Are Politicians Getting More Crooked?

The rap sheets at city hall are growing long indeed: Philadelphia's former city treasurer was sentenced recently to 10 years in prison for corruption. Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell is going on trial in September. Two San Diego city council members were found guilty of conspiracy, extortion and fraud. Chicago is in the midst of a scandal over rigged civil service exams. Question: Are politicians more crooked today than in the past? Answer: no.

True, this has been a busy year. The U.S. Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes political corruption cases, reports that it had secured 43 convictions or guilty pleas by mid-year. That compares with 51 for all of 2004 and 48 in 2003. But otherwise, observers say, it's business as usual. "I don't think statistically there's been any kind of dramatic spike," said one former prosecutor.

The Dallas Morning News took at look recently at the Public Integrity Section and found it to be a fearsome and unusually effective squad. (There's a federal investigation of city officials in Dallas underway, as well.) Between 1984 and 2003, the feds obtained convictions for 20,393 of the 23,320 people they indicted. Reason for success: Prosecutors are careful to indict only when the evidence is strong. That usually means wiretaps, incriminating documents, "body bugs" (where one person is wearing a recording device) and lots of corroborating testimony. The easiest people in a public corruption case to "turn" (agree to cooperate with authorities) are usually the business people supplying the bribes.

OK, but what exactly is a bribe? Politicians receive campaign contributions from business people all the time, and contributors often want something for their money. What separates a legal contribution from an illegal payoff? Answer: When it's tied to something specific, a "quid pro quo," in legal jargon — something along the lines of, if you give me $5,000, I'll make sure you get a $100,000 city contract. "Basically, you want to get dead-to-rights evidence . . . getting the defendant on tape stating unequivocally what the quid pro quo is," a former prosecutor told the Morning News.

But why make a federal case of local corruption? After all, states and localities have prosecutors; why aren't they the ones hauling crooked city council members into court? Two reasons: The feds make it a priority. The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section was created in 1976 and has been supported by attorneys general ever since. And, like Elliot Ness, federal authorities are more or less untouchable. "(Public corruption) is a crime the federal government believes it is uniquely qualified to investigate because it's not beholden to any particular local constituency," a former prosecutor pointed out, "and it's an area which it has developed a great deal off experience in."

Footnote: Of the corruption cases cited above, the Chicago scandal is unusual in that it doesn't appear to involve money for contracts or legislation. Rather it seems to center around penny-ante patronage. Still, the embarrassment factor is high here. Among the cases the news media have seized on: one in which an applicant for a city dispatcher's job was ranked as qualified on the basis of interviews. Only problem: The applicant had died before the alleged interviews took place.

The Value of an Urban Park

Ask people to value an urban park and they might talk about the benefits of recreation or how green spaces can keep city air cleaner and temperatures cooler in summers. Or they might talk about social capital and how parks offer gathering places for conversation and celebrations. But Chicago's new downtown park, Millennium Park, is adding another value: that of cold, hard cash.

Millennium Park opened in 2004 with two big strikes against it. It was four years late. (It was supposed to have opened in the millennium year.) And it was embarrassingly expensive. Originally budgeted at $150 million, the park's final cost was $475 million. But when people laid eyes on this 25-acre jewel of a park, which is part green space and part art space, none of that mattered. Since opening day, crowds have been drawn to its stunning sculptures and playful architecture.

And, it turns out, so are real estate developers. A study this year by Chicago's planning department estimated that Millennium Park would create $1.4 billion in residential development in the next decade. How? Because the park has created a huge demand for apartments and condos nearby. "Millennium Park has become a status symbol, a focal point, a magnet for the surrounding neighborhood, making properties around the park extremely desirable," a real estate analyst told the Chicago Tribune.

What makes this all the more impressive is that the East Loop area, where the park is located, wasn't a very desirable neighborhood before 2004. "Before, (it) was an eyesore with railroad tracks and parking lots," a development consultant told the Tribune. "Now, it is a premium environment."

Is this a fluke, or could another new urban park have a similar impact? We may find out in the years ahead as Atlanta moves forward with its Beltline project. On the surface, the Beltline is nothing like Millennium Park. It's a 22-mile circuit of abandoned rail corridors, some in gentrifying areas, others in poor neighborhoods. The idea: Use this corridor to create a ribbon of parks, trails and light-rail transit circling the city. But clearly Atlanta officials are expecting something like the Millennium Park effect to occur near the Beltway.

Among other things, they'll need a wave of development to pay for the park. Under the city's plan, the Beltline would be built and maintained with tax-allocation financing, which uses future increases in property tax assessments to pay for today's improvements. No rise in property values, no repayment of the debt.

But could the Beltline's impact be anything like Millennium Park's? If not, it won't be for lack of ambition. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported recently, advocates predict that, in the next quarter-century, the Beltline's impact on Atlanta will rank with "the arrival of professional sports teams, the growth of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport . . . and the (1996) Olympic Games."