Marching for Our Lives

My Washington semester gave me the chance to be present at the March for Our Lives, the massive rally against gun violence organized in the wake of yet another mass shooting, this one at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Parkland students spoke movingly of their experiences, both at the rally and in media interviews. Attendance estimates ranged from 200,000 to 800,000--Washington Metro reported their ridership on the day at 558,375, comparable to a presidential inauguration-- but whatever it was, it was a lot.

My own experience was rather prosaic. I've been attending a Lutheran church in DC, and local Lutherans met up at a church near the site. From there we walked down Indiana Avenue, joining streams of pedestrian traffic that merged to become rivers, until we could make no further progress.

I stood there for an hour or so, hearing some of the speeches and the music, but mostly drawing energy from the crowds around me.

Everyone seemed happy to be there, though they might have preferred a better vantage point. White and black, groups and individuals, Washingtonians and those who came to town for the event were gracious to each other; we'd occasionally move a little to allow a line of people through, either in hopes of finding some Northwest passage to the front, or else to get water. Signs and shirts were not entirely, but predominantly positive. Eventually, after about 90 minutes, I caught one of the lines and surfed it out of there. If you watched on TV you saw and heard more than I did.

I'm glad I went anyway, partly for the historic nature of the event--this might be the biggest thing I've ever been part of--but mostly to stand up and be counted. I'm not just curious; I am angry. Guns have never been central as an issue to me or to this project like economic opportunity, environmental sustainability, community inclusion and place-making. But maybe it should be. A community must be safe to be successful, and people need to feel safe as a basic prerequisite for any community.

So is common conversation. The issue of gun violence has for decades lacked an inclusive conversation; any policy suggestions are met with surly badassery, cultural clannishness to the point of paranoia, and legislative stonewalling. The March for Our Lives gave people--a lot of people--in Washington and around the country the opportunity to demand an end to this, and instead opportunities to discuss the terms for living together.

I wrote this about gun politics 2 1/2 years ago, and don't have much else to say. I don't have a brief for any specific policy measure. A 2017 New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof contains a number of specific proposals suggestions which would make reasonable starting points; I'd also like to look at civil liability for private sales. I am dubious about the efficacy of local ordinances, given the porousness of city boundaries. But as Justice Robert H. Jackson said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." We as a country can do a lot better, and it's way past time to start.

P.S. I was nonplussed by a quote in the Post article (cited below) from Robert Johnson of New York City, who attended a counter-protest in Boston: If you run over someone with a car, they don't blame the car. But if someone is shot, they immediately blame the guns. Johnson is obviously ignorant of efforts in cities across the country to redesign streets for pedestrian safety. New York City, his hometown, has been in the forefront of these efforts. You'd have to be willfully oblivious to remain unaware. We have a long way to go to make our streets truly safe for everyone, but we are having the conversations. We should be having the same conversations about guns. There is no excuse not to.

SEE ALSO:
Peter Jamison, Joe Heim, Lori Aratani and Marissa J. Lang, "In Grief, Marching for Change," Washington Post, 25 March 2018, A1 & 19
Natalie Kroovand Hipple, "The Way Cities Report Gun Violence is All Wrong," Washington Post, 26 March 2018

Kristof's list:

1. background checks: 22 percent of guns are obtained without one
2. protection orders: keep men who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns
3. ban under-21s: a ban on people under 21 purchasing firearms (this is already the case in many states)
4. safe storage: these include trigger locks as well as guns and ammunition stored separately, especially when children are in the house
5. straw purchases: tighter enforcement of laws on straw purchases of weapons, and some limits on how many guns can be purchased in a month
6. ammunition checks: experimentation with a one-time background check for anybody buying ammunition
7. end immunity: end immunity for firearm companies; that's a subsidy to a particular industry
8. ban bump stocks: a ban on bump stocks of the kind used in Las Vegas to mimic automatic weapon fire
9. research 'smart guns:' "smart guns" fire only after a fingerprint or PIN is entered, or if used near a particular bracelet

Affordable housing versus stable neighborhoods?

