CACLV Director Alan Jennings caused a small stir earlier this week when he publicly resigned from the Pennsylvania State Planning Board over disagreements with the Corbett administration. At issue was the Governor's failure to address the hollowing out of Pennsylvania's older core cities. 

Mr. Jennings argued that with so many of Pennsylvania's third-class cities in distress, Tom Corbett's administration can't afford to delay big structural reforms to the way Pennsylvanians pay for municipal government.

These distressed cities have all seen their tax bases crumble in predictable ways, and the remedy is greater flexibility - more service-sharing, revenue-sharing and political consolidation. 

I have great sympathy for Mr. Jennings' critique of the PA State Planning Board, but I do want to respectfully push back on one of the arguments in his resignation letter:

As a governor who came to office intent on reducing inefficiency in government and committed to reducing its costs, I am hopeful that you will focus your attention at the level of government where there is the most redundancy.  Pennsylvania’s 2,500 municipalities, 500 school districts, countless water and wastewater systems, police departments, and pension plans are anachronisms. 

I had hoped that the State Planning Board would be asked to continue, if not redouble, its effort to find modern solutions to the decline of Pennsylvania’s communities.  Instead, it is being asked to advise your administration on creating “green and walkable” communities and improving permitting processes for developers.  While these are valuable goals to pursue, green and walkable won’t be meaningful in insolvent municipalities and developers won’t develop where the economy is choked by government redundancy.

The way I see it, these are two sides of the same coin. Revitalizing PA's older cities will require progress on both of these tracks. Outward suburban growth (and more specifically, the exodus of earned income tax-paying residents) is certainly a drain on city budgets, but there is more to this story.

One problem is that the combination of too many political jurisdictions, and no legally-binding regional land use plan, pushes development away from the core cities.  

The other problem is that the cities themselves have self-imposed zoning and land use rules that restrict their ability to absorb lots of new residents and employers. In my view, anti-density zoning restrictions in the core cities are the main factor eroding city tax bases.

People who want to bring about more economic opportunities in PA's smaller cities should be just as concerned about restrictions on population density and new construction in these cities as they are about the deleterious effects of sprawl. 

If Tom Corbett is too afraid of the thorny politics to take on municipal consolidation like his fellow Republican Governors are doing, that's frustrating, but surely it doesn't mean that nothing can be done. There is no shortage of radical changes that can be made under the banner of "green and walkable," and cities themselves have the power to make these changes. 

Plus, any progress on job density in the cities will arguably make it easier to persuade suburban governments of consolidation, since more people will see themselves as benefitting from sharing the larger tax base. 

I think it's too bad that Mr. Jennings decided to quit instead of burrow in. The State Planning Board will lose a powerful voice for Pennsylvania's smaller cities, and will likely gain a Corbett appointee who will prioritize rural and exurb interests instead. While I wish he would have stayed to fight, I'm glad his repudiation of the Governor has raised the profile of these important issues.