Serving the Public: It’s More than Policy
With my last day at the San Jose City Hall Office of Economic Development two days ago, I feel like I completed a crash course in the role of local government. Entering this fellowship, I expected Economic Development to focus on developing and creating policies to help grow investment and income in the city. I found instead that the government plays many roles besides policymaker, a few of which I was able to participate in or witness.
Firstly, the team I sat with was the Business Development team. The term business development does not have the same meaning in this context as it would in the private sector, which would imply sales growth and finding new customers. However, if you think of the city of San Jose as City Hall’s product, this is not a bad place to start. The business development team’s focus is on attracting strong businesses to locate to San Jose, and retain the ones already there. Asides from the tax revenue these businesses generate, bringing lucrative jobs to the city makes it a more desirable place to live. I always thought of the relationship between business and government as primarily one of regulation and accountability, but in this office I saw that it is the private sector that sometimes holds the power by virtue of what a business like Apple or Google can offer the city.
My supervisor had a slightly different role. His work was primarily focused on business districts, which are neighborhoods within the city that have a more distinct identity or flavor, whether because of the types of businesses offered or because of a strong cultural influence. With him, I worked on a mapping system for the street banners seen around these neighborhoods. They advertise events in the city or just let people know what neighborhood they are in to promote its brand. Walking around taking notes of street pole numbers was a lesson in the behind the scenes work that never stops for governments of any size. We also worked on a grant program to financially assist small business owners who wanted to beautify their storefronts. This was the closest to the policy work that I had expected, and also taught me a little bit about contracts.
Overall, I was struck by the difference between the office I worked in and previous internships in the private sector. On the surface, they were virtually the same: desks, cubicles, water cooler, business casual attire, but the vibe was much more open and friendly in an authentic way than what I had experienced in company offices. In this way and in the others I mentioned throughout this blog, this fellowship showed me that government work truly is being a public servant.