Public hearing begins at Council of the District of Columbia

The Council of the District of Columbia met into the wee hours last night, hearing comments from residents about proposed amendments to the 2006 comprehensive plan. 273 citizens had signed up to present comments; your humble blogger hung around to hear from 32 of them, as well as the members of the Council in attendance, so you may take what follows for what it's worth. Reports from those who hung in there longer are in the sources.

A few themes emerged as Council and public commented on these amendments, which focus on housing. The proposed revisions take note of Washington's recent population increases, as well as some striking demographic trends. The growth has put pressure on local housing markets, with particular effects on the middle class and black residents. From the draft:

Recent migration patterns of those leaving the District suggest conditions cause the city to lose certain types of households. While those moving to DC tended to be young adult white individuals either with or seeking higher education, those moving out tended to be parents and their children, older adults, and blacks. (203.03)

The vast majority of Washington residents are either well-off or poor: Council member Robert White Jr. cited data that show less than 25 percent of Washington residents have household incomes between $50,000 and $100,000, and lack of access to housing is presumably a cause of what we might call the missing middle class. Washington, like many other cities, faces the housing policy conundrum: how to maintain access to housing when demand (and probably speculation) are driving up prices?

Since 2006, the single largest increase in the types of households were those comprised with members that work in the Professional Services industry, and who tend to earn higher wages. The increased demand and competition from higher income households was greater than anticipated and has made the city one of the most expensive places to live in the country. The District now has a large percent of both high and low income households with very few in the middle-income ranges. Increasing rental housing costs are the primary household budget item that is making it difficult for low or even moderate income residents to continue living in the city. Some estimates suggest that between 2011 and 2016 the cost of purchasing a home rose by almost 50 percent, while the cost of renting rose 18 percent. Housing costs are perhaps the central challenge toward maintaining and growing an inclusive city. (204.10)

No one at the public hearing spoke against increasing the supply of affordable housing; the rub was how we get there. Some argued that a significant obstacle to supply is the ability of community residents to convince the City Council, or failing that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, to block projects. They supported language in the proposed amendments, like changing "define" to "describe" in zoning categories, that would make it harder to overturn decisions of the zoning commission. They also supported amendments that loosened requirements for buildings, like maximum heights.

"Stop the Comprehensive Scam" group gathers in the lobby

Opponents of the amendments--easily identifiable by their white stickers that read "Stop the Comprehensive Scam"--expressed concern about the loss of check-and-balance in the process. Easing development is, they argue, a gift to developers, and threatened the stability of existing neighborhoods. It is important to note that a number of speakers explicitly rejected the NIMBY label. They are not against development, they said, just concerned that avoiding the error of inadequate housing supply the city would invite the opposite error of runaway development.

Pretty quickly "stable neighborhoods" emerged as the freighted phrase of the early part of the hearing. What does it mean? Is it a legitimate policy goal? If so, how should the Council and ultimately the Zoning Commission weigh it against development of affordable housing? I have some sympathies for historic preservation, and DC features some spectacular swaths of it. It would be sad to tear down beautiful old houses for a generic apartment building, though not quite as sad as it would be to make room for McMansions or convenience stores. But is that the only way to get affordable housing? The amendments hint at a more form-based approach to zoning. There are plenty of examples, near me on Capitol Hill, of multi-unit buildings that are indistinguishable from the single-family row houses next door. A lot of these are small apartments, of course, so that doesn't address the needs of middle-income families.

My point is that there are productive ways to densify (Is that a real word?) that don't denigrate the appearance of neighborhoods. (See Maitland 2018 for ways to address legitimate concerns of those concerned about negative impacts of development.) If the comprehensive plan needs tighter language to fend off Soviet-style housing blocks, propose that language; a purely defensive crouch is NIMBYism, whatever you'd rather call it. The lack of easy solutions shouldn't deter us from improving our common life, for which affordable housing is a necessity, in Washington or any other growing city.

