Doug Austin -- Planning for Better Cities

As city dwellers beat feat moving from the urban centers around the country to the bucolic glory of their surrounding suburbs and exurbs, the exodus has left metropolitan areas in precarious positions with a shrinking tax base that only serves to accelerate the decline of the nation's city and their vital services.

All is not doom and gloom, however, for cities, their leaders and residents, according to Doug Austin, president, Urban Policy Development.

"I'm a huge supporter of cities and a strong believer in cities as the generator of the American economy. Cities can't function if their governments don't function well. Part of the reason we've had such flight from the cities, white flight from city schools, people moving and trying to get farther and farther away from the cities, its because cities just haven't been run very well," he states.

"If we can make our cities run better and make them more attractive and better reflect what people want, then I think people will start to come back to the city and the cities will begin to thrive once more. People get this idea that they can leave the cities behind and go out to the suburbs, but if those cities collapse the suburbs are going to collapse with them," Austin adds.

"My passion about the work we do is helping cities be more vibrant and much better attractions to businesses and the people who work in those businesses," he says.

The making of an urban planner

Austin's path to urban development began in a seemingly unlikely place -- a bank. A few years in the financial arena left Austin hungry for something more fulfilling. So, he and several partners, were one of the first to take advantage of the new desktop publishing technology, and began publishing "Urban Profile" magazine. The pair launched the new magazine in 1988, an issue oriented publication aimed at African-Americans aged 18 to 35, in New York, but eventually headed south to Baltimore.

"We were on the cutting edge of desktop communications back in the late '80s, early '90s," says Austin. "I did that for about four years until we merged with Career Communications. I wasn't too thrilled about the merger so I left and went back to graduate school," he explains.

Two years later with a degree in Public Policy from University of California, Berkeley in hand, Austin took a job in Oakland, Ca.

"I began Urban Policy Development about 14 years ago. I'd been working for the Oakland City Manager in California, running the economic development portion of that city's empowerment zone program. I came back to Washington for a conference HUD was holding for the 'Big 12' empowerment zone cities. I overheard a conversation about HUD's generalist program, individuals who serve as technical assistance providers to help empowerment zone cities really have some victories and help them cut through the red tape so that their programs are successful."

When he returned to Oakland, he looked into a position for a generalist for Baltimore and eventually was hired as a generalist for the city.

After 18 months, with experience working with nearly all of the major cities in the Mid-Atlantic region firmly in hand, helping them get their empowerment zone programs up and running, providing technical assistance on housing and community development issues and program implementations, it was easy, he says, to parlay all that experience and contacts into a consulting firm.

"I did that as a sole practioner for six or seven years. When O'Malley came into office he tried to higher me as his housing commissioner. I turned down that offer. He later put me on the zoning board and that got me more involved in what was going on in here Baltimore," Austin says.

A gig as Deputy Housing Commissioner responsible for development was too enticing to turn down. So, Austin left his private consulting practice.

"I worked there for about three years. It's where I met most of the people on my team now. I left that job and went to work as Bonnie Copeland's chief of staff for the city's school district for a couple of years. When I left that, i went back to my consulting practice and brought three people with me from the city schools system," he explains.

Now, Austin and his team travel around the country trying to help city governments do their jobs better.

"We help our clients come up with the ideas and plans to do better governing but are also aware of the people that are in their ear everyday and can help them maneuver through them because we've been there," he continues.

Putting the customer in customer service

Baltimore, according to Austin, is a perfect example of what can happen to a city. "Everyone at UPD lives in the city. We all use public services. We know what its like to live here. We send our kids to city schools and know what its like to have to deal with that bureaucracy from the inside and outside. We want the city to thrive. The house we own to improve in value. To have a nightlife and cultural venues to go to."

One of the linchpins of the UPD philosophy is that public agencies are essentially a monopoly and part of the problem with them is that they act like, well a monopoly, instead of acting like a service provider.

"If you're in a service industry and you don't pay attention to what your customers want. You don't pay attention to customer satisfaction. You don't do things to make their experience in dealing with you as seamless, as easy and painless as possible, then in the private sector your lose your clients," he notes.

However, since there is only one city school district in Baltimore, the problem with that sort of mentality is that there are alternatives to public schools. There are a lot of private schools, charter schools, you can move to another city or suburbs.

"We have a school district that at its height was built for 1 million people who were sending their kids to city schools. We know have a city of 636,000 people or so and many of them do not send their kids to public schools. Part of the equation, and this applies not just to city schools but all government agencies at the state level as well. If you really want people to come back into this city you have to pay attention to your customer and really do need to view the people who live in this city, or come into this city for work, cultural activities or nightlife, you need to view them as customers. That's central to the way we view the work that we do at UPD," Austin explains.

Building a better Baltimore

For the school system, a more customer-oriented state of mind would mean greater interaction with parents, providing information to students and their parents.

"The experience people have when they send their children to a private school, they're recruited. When you apply to a private school and that school knows your interested in them, you get bombarded with information. They have different events and forums. They open up their doors to you, so you can see what they're all about and how they operate. They really woo you because they know that you have other choices," Austin says.

The public schools are starting to do more of that, but they're behind the curve, he notes.

Although there are many issues with the "No Child Left Behind" legislation, one of the good things about it are that it makes schools report on a lot of information. "The most innovative school systems are taking the information and using it to improve their performance on a day-to-day basis. Not just using it to gauge who they did as a school district at the end of the year. That's where I would suggest changes in Baltimore City," he says.

Waiting for the end of the year to use the data doesn't help the students teachers have at that time. By time they get the information back that student has moved on to the next grade.

According to Austin, all city agencies can benefit from using the data available to them on a daily basis to improve their services. From emergency services, fire and police, to everyday services, trash collection, housing, financial assistance, boosting the performance of these agencies is possible if management is taught to lead and employees are taught to maximize their effectiveness.

"Your job as a public official is to make your operation as efficient and effective as you can. if that means that 20% of your time is spent putting out fires, it doesn't excuse you from having to do better. The only way you can do better is to manage what you do and evaluate how you did and make adjustments," he explains.

"It's leadership. It has to come from the top. If you have people who are smart and hardworking and willing to innovate, if they don't have the systems in place to support their level of intelligence, then you have to help them to do a good job by making the systems function better so they can do a better job," he continues.

If that means retraining managers to take on their leadership role, fixing the culture of the organization so that it rewards risk taking and innovation, is serious about accountability, performance and measurement. "If you have those two things in place, then people should be able to perform. Making staff changes should be a last step," Austin suggests.