Channels have been moved to a much higher tier where they will be more difficult to watch. Unless you still had analog cable service in which case you already lost these channels without a digital converter.  Then you would have to find it on channel 97.1 2 or 3. If you want to watch a town board meeting you will have to make an effort to do so.

This type of maneuver is called channel slamming. Cable operators eager to free up space for new HDTV services are exiling channels designed to serve the public interest to cable Siberia. They thumb their nose at the public.

Cable TV was not supposed to be like that. Back in the early 1970's when cable owners sought expansion of cable services from a mere retransmitter of network signals to multichannel systems. They espoused what was called a blue skies outlook. In place of the scarcity of network broadcast channels it was going to provide an abundance of channels and greatly expanded menu of choices. Long before the digital age cable was promoted as an electronic superhighway, but cable was also supposed to be different. it was to provide on the one hand a menu of hyper local services, in order to give communities that had little voice on the network-based system, and it was to provide interactive, educational informational and even entertainment programming that was not going to be modeled on the network frame. Central to those aims were the establishment of Public Educational and Governmental channels which were meant to provide local content produced by and for the local community. They were also the result of a long struggle going back all the way to establishment of the radio broadcasting system, to provide a voice for ordinary citizens who could never afford to compete financially with the large established corporate networks. The facilities equipment and operating funds to run these channels was supposed to be provided by the cable companies from franchise fees paid by these companies to local municipalities.

There is a lot more I could say about the development of public access but for the purposes of this blog what is important is the stipulation that these local channels were supposed to be carried on the first tier of cable channels. Originally that meant the first 13 channels. The idea was that the local access channels run by and for the local community were supposed to be given priority. They were to be easily accessible to all subscribers. Companies were not allowed to bump channels up to a higher l level.

 All that has changed. Cable companies quickly abandoned their commitments to public service and the promise to create an alternative to network television. In order to build audiences, they filled their channels with old reruns of network shows and followed the network model. Once cable became a big industry original pioneers who were more like small business visionaries, were bought up and ownership became concentrated in the same corporate behemoths that cable was supposed to supplant. Public access instead of being welcomed became something to marginalize. They took up space that could be used for profit If the cable companies couldn't get rid of access they could do all they could including chronic underfunding and channel slamming to make it seem useless.

 Still there were some limits. New York state cable regulations still dictate that public access channels be carried on the lowest possible tier. Section 895.4 of the regulations of the PSC states "Channels designated for PEG use shall be included in the lowest level of service offered by the cable television franchisee,"

That seems straightforward. however, the notion of what constitutes the lowest tier had been redefined over the years.  Several years ago, when access channels disappeared from the analogue service I asked the PSC about this. All sudden the notion of "basic service" was defined as the first 99 channels and not the 2-13 or 2-16 as it has been done in the past. They didn't ask any of us about that or even inform us. Other municipalities in the state protested, Not Rochester. In addition, to get access channels on the analogue service you had to have a converter box which while free at first included a charge later on.

Still when access channels suddenly switched to the 1300 tier it seemed hard to find a way to see these as first tier channels. So, I decided to call the PSC and find out. That turned out to be a mistake.

 The first thing you are told at the PSC is to contact your cable company about your complaint. They really don't want to hear form the public or be bothered by them. I had to explain that my question had to do with PSC regulations, Since the cable company didn't seem to be abiding by them I needed to talk to the regulators. So I got over that hoop. But when I told the staff person I was asking about PEG regulations she didn't know what I was talking about. I had to explain to her that the term meant Public Educational and Governmental Programming. You would expect someone in a regulatory body to know that. She didn't know the answer to my question about carrying peg channels on the lowest tier, so she put me on hold to get an answer. I never got to talk with a commissioner or anyone who specialized in telecommunications. After being on hold I got what I consider to be either an ignorant answer. I was told that the only local cable channel required on the first tier was the spectrum local news channel?

 As you might imagine I was nonplussed. This was a brand new even unique interpretation of these requirements. Even when I talked to the PSC several years ago they cited the idea that such channels must be on the lowest tier -- they just reinterpreted it. I told the staff person as politely as I could that this did not seem to be consistent with the PSC own regulations and explained to her my earlier interactions with the PSC. That didn't get me anywhere. My only option is to petition for a ruling at the PSC.  But this never leads to a resolution in favor of consumers.