Crowd waiting for the hearing room to open. The ambient noise was such as to
ruin a TV reporter's stand-up. I confess to finding that amusing.

COVERAGE OF THE HEARING:
Cuneyt Dil, "Marathon Comprehensive Plan Meeting Encapsulates District Development Tensions," Washington City Paper, 21 March 2018
Fenit Nirappil, "Dry D.C. Planning Document Fuels Heated Debate Over Future of Expensive City," Washington Post, 21 March 2018

SEE ALSO:

David Alpert, "What's More Important, 'Neighborhood Stability' or Affordable Housing?" Greater Greater Washington, 22 March 2018, reflections on Tuesday's hearing from GGW founder who testified in favor of the plan amendments

Daniel Herriges, "Calming the Waters: How to Address Both Gentrification and Concentrated Poverty," Strong Towns, 26 February 2018, is a long but worthwhile read. He reviews the housing conundrum of growing cities and suggests strategies for successfully addressing it. First on the list: "Counter the 'Big-Ness' Bias" i.e. help small developers build neighborhood-compatible projects rather than relying on large developers who need the margins only high-rise apartment buildings can provide.

Shannon Graham, "A City Under Pressure," Strong Towns, 14 March 2018 on Victoria, British Columbia, which despite many dissimilarities shares with Washington population pressures within a mostly fixed boundary, as well as cherry blossoms

Tanvi Misra, "Gentrification Doesn't Mean Diversity," City Lab, 15 May 2017: interview with Derek Hyra, author of Race, Class and Politics in the Cappucino City (University of Chicago Press, 2017) that focuses on Washington's Shaw-U Street neighborhood

Doug Trumm, "This Small Wallingford Apartment Building is Fine-Grained Urbanism at Its Finest," The Urbanist, 22 March 2018: Seattle example of small-scale development that both is affordable and plays well with its surroundings

Letter from Washington (IV)

Staring out at the city skylights

A marathon is going down the street

And we're all racing for our own reasons

And sometimes in the middle we all meet

--"MARATHON," HEARTLESS BASTARDS (w/m Erika Wennerstrom)

Last weekend was the Rock n Roll Marathon in Washington, much anticipated after weeks of seeing notices like this:

The route went down East Capitol Street from Lincoln Park to 3rd Street, passing little more than a block from our apartment. It was fortuitously one of the nicer days we've had of late. I walked along the route for a little while. Crowds in the neighborhood were not thick, but runners were enthusiastically greeted by small children and their parents:

In time, more runners appeared:

There was considerable police presence, to manage traffic. On 5th Street, where we live, cars were blocked below A Street.

Other officers blocked the intersections with East Capitol Street.

Cars were allowed across on the busier thoroughfares, like 4th, 6th and 8th Streets.

Skilled and alert officers looked for breaks in the clots of runners, and when they came, urgently waved across a vehicle or two, yelling if necessary if the driver's concentration had lapsed and wasn't paying attention.

I don't know how I would assess this. It drew 17,000 runners and raised money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. (See coverage on Runner's Web here.) It was a special event for at least some residents, though I don't know if it was a huge community-builder. News photos did show more people at the start and finish lines near RFK Stadium, and probably near music stages as well. The marathon required an extraordinary marshaling of law enforcement officers, which I hope someone besides the taxpayers paid for, and clearly involved some disruption to usual parking and traffic patterns. How does all that balance out?

We've also been finding out about our neighborhood. Thursday night we attended a talk at the Hill Center by Kim Prothro Williams of the DC Historic Preservation Office on "Historic Alleyways and Alley Buildings of Capitol Hill."

I've mentioned alley dwellings in my last "letter" where I talked about corner stores. In Capitol Hill and Georgetown, among other parts of the city, they're a stylish way to achieve the population density that supports a walkable neighborhood.

