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Features picture: Volkswagen Passat Variant syncro. Source: Volkswagen Media Services.

The German federal administrative court today ruled that municipalities in Germany may impose bans on diesel-powered cars to combat polluted air.

City bans on diesel-engine cars – is this a public sector innovation?

In a public management context an innovation is a novel and useful idea. The novel and useful idea has to be new to the organization adopting it. People outside the organization may consider the novel idea as an imitation in case they implemented the same idea long ago. True – innovation at times is synonymous with imitation. Anyways, as long as the idea has the potential to serve community well, innovative behavior is a good thing.

The idea of banning dirty cars from entering city centers is not novel to Germany. Imposing city bans on dirty cars is a practice that has been in operation since 2007. Since then local governments are allowed to establish so called “low emission zones”, in which heavy polluters are not allowed to enter.

Though not a novel idea can bans might be useful, nonetheless. It is questionable whether banning particular groups of cars from entering cities is a useful attempt to improve air-quality for community members.

Dirty air that badly damages the health is one of the most pressing problems induced by ever increasing individual motor car traffic. But it is not only problem. It is just one of the multiple problems that can be measured more easily than others. I consider individual combustion engine based car traffic simply being an outdated technology in modern and sustainable smart cities.

Modern public managers and elected decision makers will need to shift their attention of attempts of protecting an over-subsidized car industry to developing comprehensive and integrated public transportation systems.

Just two examples for such comprehensive and integrated public transportation systems:

The first one is Paris’ RER system which was set up in the 1970ies.

The second example can be found in contemporary Moscow.

In 2017 Moscow opened its new Central Circle (MCC), a railway transportation system encircling Moscow’s outer center. MCC is one element in the capital’s comprehensive transportation system, alongside the Second metro circle line (currently under construction), and the Diameter project, MCD.

In November 2017 Vladimir Putin approved plans announced by Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, for a new railway transportation network labeled MCD. MCD is planned to established five new routes from outer suburbs to Moscow; the lines will also link to the existing underground rapid system, the Metro, and Moscow Central Circle (MCC). The MCD project is another feature in Moscow’s attempt to create a modern comprehensive transportation system.

Brandenburg, a German state surrounding the countries capital Berlin, scrapped its planned local government reform last week.

In an attempt to modernize the state’s local administration the planned reform centered on a commonly cited but outdated receipt: downsizing of staff size through merger of administrative units. Economies of scale is the economic rational behind this unidimensional approach.

Empirically there is little evidence that size links to administrative performance.

While larger organizations tend to be more innovative than very small entities (it is easier to let 4 or 5 people develop and test some novel practices if you have 400 more for the regular stuff), there is no compelling proof that they perform better.

First, performance has multiple dimensions, cost-efficiency being just one among them. So the back-then state government was seemingly poorly advised when it came up with its reform proposal several years ago.

Second, even if there is a, say, u-shape relationship between size and cost-efficiency, both researchers and practitioners do not know what a sufficient size it.

Size does not matter for well-being of community members! But access to high-speed internet connection and a sound public transport infrastructure do.

The scrapping came as a last minute withdrawal. The reform was long-awaited but also highly contested, though for political reasons rather than for public management reasoning.

Some additional 400 millions will be available over Brandenburgs next two-budget cycle due. This is the main explanation why the incumbent coalition now scrapped a reform that she had been advocating for several years. There is simply no budget pressure to facilitate any substanial efforts to make public management modern.

Reputational scratches is all whats remain from this episode.

Pictured above: Sanssouci, without concerns; royal palace of former Prussian king Frederick the Great, located in Potsdam, Brandenburg’s capital

After some felt three years of stop-amd-go renovation the New Square (новая площадь) in Moscows city center shows up with his new fresh face (pictured below). Plenty of new space for pedestrians, including bench to take a rest and a look on another pending renovation side: the technical museum, which is located in the middle of new square. Moscow changes his face a little day by day. And to the better, the good news goes.

Two prime time serials on Russias Channel One are indicative of the countries official Vergangenheitskultur regarding the October revolution which happened exactly 100 years ago.

Perception of the back then Red Russian revolution is ambivalent in contemporary Moscow. On the one hand some selected protagonists, such as of course Lenin,  are omnipresent: Leninskiy avenue, Lenin library, Lenin Subway, Lenin statues (such as the big one on Kalushska Square, pictured below). But these are mostly leftovers from Soviet times.

On the other hand in official narratives of Russian history the 1917 October revolution is depicted as starting point for unrest, disorder, famine, and plain chaos. 

For example, in a recent exhibition commerorating the 1917 Revolution, „Code of the Revolution“, I recognized no link drawn between 1917 and, say, post-war successes in space technology and ceconomic development.

The first serial depicted the life of Trotsky, a Russian revolutionary, who later flew to Mexico. The plot is that Trotsky himself tells his life from a retrospective perspective to an American journalist in his late exile. We see mainly episode from his pre-revolutionary exile in Switzerland and other European countries. Trotsky is depicted as tragic hero, while Lenin is less smart but more successful in terms of influence.

The second film lenght serial depicted the life of Lenin until the point when he and his comrades re-entered Russia after the February revolution. We see his wife, we see the German generals how they agree to let Lenin travel via Germany to Russia in an attempt to end the war with Russia by destabilizing the country. The tragic hero in this serial is an unkown military sergeant who is trying to stop the train before he reached the Russian border.