 It is frustrating when the regulators who are meant to serve the public interest are ignorant of their own regulations and constantly reinterpret the rules to favor the groups they are supposed to be regulating. It undermines faith in the governments ability to protect the public interest. But this should not be surprising. Many academics who study consumer regulation and protection, speak of something called regulatory capture. Agencies that are set up to protect the consumer or the public from dangerous or illegal practices, often become captured by the very interests they set out to regulate. There is a big financial incentive for this. Once regulators leave their position, their knowledge of rules and regulations and the ways to circumvent them are in demand by regulated interests, they can get a big payout becoming lobbyists for these industries if they keep in line when they serve as commissioners.

 

Connected Communities and Purpose-Built Communities

 One of the initiatives begun by RMAPI is a project they call connected communities. It is a project to revitalize the Beechwood and EMMA neighborhoods of the City of Rochester "utilizing the proven principles of the Purpose-Built Communities framework" These principles include" the need for mixed-income housing, cradle-to-career education, community health and wellness, and long-term economic development, and ultimately reduce poverty."  The principles stated on the Connected Communities Web Site are identical with those of Purpose Driven Communities As with the collective impact model I think the evidence for these "proven principles" is limited and at best ambiguous. Moreover, it represents principles driven by foundations with a corporate agenda not necessarily in the best interests of the community and especially the poor.

 We should look beyond the fancy marketing and rhetoric and take a closer look at what the Purpose-Built Community framework is and what is the main source of its claims to success.

Purpose Built Communities is a foundation concerned with Urban redevelopment originally started by well-known financial magnate Warren Buffet. hedge fund manager Julian Robertson and real estate magnate Tom Cousins. Its aim is to replicate the so-called success of the East Lake project started by Cousins. It might give the reader pause to reflect on whether a foundation started by these men who have made so much of the financial sectors necessarily has the interests of the poor in mind. 

The East Lake project which is the underpinning of the claims involved a transformation of the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta by Cousins twenty years ago.  In the 1990's it was one of the worst neighborhoods in the area with high crime poverty and a rundown public housing project. Cousins came in and bought the golf course in the neighborhood and put a lot of his own money into the project. 

Under Cousins direction the housing project was replaced by mixed income housing. Not all residents of the older housing were allowed back. There were strict requirements on the new housing. Felons for example were excluded. As a result 75% of the residents of the project left the area. Local public schools were replaced by Charter Schools, but here too students were cherry picked. The best ones attended the charter schools while the rest ended up in depleted public schools. Cousins also used pressure to get members of his new exclusive iteration of the golf club to give donations to the foundation he set up.

 Cousins initiatives had some success, crime went down considerably, and educational results seemingly improved, but at what cost. His plan did not revitalize the neighborhood as much as inducing a forced gentrification and resettlement program which improved the makers of the neighborhood through gentrification. 

A study led by Georgia State University Sociologist Deidre Oakley concluded that despite some marginal improvements, possibly caused by a soft rental market there, was no real change in the situation of those displaced by the East Lake project. She notes that that, at least statistically, the communities in which those homes are located are only marginally better than the old AHA projects: They still have high rates of violent crime, are overwhelmingly poor and are racially segregated. Instead of doing away with pockets of poverty, GSU's study indicates that the elimination of the housing projects simply caused most of those pockets to reform elsewhere. Pockets of poverty were simply displaced. Thus, the evidence of success that purpose built proponents cite is somewhat shaky, More recently Oakley I cited s in another article detailing the decrease in affordable housing in the Atlanta area, This will put more pressure on the displaced poor.

 Purpose Built community initiatives have not always been welcome with the alacrity shown in Rochester. A 2012 initiative proposed in Chattanooga brought widespread criticism from residents who objected to forced resettlement when housing projects would be torn down. There was little consultation with the community and little sense of how they viewed their own problems according to these critics.

 

IBM and collective impact or always follow the money

In a previous blog I discussed the collective impact model in order to discover exactly what the term describes and discuss some of the weaknesses according to critics. Here I want to ask another question. How did this model get adopted in Rochester. When you are looking at a political or policy decision of this sort it is often helpful to ask who has the power in this situation to get policies established. Power doesn't always mean just persuading or coercing someone to do what you want. It often means the ability to set the agenda for a project. If a person or group gets to set the rules they have the power to direct a process or project. How was the decision made to follow a collective impact model? It certainly wasn't the case that community partners and social work agencies got together to adopt, the impetus came from outside the community,