Alley buildings, Miller's Court NE

Some takeaways from Ms. Prothro Williams's talk:

1. The original (1793-96) alleys were designed as back routes for large lots, and to provide space for accessory dwellings and functional purposes like stables, warehouses, workshops and studios. This accounts for their distinctive shape, which she said is unique at least in the United States. Rather than one straight drive with buildings on either side, there's a narrow access way that opens into a fairly large space I would describe as bone-shaped. Some, like the alley behind the house where we're living, have only one way in and out!
2. In the 1850s a dramatic increase in population led to the subdividing of these large lots to create working-class housing, with row houses facing the street and smaller dwellings facing the alleys. The alley dwellings tended to be of low quality, basically tenements although she didn't use the word. Reformers struck repeatedly at the unsanitary conditions, resulting in condemnations of alley dwellings or conversions to garages or stables (as well as the loss of what were close-knit communities in spite of conditions). Another influx of population, after World War II, put a stop to that process. Many surviving alley dwellings were renovated, and even new ones were built. Brown's Court SE contains buildings from the 19th century, the 1960s and the 1980s.
3. Besides the little collections of small houses, Capitol Hill's historic alleys contain a number of surviving historic buildings, or "contributing structures" in preservation lingo, including collections of stables (which of course are being used for other things now). Right around our apartment is a coach shop from 1911, a stable from 1911, a stable big enough to be a commercial operation from 1896, a Locomobile shed from 1902, and the only surviving one-story stable in the District which was built in 1885.

Locomobile shed (1902)

Large stable (1896)

Knowing more about the neighborhood's history makes me look at the built environment differently!

SEE ALSO

Kim Prothro Williams, The DC Historic Alley Building Survey (DC Historic Preservation Office, 2014)

David Salter, Preserving DC Stables blog

Local bike advocacy in Washington DC

WABA traning session is convened by Tamara Evans

Perseverance and comprehensiveness were the messages last week when the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) held a bike advocacy training session at the Mt. Pleasant Library on the city's northwest side. Members recounted recent campaigns for bike infrastructure, discussed the city's political process, and crowd-sourced some ideas for the next target areas.

Maryland Avenue NE is one of the picturesque diagonal thoroughfares designed in the 1790s by Charles L'Enfant. Running four lanes NE/SW between Stanton Park and H Street, it features speeding cars and difficult sight lines that pose hazards to cyclists and pedestrians. WABA member Todd Hettenbach described the conversations between neighborhood residents, their 6th ward representative on the City Council and transportation officials that led to a redesign plan including bike lanes, a center turning lane, and bumpouts at key intersections:

Once agreement on the plan was reached, it took several years to get District Department of Transportation (DDOT) commitment to carrying it out. Hettenbach reported supporters were persistent and omnipresent at Council and DDOT meetings as well as holding meeting of their own, telling their stories to media--one mother reported her children didn't like crossing that street on their way to school because she held their hands so tightly it hurt--and using e-mail groups to stay connected. In 2016, when DDOT began to move on the project, new neighbors who hadn't been involved in the earlier discussions raised often-vociferous objection. Advocates were able to reach out at least to some of them and address their concerns (like parking, traffic jams, whether you could still turn left--familiar themes everywhere, I'm sure). At last the project seems good to go, although the federal budget situation continues to be a wild card.

H Street NE is a four-lane east-west thoroughfare in a core neighborhood that suffered greatly in the riots of the 1960s and is only recently being redeveloped. One of the features of that redevelopment is a streetcar that began runs in early 2016 from near Union Station to near RFK Stadium. The streetcar runs on tracks in the right lanes each way, which understandably complicates bicycling. Group member Joe McCann cited the owner of the Daily Rider bike shop who reported getting one bicycle a week damaged from encounters with the tracks--not to mention the damage to the rider.

McCann's group arranged for a walk-through with 6th ward Advisory Neighborhood Commission members and DDOT officials on an evening which clarified the problem for them. Since the tracks weren't going anywhere, the discussion hit on guiding people to parallel streets a block over. G and I lacked the creative potential of Maryland Avenue, being narrow one-way streets with residential parking. (Very few residents in this neighborhood have garages or driveways, so on-street parking is essential.) The solution turned out to be "contra-flow lanes," one-way bike lanes going opposite to auto traffic.

