Kohut Laments ‘Snake-oil Solutions’

Policy wonk extraordinaire Jeff Kohut, 2011 petitioning candidate for mayor, is mighty cranky these days. In his latest commentary he writes: “with only the same snake-oil solutions for the problems of Connecticut’s urban centers being proposed by the Democrats, nothing of substance being proposed by the Republicans, and only Tea Party nonsense being espoused by the independent candidacy, it would appear Connecticut and its cities will have to ride out several more years of disenchantment and decay.”

Here we go again. Another Connecticut gubernatorial election looming in the near term, with a municipal/mayoral election cycle in Bridgeport riding on its tail, and, predictably, the Hartford and Bridgeport propaganda machines are making a well-coordinated attempt to hypnotize the electorate of Bridgeport (and the state’s other distressed urban centers) through an uninterrupted media bombardment of monotonous “good news,” smiley-face ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and promises concerning economic development/jobs, social welfare and education.

Of course, there is the wonderful news of the new Bridgeport train-station/workforce housing development on Bridgeport’s East Side on a brownfields site that used to employ about 10,000 Bridgeporters. Indeed, that “news” was so “hot,” most of the buildings still standing on that site caught fire and burned not many days after Governor Malloy announced a $2.75 million bond issue had been rammed through the state bonding committee to pay for the design of the new station.

What does a new train station in that location really mean for Bridgeport? It means the City of Bridgeport will host yet another large, regional facility/workforce housing development in order to support the lucrative tax bases and lavish lifestyles of Bridgeport’s Stamford-Gold Coast/suburban neighbors. (“All aboard! Next stop Stamford!”)

That being said, it would be untrue to say Hartford and Washington are ignoring Bridgeport and have no plan for the city’s economic development. The “Bridgeport plan” espoused by Hartford, Washington, and City Hall is simple (Google “One Coast, One Future”); Bridgeport development will consist of workforce housing and supportive transportation infrastructure, as well as energy infrastructure and social services infrastructure, such that “regional economic growth” is enabled and supported. This means “they” get a free ride on Bridgeport’s shirtless back. Maybe Bridgeport gets a little PILOTS/ECS money to make sure the city isn’t completely swallowed up by the income/education gap and the good times keep rolling down county. (Is it just coincidence Bridgeport Economic Development Director David Kooris is a Stamford elected official? And from whence does the Governor hail?)

And so many ribbon-cutting ceremonies! It seems every time someone moves a pile of dirt at Steel Point there is a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring Mayor Finch and Governor Malloy. The hole-in-the-ground just dug for the 70-full-time-job (!) Bass Pro Shops foundation at Steel Point generated more political media attention than the grand opening of the truly significant, among-the-first-of-its-kind, advanced manufacturing training programs/facilities at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport in 2012. I don’t recall either Governor Malloy or Mayor Finch being present at that event. Both have loudly proclaimed good manufacturing jobs–or good jobs of any kind–can never return to a place like Bridgeport. (Just keep building those “green” power plants, Mr. Mayor, so manufacturing can keep expanding in Stamford, Norwalk, Shelton, Trumbull, Monroe … Maybe we can buy the solar panels to cover 50 acres of Seaside Park from a suburban factory that uses power from Bridgeport’s coal-fired, waterfront behemoth.)

Why is that? Why, with several world-class, inter-industry/inter-discipline engineering programs in the Bridgeport area, as well as several Bridgeport-area advanced-manufacturing-technician training programs, as well as the 20% “real” unemployment rate in Bridgeport–in the context of the availability of square miles of available manufacturing land in Bridgeport–would our city and state leaders want to discourage the development of manufacturing jobs in Bridgeport? (We could never make anything of value to the rest of the world in Bridgeport. Isn’t that what P.T. Barnum would say if he were alive today?)

And where else would brownfields sites be chosen as the locations for schools and housing?

Jails, workforce housing, property-devaluing regional energy infrastructure/garbage-incineration plants, garbage disposal/recycling plants, supportive transportation infrastructure, social service facilities, regional sewage facilities–those are the things for Bridgeport. Corporate headquarters, advanced manufacturing facilities, high-value retail–those are the things for the rest of Fairfield County.

And how has this formula worked for the state/region?

Well, we have an economically stultifying, intransigent I-95/CT-15 transportation logjam and overburdened rail system, due to Bridgeport-area, Stamford-bound vehicular and rail traffic. It doesn’t take an urban planning degree to see state-supported overdevelopment in the Stamford area is choking the overall economic development of the state. It doesn’t take an urban planning degree to see promoting economic/job development in Bridgeport (which has the workforce/workforce housing, energy infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and available land to accommodate huge scale development) and promoting grand-scale, workforce-housing development in Stamford/the Stamford area would solve the transportation and employment problems for the region–if not the whole state.

So what does this imply for the upcoming federal and state elections in Connecticut?

Well, with only the same snake-oil solutions for the problems of Connecticut’s urban centers being proposed by the Democrats, nothing of substance being proposed by the Republicans, and only Tea Party nonsense being espoused by the independent candidacy, it would appear Connecticut and its cities will have to ride out several more years of disenchantment and decay.

But then, maybe Washington will save the day by creating some economic stimulus of the military sort that will crank up the money supply machine and create enough inflation to get “real” unemployment back to an acceptable 15% or so in even the “Bridgeports” of the country. We can only hope.