I mentioned that much of the impetus for the adoption of collective impact models came from foundations who were quick to adopt these models. In the case of RMAPI it seems that an IBM Smart Cities grant was the source of the initiative. IBM has given these grants to United Ways in places like the research triangle in North Carolina when they adapt the collective impact model of community services. In 2015 the Rochester United Way also got an IBM Smart Cities Challenge Grant. As part of this grant the IBM foundation seeks to find ways to get cities to address the future by making unban services more efficient. Sometimes these grants  concern ways to create greener and more sustainable cities. In other cases, like Rochester, they concern improving social services. As part of the grant IBM "contributes the skills and expertise of top IBM talent" to study critical challenges facing communities. They made a three week visit to an area and meet with "key stakeholders" to determine areas in which the RMAPI project is held back. You can imagine who the key stakeholders were. They were most likely political and business leaders, not the people effected by poverty. Most of  these recommendations have to do with questions  of efficiency and implementation of collective impact principles. Their recommendations are detailed in the report Rochester, New York Smart Cities Challenge Report.

The first thing you notice about this report is its technocratic approach. Poverty is addressed the same way a business might approach a supply problem. There is little in the way of poltical economic or sociological analysis of problems. It never assumes that power asymmetries or forms of domination have anything to do with poverty. Rather, it assumes that the current arrangements are suitable to solve the problems of poverty. Thus, the problems of poverty have to do with misalignment between services. The report claims that Rochester has sufficient social services, the problem is the way they are delivered. Thus, using the same type of principles used by collective impact. the problems of poverty are going to be addressed through a reorganization of social services using a notion of central organization. Data services like those provided by IBM will give us a greater idea of where services can be developed more efficiently, and proactive services will address populations before problems arise rather than after. This means providing support and services. to support those seeking jobs like daycare and other services to make sure that there are fewer barriers to get jobs. Using data services, the they will not only be able to share services but be able to measure results with data and guide decisions on poverty.

Let's think about this project for a minute. It certainly seems to be a top down project that essentially imports a business/technological model onto a complex social problem. It assumes that we can measure al aspects of poverty with a common measure. But what if the problems causing poverty  are not just technical but poltical. Poor people notoriously are not well organized and not effective politically. They often have a limited understanding of poltical processes not because of any inherent ability but lack of access. They have little chance to set agendas or exert influence. What if the aim of a nonprofit aims to make people better more effective citizens who have political impact. How do you measure that with a data set? This raises a more general problem with the collective impact approach which emphasizes quantitative measures of impact. It is an open question whether a one size fits all approach to data driven solutions can measure all the impacts. Nor is it clear that if we subordinate all groups to a central czar and imposed common measures, that we will not lose some of these other goals values and impacts which are not measurable in the way collective impact theories propose.

There is a second set of related concerns that revolve around the sources of poverty. For some collective impact theorists, the problems of poverty stem from system complexity and not from the organization of social power. That is they stem from problems of coordinating an economy that has many segments and elements. Addressing poverty also is a problem of coordination to address the problems of complexity. OF course, the idea of recasting poltical problems as issues of systems complexity without looking at problems of power has little chance of succeeding on the scale that RMAPI suggests. If for example an unregulated market economy in which power is distributed unequally will always generate a degree of poverty, then it is hard to see how questions of coordination help us avoid poverty. Mostly the collective impact programs stress individualized solutions to poverty. But if larger poltical economic forces continue to generate poverty then how does greater coordination of services make an impact. What is really needed are redistributive processes that counter the concentrated power of some groups in our economy,

In America today, good jobs are at a premium. Wages are stagnant and job growth has often been in low wage jobs. Work has become increasingly casual and contingent with few benefits or health. care. Some analysts have adopted the notion of precarity or precariousness to characterize the new economy. It is no longer possible to Increasingly the worker is one her own with fewer of the social supports that we had just a generation earlier. Some economists and conservatives like to see this as giving the individual freedom she needs to cope with a rapidly changing economy. For most however, it just leads to greater insecurity. The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than it has been for a century. These are not really system problems of complexity but poltical ones.  I don't see how we effectively deal with the continuing generation of poverty without addressing these larger problems.

 

Following the Wrong Map

Rochester's anti-poverty initiative RMAPI (Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative) is in the news again. In a story in the December 31 2017 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Internal Documents reveal early challenges for Rochester anti-poverty initiative, reporter Patti Singer details some of the struggles RMAPI has had clarifying it's program and aims and in implementing them. Almost three years after the initiative was announced in Jan 2015 there are few if any results. Poverty in Rochester has declined 1% in the past few years but is still among the highest in the nation. Although City officials and RMAPI claim this as a success there is no real evidence that would lead us to conclude that this small amount of decline is the result of RMAPI programs or other factors like a steady if slow growth in the economy in the Obama years.

