[Op-Ed] The Failed Renewal of Europeia






The Failed Renewal of Europeia
Op-Ed

Written by Ervald



Over the past semester of my first year of university in urban planning, we talked a lot about a fellow named Robert Moses. You may have heard of him from the famous book “The Power Broker” or mentioned in the book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities." After WWII, it was said he managed to connect the entire region of New York City with new bridges, new highways, brought new economic development projects to the city, and cleared out old, overcrowding slums. It was all based on making the city more efficient, at any cost. It reminds me of our executive split. We could make the region even more efficient, wipe out the old, and bring in the new which would make sure that foreign affairs and domestic affairs get their own separate leaders. However, that is only a narrative.

Robert Moses did all of that, but it didn’t necessarily improve peoples’ lives. The construction of new infrastructure and economic projects brought destruction to many neighborhoods that in the wake of such rubbles, much of the urban fabric was lost and there was displacement. Even the new housing projects that were built were unattractive, were unwalkable, and with no streets that were being used all the time for shopping and eating out, such neighborhoods became dangerous. In the name of efficiency, ironically, such measures to assure a more efficient city made living in the city worse. I say the same for our executive split. Two years ago, this region was faced with constant presidential resignations (I was one of them) and staffing issues. We concluded that the solution was the role of the Presidency was too much for one individual. We split the executive in half with one leader leading domestic affairs and one leader leading foreign affairs.

From a far-away distance by looking at a map, like Robert Moses and his colleagues did, it looks like there was success. It was efficient, it looked clean, isn’t that enough for a conclusion? Sure, we have had some great First Ministers over the past year and the elections for that position are engaging. But when you look deep, as usual, you see staffing issues. If you look really deep, like when journalist Jane Jacobs was on the ground seeing how NYC looked after the changes, our foreign affairs ministries are not doing well, specifically the Navy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They’re not dying, if you consider being alive in a hospice is satisfactory enough to conclude that affairs are alive and well. Our Navy has not had robust activity and the name “Europeia” doesn’t strike fear at all on the world stage anymore. It does not help that very few elections we have had for the Chief of State position have been engaging, and I doubt they would have been much more interesting if they were directly elected by the people.

Quite simply, we analyzed the position wrong. Just like how Robert Moses concluded that clearing the old would fix the issue, we decimated the position of the Presidency leading a unified executive branch. Reverting back to that might sound laughable but sometimes, what is “old” can be better than the new. When Robert Moses carried out his plans, Jane Jacobs decided to investigate on the ground. What used to be lively neighborhoods that were walkable, dense, had familial connections, and all sort of businesses and parks and restaurants were transformed into spread out neighborhoods with unattractive apartment towers, wide roads, barely any familial connections at all, and the closest decent restaurant required you to drive for at least 10 minutes. May have looked great on paper but doesn’t sound great in person, does it? An executive split sounds great on paper, but it sure as hell has not been great experiencing it.

I want to make clear about something, though. I am not saying the old circumstances didn’t have issues. When the slums were cleared away, it was justified because they had systemic socio-economic issues and before our executive branch was split, it had staffing issues especially in the navy and foreign affairs which we are still having today. When I resigned as President after a very short time, it honestly wasn’t the amount of work that stressed me out. I loved being able to execute a vision for every single ministry and it was fantastic that I could talk to any minister directly, about anything. Besides mental health issues I was having, which was a huge factor in my resignation, what was really stressful was staffing issues. I had some troubles trying to find nominees that could run ministries *while on the campaign.* I may have resigned after two weeks but it wasn’t the workload that I had issues with, it was the staffing process. Just like how we have realized that investing in inner-city communities, not destroying them is the better path forward, we should have realized that with our executive branch. Instead of focusing all of our time on the executive split, we should have focused on how we could mitigate staffing issues and make foreign affairs much more vibrant to newer citizens.

So if there is anybody that still supports the executive split, I agree with you that it sounded fantastic on paper. In the end, I actually voted for the executive split in that referendum. But it is high-time that we realize that it has not served our needs, especially regarding foreign affairs. For a whole year, we have been analyzing the wrong problems. Non-existent problems, actually. So, let’s get real. Let talk about the staffing issues we have had. Let’s talk about foreign affairs, what have we been doing wrong? I think just like what Jane Jacobs wanted, we’re not all looking for what *sounds* efficient. We are all what looking for what *is* efficient. That is a vibrant community where every single ministry can thrive with engaging elections with a unified vision.
 
I think the difficult thing for me with the Executive split is, mainly, I've never known anything different so far. I like the structure of government we have now, but I get that there's high expectations and demands on people to perform. So people talk about unification again and again, and I wonder if it really is the best move - but something has to change somewhere; is going back to what we had before better than what we have now? I honestly don't know.
 
I think the focus on split or no split is misplaced. I think the split could have been successful if it created new dynamics or changed the populace's expectations for what the executive does. But it didn't. It created two leaders with different portfolios, but everything else stayed exactly the same. It enforced a system that was essentially already possible for the unified executive (a president and vice president who split responsibility between them, as many administrations did historically) at the cost of creating new potential for tasks to get lost into the cracks between the two sides or become caught up in jurisdictional push and pull between the two executives.

As others have said, what we really need is to reevaluate our expectations for how the executive functions and then build a flexible structure that encourages participation and allows those expectations a chance of being met. Judy reverting to a unified executive alone doesn't do that, although I think it's a good step for enabling greater efficiency and flexibility in conjunction with other changes.

Current proposals that arbitrarily limit the cabinet seem like a step in the wrong direction to me. Limiting the number of people who can have cabinet level positions takes away opportunities for the primary incentive we have, the prestige of titles, without actually reducing the work that is to be done. I honestly don't think there's a legislative solution to this. What's needed is a combination of strong executive vision, which I think returning to a single executive can help provide (which is not to say that the current executives have been poor, but rather that I think the split in its current form gets in the way), and a change in regional culture (which can only happen over time).
 
Current proposals that arbitrarily limit the cabinet seem like a step in the wrong direction to me. Limiting the number of people who can have cabinet level positions takes away opportunities for the primary incentive we have, the prestige of titles, without actually reducing the work that is to be done.
I think this is a point that needs to be understood. While it may seem trite and superficial, having access to titles gives motivation to get in positions to get the work done. If we take away that, we take away the access people have.

I think there's also something a bit shackling about limiting the number of the cabinet, and it comes from the ability for the head officeholder to craft the government they feel is necessary. This might be a bit … platitudinal (?), but I think taking away the government's ability to change does exactly that.
 
This article was a great merging of something you clearly know a lot about (urban planning) with something the region is currently tackling (the executive split). A uniquely Ervald piece of writing. Love it!
 
Fantastic article! Really well written. Like Calvin I really enjoyed the merging of the two topics to provide a strong comparison.
 
Good article, Ervald! I'm still not sure where I stand on the current state of our executive and any proposed changes personally
 
Thank you everyone for the kind comments! I do want to make clear that while I do support an unified executive branch, that alone won't solve the issue. I think an unified executive branch will mitigate the staffing and activity issues we have but also cutting down on the amount of cabinet positions we have in the first place.
 
A bit late to the party; but trying to catch up on affairs. I really liked this op-ed's analogy :)
 
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