At 0.75 miles each they are claimed to be the longest contra-flow lanes in the country. Here's the one on G Street:

And I Street:

The well-attended meeting produced an impressive list of ideas about where bike lanes should go, as well as safety training for bikers--there are the usual horror stories here about rogue cyclists--and bike elevators for steep hills. Some of the infrastructure is already in the Move DC Plan, adopted in 2014. One street near me that got a lot of attention is K Street NE, which serves J.O. Wilson Elementary School...

...and connects the neighborhood to downtown Washington, but has no bike infrastructure as well as problematic interfaces with 8th Street/West Virginia Avenue...

...and 12th Street/Florida Avenue (Hennigan 2017). Here is WABA's preferred alternative, which adds bike lanes at the cost of parking on the south side of the street:

WABA activists commended working through local government, particularly the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) which serve as legislative committees in each ward, and who can be game-changers in advocating for projects once they're won over. Beyond that Hettenbach advised (1) engaging with neighbors, (2) staying positive and (3) looking to "whoever you can" as an ally to help build your coalition. McCann added the importance of having "a better story than your opponent," usually involved safety improvements. In a city where many people walk and bike to school or work, safety might be an easier case to make than in a city like Cedar Rapids where advocates struggle against systemic habits of car-dependency. Even so, scuttlebutt has considerable opposition among the neighbors to the parking-for-bike-lanes trade.

Rider negotiating the intersection of K Street and 4th Street

Strong Towns has also advocated for streets designed for pedestrians and bicycles as part of their Slow the Cars campaign: "We know that pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are more economically productive, healthier and safer." Their new e-book, Slow the Cars: Why We Must Create Safer Streets and How to Get It Done, collects a number of essays on the subject including advice for advocates, like (1) assess the accessibility of your streets, (2) tactical urbanism, (3) encourage participation, (4) engage with public officials and (5) spread the word (Wilson 2018). Streets in the oldest part of Washington aren't full-blown stroads, but they carry a lot of auto traffic, and managing that flow in a way that is also makes biking (and walking) "fun and safe" (from WABA's mission statement) will be good for everyone. 

Letter from Washington (III)

One of the outstanding walkable aspects of the Capitol Hill neighborhood is the presence of small-scale shopping within five minutes' walk of our apartment. These include innumerable cleaners--maybe a unique aspect of a city of "suits"--as well as pharmacies, medical offices, cafes, a used bookstore and even a couple of auto repair shops.

They also include that staple of urbanist vision, corner stores. A block away, across East Capitol Street, is Corner Market.

The Congress Market is a block west of that.

Capitol Hill Supermarket is a  little farther away, on the other side of Stanton Park.

Each has an impressive variety of foods and household goods packed around a couple of aisles. They exist in a context that is almost ideal for corner stores, an unusual combination of wealth and population density. Census tracts #66 and #82 have median family incomes of over $110,000, which provides ready spending money even with a high cost of living. Its combined 5000 residents live in less than 0.25 square miles, because many of the expensive houses have English basement apartments like the one we're living in. There are also sets of small houses that face alleys, like Terrace Court...

...and Browns Court:

In a recent interview on the Strong Towns podcast, urbanist author Jeff Speck guesstimated the population density necessary to support corner stores as 1000 households at five or six units per acre, depending on auto traffic. We got that beat here.

Corner stores here are nothing like convenience stores in my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa: they look better, and don't feature gasoline pumps or huge parking lots. Yet they share feature with c-stores that I've raised when I wrote about the prospect of corner stores in Cedar Rapids three years ago: you pay premium prices for their merchandise. So we wind up doing most of our shopping at Giant Food, a supermarket on H Street. It's a walkable 0.7 miles away, though for major weekly shopping Jane prefers to drive.