Many in the community have begun to wonder just what RMAPI does and where the money has gone. And as the title of the article indicates the exact nature of the RMAPI program remains unclear. Investigative journalists like Rachel Barnhart have attempted to find out exactly how RMAPI operates, how much money it gets and where it goes. These and others are important efforts to shed light on processes that are hidden behind layers of an organization that is not especially transparent.  What we also need however, is critical analysis of the aims of RMAPI programs.

In light of this questioning RMAPI director Leonard Brock tried to clarify the role of RMAPI.  It is not a social service agency that is it does not carry out any social work or other activity. Nor does it distribute money. It is not a 501(c)(3) corporation and does not administer funds although it has an influence over funding. According to Barnhart's research it does not even have a bank account. RMAPI is closely allied if not a part of the United Way. much of the grant money seems to go through the United way. Because it is not a nonprofit however it is not accountable to the public.

RMAPI understands itself more as an operating philosophy than a social service agency. Put another way it is an organization that aims at implementing an operational framework across a variety of agencies.  It is the tool of that policy. According to Brock that policy is something called collective impact It brings together stakeholders who he defines as leaders from business education and government to address the problems of racism and poverty.

Thus, the idea of collective impact is at the core of the RMAPI project. When we understand how collective impact operates we will more clearly understand what RMAPI does. But what is the idea of collective impact? Does it in fact provide such a powerful organizational vision that we should adopt it as the model to address poverty. Brock seems to think so. He says the RMAPI project is to be the model for all of New York State. Like other managerial catchphrases such as TQM and best practices, however.  their actual  meaning has to be unpacked carefully

The notion of collective impact is a relatively new organizational philosophy. It was first introduced in a 2011 article by John Kanis and Mark Kramer in Stanford Social Innovation Review. Collective Impact was a method of collaborative organization that is meant to address complex social problems. According to the authors it is "the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem" Collective impact is meant to be an organizational tool for bringing about change in sectors where older methods have proved ineffective. Thus, while the idea in its most direct form seems to be much like older forms of collaboration the authors argue it is a more intensive and organized form of collaboration. "Unlike most collaborations, collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants." This sounds a lot like the ideas behind RMAPI. They state that all agencies and stakeholders like government and business be linked under a central directive or coordinating agency behind a common goal. It is supposed to be the centralized infrastructure to serve as what the authors call the "backbone agency."

The Collective impact outlook is based in diagnosis of the problems of social service and social change agencies in a neo-liberal era. The shrinking of state services has often lead to the outsourcing and privatizing of social services. This leads on the one hand to a fragmentation of services in isolated groups who are not coordinated or connected. On the other hand, it leads to a competition in which winners and losers are designated and governments and foundations try to guess what agencies will be best to carry out these functions. Critics of outsourcing and privatizing in the non-profit sphere have been quick to point out the destructive effects of these policies. Not only does the constant competition for funding take up an inordinate amount of time, they also change the goals of the social service sector to serve the demands of the funders who often serve more middle class and elite aims. These “reform” are ways of disciplining and shaping social service providers so they don't get too progressive or too out of line and they limit their social justice agendas. The neo-liberal outsourcing of services then can't be seen independent of certain poltical aims. Power is employed to change the goals of social services. It takes power away from groups that often have more direct grass roots contact with the poor and from justice projects and transfers it to funding agencies which often have quite different more middle-class concerns.

The collective impact outlook understands itself as an alternative to this fragmenting process, but critics are not sure that it really makes a meaningful change. The aims are not changed, just the process. Collective impact is a way of making the operation of social services more efficient and more effective. Even if we were to grant its claim that it is a better way to organize services, (something I will dispute later) it does not really have a lot to say about the goals of social services. And this is crucial. If as critics say neo-liberal policies have changed the ability of nonprofit to define these goals how does it achieve a change in goals. Further should we assume that the social problems that collective impact theorists want to address are really the result of fragmented or uncoordinated social services. Collaboration is a good thing when done correctly but it is hardly a panacea absent a clear notion of the processes and goals of social change.

