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Partnership and Privatization
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19316 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1991 |
2,315 Words |
| Author
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Peter MacDonald
Peter MacDonald is a free-lance journalist with five years of
local government experience. |
Two Democratic governors--Pennsylvania's Robert Casey and Maryland's William Donald Schaefer--are quite angry about big city demands for more state dollars, but for entirely different reasons.
Casey, who was elected in part because of his antagonism toward Philadelphia, makes it clear that the cash-strapped city's tumble toward bankruptcy is not his problem. Says Casey, "[Philadelphia] will not get a blank check from this state. Nobody in Harrisburg is going to bail out that city." Blank check? Philadelphia cannot even get a signed check these days. Pennsylvania is so tightfisted, it won't even pay Philadelphia's court system costs even though, legally, it is the state's responsibility--as the city recently proved in court.
Meanwhile, Schaefer--Baltimore's former mayor and architect of its acclaimed Harbor Place--is reportedly still unhappy that the legislature rejected his tax restructuring plan, which would have channeled millions more to Baltimore. The local media have portrayed Schaefer as so emotional about this setback, as well as others, that it has become a popular pastime to question his fitness for office. Schaefer supporters, many of them Baltimoreans, recently awarded him a pair of shiny red boxing gloves in honor of his fighting spirit.
Casey's disdain for Philadelphia and Schaefer's passion for Baltimore are striking studies in contrast, as well as potent symbols of one city on a downhill slide and another bracing itself for a climb into a hopeful future.
If conflict and division characterize Philadelphia, consensus and cooperation apply to Baltimore. Consider, for example, the thorny question of race. In the city ironically known as the "City of Brotherly Love," Philadelphia's first black mayor, Democrat Wilson Goode, barely edged out blue-collar favorite Frank Rizzo, a Republican, in his 1987 reelection bid, winning by 3 percent. Ominously, Goode captured 98 percent of the black vote, while 97 percent of Rizzo's total came from whites. It was the most racially polarized vote in the city's history and spelled the end of Goode's tenuous coalition of business leaders, blacks, and neighborhood groups. In Baltimore, cited by numerous analysts as a city with a surprising degree of racial harmony, the transition in 1987 from Schaefer to Kurt Schmoke--its first black mayor--was a smooth one that did not disrupt the generally good relations of city hall with the business community and the neighborhoods.
While Goode
...
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