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EDITORIAL
Challenging Assumptions
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Business New Haven
6/14/99
By: BNH
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One of the rules successful business people have learned in the very, very late 20th century is this: No assumption is safe.
In a world whose only constant is change, those who have thrived have done so by understanding that the conventional wisdom is almost always conventional - but seldom real wisdom. The beliefs we hold most dear must be subjected to continuous scrutiny as the playing field shifts from day to day.
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. isn't much of a challenge-your-own-assumptions kind of guy. His apparently unshakable belief that a million-square-foot upscale retail mall at Long Wharf is the only solution to New Haven's economic torpor flies in the face of much conflicting evidence to the contrary.
But, judged by his words and actions, the mayor appears unwilling to challenge his own assumption, even when many of his constituents - including much of the small-business community - tell him he is wrong.
Willfulness is not one of the seven deadly sins. But it may be the eighth.
Attempting to mollify the pesky small-business skeptics, DeStefano June 7 announced plans to create a small-business loan fund as well as a mechanism by which small and minority-owned contractors might get better access to work on major city construction projects.
Window-dressing? Maybe; maybe not. The city administration talks a good game about the importance of small business, but its actions don't always complement its words.
Ten years ago the city's economic-fortunes were inextricably linked to those of its largest employers. But Echlin and Sargent have passed on to ownership by distant conglomerates. The local banks are a thing of the past, save one. The local phone company is gone; the local gas company will be gone by year's end; the local electric company won't be far behind.
As the U.S. economy wallows in unprecedented prosperity, Connecticut's cities remain prosperity-resistant backwaters - in large part due to their leaders' misplaced faith in big projects and big companies. But the answers to New Haven's and Hartford's ills lie not in Philadelphia or Cleveland, but in successful New England communities such as Portland, Me. and Northampton, Mass., which continue to thrive by understanding that slow and steady wins the race, and that smaller really can be better.
Is this some kind of Connecticut disease? In Hartford, Adriaen's Landing follows Constitution Plaza follows the Civic Center Mall. In New Haven, the Long Wharf mall follows Williams Specialty Steel follows the Connecticut Tennis Center. Don't we ever learn the expensive lessons of experience? Not even Mark McGwire can hit a five-run homer.
The real cynics (not us; we're just skeptical civic boosters) argue that Connecticut cities' big-fix frenzy is driven by developers who want the public sector to cover their downsides. When those who are on the hook for these potential blunders - taxpayers and small-business owners who, unlike the political leadership, have their family fortunes on the line - ask embarrassing questions, maybe we all need to listen more carefully to the answers.
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