Despite these questions the wave of collective impact has taken the nonprofit sector by storm. The authors promoted it extensively through their own consulting business. It has become the next big thing in the nonprofit sector. It is, however largely a top down business model. Governments, educational institutions and others have adopted it as way of organizing projects. Many foundations now require that applicant formulate a collective impact plan before getting a grant. So, no doubt this influence has trickled down to the RMAPI program. The savvy grant applicant quickly learns the latest buzz words and perhaps even believes them. This is unfortunate because as critics point out the evidence for the effectiveness and success of collective impact was based on a slim thread of two small case studies not even carried out by the authors. More recent studies have found collective impact of more limited effectiveness. Hardly the kind of robust support an idea sweeping non-profit sector would seem to require. One of the cases, an obesity reduction program in the state of Massachusetts hardly seems relevant. it focused on the changing individual behavior of students to get them to reduce their level of obesity. Perhaps in this example the focus on individual behavior can work to an extent, but it is difficult to see how a primary focus on the individual is going to be very effective in addressing the two-headed beast of race and poverty. From low wages to inaccessibility of good jobs to housing shopping and financial sector issues, not to mention structural racism, individuals face barriers that are embedded in institutional rules and practices. The individualizing approach which stresses personal qualities and responsibility is more a feature of neo-liberalism than progressive change.

Other critics of collective impact like Tom Wolff have pointed not only to its slim evidential base but to many flaws in its basic approach. It ignores years of evidence that practitioners in the field have accumulated regarding collaboration and community development. Some of these criticisms are pretty telling. First, the decision-making process that is proposed is a very top down one. It audience is the social and poltical elite who they assume are the crucial policy makers more than the community. Kramer and Kanis focus explicitly on these leaders and social service agencies as the members of their collaborative group. One practitioner claims that collective Impact is about bringing “CEO-level cross-sector leaders together”

 We have seen this problem at work in RMAPI too. Community members were included only after pressure. However, the inclusion of a few community members does not a democratic process make. A related problem with the centralization of power concerns the ability to set rules and set agendas for all. Collective impact theory tends to ignore the experience of past collaborative efforts by community organizers, Rules and agendas can often be set in a top down almost technocratic way. Just as in the neo liberal model, the top down procedure tends to exclude or discount this set of insights and act more to discipline groups.

The model of collaboration used by collective impact theories then tends to favor the status quo over change. The members of governments and businesses have interests in retaining certain elements of the status quo, or to develop leaders who follow a top down approach. While a collective impact approach tends to be limited to efficiencies with the system, the social justice component found in much traditional social work is limited. A social justice perspective is normative, or value oriented it deals with an end or goal like social equity. THat is why the problem of measuring progress is not always cut and dried. The measurement of such a value is not independent of the goal.  True social justice approaches seek social change by changing policies and process to make them more responsive and more open to problem of injustice.

Too often the kind of foundation support that is the backdrop for these efforts is sponsored by elite groups with their own agendas. Some of the foundations that have been mentioned by RMAPI have been formed by hedge fund managers who for example have interests in gentrification. While not every foundation grant is suspect, this reinforces the conception that the agenda for collective impact projects like RMAPI are driven by external interests with their own agendas.

 The biggest problem with the collective impact theory is that leaves out the major group effected by impact the people themselves. In contrast to collective impact theories community development theories look to organize and empower those who are affected by problems. They not only have to have a seat and the table they must have to power to act to set agendas and propose alternatives. Genuine collaboration also means allowing existing social service groups to make authentic contributions and contribute their experience without having their ideas rendered moot by a clumsy central agency. Collaboration must be a fair process. Wolfe and his cohorts have recently stated this clearly "We believe that efforts that do not start with treating community leaders and residents as equal partners cannot later be reengineered to meaningfully share power. In short, coalitions and collaborations need a new way of engaging with communities that leads to transformative changes in power, equity, and justice."

Taking the D And C article at face value it appears that some of the problems critics raise about the collective impact have come home to roost in RMAPI. More than 2 years after its formation the top down centralized authority seems to have great difficulty getting all groups on board. Older groups according to Brock seem unwilling to buy in to the RMAPI version of collaboration but this could just as easily be an example of the leadership disregarding the past experiences of existing groups with collaboration, The social justice issue arises in conflicts with County Executive Cheryl DlNolfo. She seems unwilling to accept the idea that structural racism exists or should be addressed by RMAPI.  Questions of efficient services and collaboration will however, not get very far without a value consensus that collaborative impact theories do not address.