Here are comparison prices for three items we bought at corner stores:

	CORNER STORE	SUPERMARKET Brand equivalent	SUPERMARKET Off brand
Graham crackers	4.99	3.59	2.00
Orange juice 58 oz	5.49	3.00	2.50
Raisins 12 oz	3.59	2.49	--

The individual price differences would add up quickly for a family of four doing their weekly shopping. So I'm left wondering about the business model for corner stores, even in walkable urban neighborhoods. New Bohemia in Cedar Rapids is pretty much of a food desert (not to mention the other basic necessities of life), but if a store like one of these opened there, would people really shop there or would they still go to Hy-Vee?

On a totally different note, notices like the one pictured above suddenly appeared at homes all over town a week ago, relating to a marathon that will be run through the city next weekend. It won't go down our street, but will be nearby on East Capitol Street, and in an area where many people including us park on the street that might increase competition. I've decided after consulting with our landlords upstairs that this isn't a big concern for us. Still, I'd rather the city over-react than under-react, as is typical in Cedar Rapids, where events like the Mayors' Bike Ride suddenly appear with no warning to residents.

Evidence-based policymaking: Moneyball, or GIGO?

A confluence of recent events around the capital city showed many people wish for better information when making public policy. This may seem surprising--the President's budget as well as the recent tax changes rely on supply-side economics, climate change denial is practically an article of faith for the majority party, and Congress may or may not be able to undo the 23-year-old provision that restricts the Center for Disease Control from researching gun violence--but it's fair to say the desire for data is here... co-existing with a lot of other desires.

As a U.S. Senator from Indiana, Dan Quayle sponsored the
Job Training and Partnership Act of 1983,
based on research showing the effectiveness of job training programs

Some years ago, as part of our long research project on policy making by the President and Congress (see note below), Paul J. Quirk and I examined the government's ability to manage complex or changing information. When issues are technically complex, as most have gotten to be in one way or another, we wrote "they must obtain the necessary information from reliable sources, as well as mastering it to the extent required to make good policy." The challenges are many:

Knowledge in a policy area may be limited because there is a large amount of material presented which is undifferentiated, or because there is not a consensus on how to interpret a given sequence of events.  Constituencies may be unaware of relevant information or refuse to accept it.  Alternatively, new information may pose difficulties for assumptions that have become entrenched among political elites. 

Our conclusions were guardedly optimistic: "[G]overnment is often able to make intelligent policy in the face of complex or changing information.... The key seems to be a predisposition to hear the news. [In most cases we examined,] policy initiative was taken by someone who was already committed to the position supported by the new research. Those people then used the new information to convince the rest of the government to go along with them." What's unstated is there were enough uncommitted people willing to be convinced by the policy entrepreneur. Is that still true, or has politics become completely overwhelmed by rigid constituency positions?

Whatever the goal of a policy (e.g. containing health care costs, reducing barriers faced by small businesses, preventing terrorist attacks) we do better when we know what we're doing. There are reasons why we might not choose the most optimal solution--ideological beliefs, constituency group benefits, social norms--but on the whole someone promoting a policy is better off with the best information they can get.

It gets trickier when, as in most cases, we're talking about assessing government programs that are already underway. Again, if I want to, say, contain health care costs, I should want the best data I can get on how well existing programs are doing that, and if they're not doing very well, I can use those data to learn how to improve performance. If I'm worried that the results will be used to fire me, de-fund my agency, and/or repeal the Affordable Care Act, I'm going to see assessment as a threat. If I have to collect and analyze the data in addition to doing my job, I'm going to see it as a hassle at best if not a suicide mission.

Nick Hart (Source: Bipartisan Policy Center)

Nick Hart and Kathryn Newcomer allow as much. They're the co-authors of a new technical paper from the Bipartisan Policy Center, rolled out this week at a forum co-sponsored by the Forum for Youth Investment. They discuss evidence-based evaluation initiatives undertaken by the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, noting that both adminstrations tended to use results to guide budgeting decisions. In Newcomer's words, "accountability does tend to trump learning."

