Perceptions and Passages of a Lifelong Participant by Stephen G. Harding
Way back at the 2025 annual conference, there was an informal get together of the California Association for Local Economic Development (CALED) Dead Presidents Club (Plus three). Of course, we are no longer presidents but chairs. For 45 years, and now with a membership of over 1,000, CALED remains the primary association for local economic... Continue Reading →
"It’s no surprise that the governed are not happy with their government. Yet it would be naive for state and local officials to think this attitude ends at the federal level. Governmental agencies are pressed to meet the conflicting expectations of elected officials and competing interests of a socio-economic diverse society. Bureaucracy’s overly narrow focus... Continue Reading →
Ich Bin ein Berliner The day will come when the United States of America will recapture a sense of itself. After all, we are all Berliners. We just need to be reminded! The Real Meaning of Ich Bin ein Berliner by Thomas Putnam https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-real-meaning-of-ich-bin-ein-berliner/309500 "I am proud to come to this city as the guest... Continue Reading →
Building Trust Between the Governed and the Government Nearly ten years ago, I presented a TED talk at the annual conference of the Municipal Management Association of Southern California (MMASC). The topic:“The Why of Public Service.” At the time, I had been a retired city manager for a couple of years but continued as an... Continue Reading →
Prophetic to say the least. Famous words from Tom Paine’s “The American Crisis.” So moving, that Washington required it read to his troops at a time that the American cause was in doubt. Regardless, Paine’s inference was clear: the times have always tried men’s souls. Without dedication, without effort, there is no real allegiance, no true commitment.... Continue Reading →
I have spent my adult life a student of political science, public affairs, foreign policy, and governmental administration. Way past my undergraduate days of the 1960s and the confines of my long-term vocation in local government, I tried to keep up with contemporary lines of political, economic, and cultural thought. Twenty plus years behind the... Continue Reading →
What happened to his vision? This new America. This path so clearly marked. Was it just too hard to travel? Were we just too distracted? Too consumed with our own consumption? Too enamored with our own greatness to see ourselves as to who we truly were, as to who we truly are? After all, having... Continue Reading →
Finding the Bureaucracy's Civic Responsibility Nearly a decade ago, I presented a TED talk at the annual conference of the Municipal Management Association of Southern California (MMASC). I had been a retired practitioner for a year but continued on as an adjunct with three separate master of public administration/public policy programs. Just prior to this... Continue Reading →
By Stephen G. Harding It has been 24 years since 9-11, our contemporary day of infamy. As if watching a B movie on some vintage cable channel, we witnessed commercial airliners disappear into the glass reflections of New York’s twin towers. Midst the chaos, a smothering wave of debris, and the successive collapse of the... Continue Reading →
"... I defined our national problem as a culture of contempt. What exactly is contempt? Social scientists define contempt as anger mixed with disgust. These two emotions form a toxic combination, like ammonia mixed with bleach. In the words of the nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.”... Continue Reading →