(L to R) John Kamensky, Marcus Peacock and Shelley Metzenbaum
at the BPC/Forum for Youth Investment Event

In a follow-up panel, Marcus Peacock, who worked on the Bush efforts, praised President Trump's goal of repealing two regulations for every one promulgated, and called for nurturing "pay-for-success." In response, audience member Christine Heflin (who works in the Commerce Department office of performance, evaluation and risk management) called for finding ways to "reward learning." Panel member Shelley Metzenbaum, who worked on the Obama efforts, agreed, noting that pay-for-success "becomes a signal that we're going to de-fund what's not 'working.'"

I'm with Metzenbaum, particularly in today's fraught political and budgetary environment. It's hard to imagine good-quality evidence emerging when programs are justifiably concerned about ideological opponents who want them to die, not to mention fellow travelers who could use their resources for their own programs. Yet we need good information to achieve public objectives.

(L to R) Tamika Lewis, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Cornell William Brooks, Rachel Levinson-Waldman

At a more basic level, we should be suspicious of what Cornell William Brooks calls "the presumed infallibility of data." Brooks is an attorney, pastor, civil rights activist and senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, which hosted a panel this week on how new data collection efforts affect criminal justice. The panel noted that more sophisticated data collection by police departments--and more recently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement--have resulted in greater attention to poor and minority populations, resulting in more arrests and a longer data trail that makes it harder to get jobs or housing in ensuing years (what panel member Tamika Lewis of the Our Data Bodies Project called "the cycle of injustice").

Panel members seemed divided over whether negative impacts of big data on minority populations were intentional or the result of institutional racism. You don't have to believe in conspiracies, in a country where racial differences are baked into the economy and society, to imagine that they're also baked into metrics from credit scores to risk for violence.

This doesn't mean data are inherently bad, or there are no useful metrics. Both panels talked about the need to include everyone involved throughout the assessment process. Lewis said data could be used to identify institutional racism instead of replicating it; Brooks suggested community members should be involved in deciding what would be measured and how; and law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson pointed out that even conclusive data don't necessarily point to a single remedy (more law enforcement), suggesting social workers, pastors and community members as alternatives.

People outside of government could use better data, too. Carl Wallace, shown above at a presentation to 1 Million Cups Fairfax in February, has developed C-Score, an algorithm for evaluating small business proposals he is marketing to banks, incubators and universities. It's a sort of "Moneyball" for entrepreneurship, attempting to aggregate what we know about the prerequisites for small business success, and get away from reliance on hunches however well-based. It occurred to several people in attendance that it could also serve as a diagnostic tool for entrepreneurs themselves who wish to improve their pitches. C-Score will operate at the policy formulation stage, serving the common interests of entrepreneurs, financial institutions and cities in developing a strong base of locally-owned small businesses. It's far from clear that government program evaluations have gotten to similarly common interests among the audiences for their evidence-based policy evaluations.

SEE ALSO:

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement (NYU Press, 2017)

Nick Hart and Kathryn Newcomer, "Presidential Evidence Initiatives: Lessons from the Bush and Obama Administrations' Efforts to Improve Government Performance," Bipartisan Policy Center, 28 February 2018

"The Promise of Evidence-Based Policymaking: Report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking," September 2017

OLDER SOURCES ON POLICY LEARNING:

Jane Mansbridge, "Motivating Deliberation in Congress," in Sarah Baumgartner Thurow (ed), Constitutionalism in America (University Press of America, 1988)

William Muir, Legislature (University of California, 1986)

Richard Rose, Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy: A Guide to Learning across Time and Space (Chatham House, 1993)

My research with Paul J. Quirk on policy learning was never completed for publication. We did present a paper, "The President and Congress as Policy Makers: Dealing with Complexity and Change," at the Midwest Political Science Association conference, April 15-17, 1999. Quotations are from a book draft.