May 2006 Archives

We decided to try something different in Anaheim – something radical in the context of the conventional wisdom of economic development for cities. We decided to remove government as the central planner and driver of progress, and instead place our trust in the decisions of free people acting within a free market. The City of Anaheim role is restricted to fostering an environment of economic liberty: liberalizing zoning laws to give property owners maximum freedom to use their property as they deem fit; cutting business taxes and regulation and rewarding citizens for taking the initiative in revamping their homes and neighborhoods.

The results speak for themselves. While local governments across the state still wrangle with redevelopment projects they were contemplating when Anaheim embarked on the path of reform, our Platinum Triangle project – the area around Angel Stadium of Anaheim - has rapidly leapt from drawing board to reality. In a few short years, an area previously composed of warehouses and industrial uses is being transformed into a vibrant downtown of up to 9,500 residential units, 5 million square feet of office space and over 2 million square feet of commercial uses – and at a speed only the free market can achieve. What’s more, this has all been accomplished without redevelopment, without eminent domain, and without city planners micro-managing every development project.

Platinum is only one manifestation of Anaheim’s freedom revolution. Thanks to the leadership of my friend and former council colleague Tom Tait, the Anaheim City Council has established Freedom Days in Anaheim. We use that time to explore new ways to promote and protect the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans. Our focus is something regretful alien to modern American governance: instead of creating new rules, we look for ways to eliminate rules and bureaucracy, and repeal ordinances that place a burden on liberty.

In 2004, we enacted a Home Improvement Holiday. For the months during the spring of that year, permit fees were waived and Anaheim residents responded by making $28.3 million in improvements to their homes – a spectacular return on a civic investment of $772,240 in waived permit fees. 3,562 residential building permits were issued during the three-month holiday, with a construction valuation of nearly $15 million. It amazing how much free citizens in a free market can accomplish in a short span of time, if government just gets out of the way.

The following year, we established a Business Tax Holiday – a 100-day period during which all business taxes were waived for new businesses started during that period. We also cut business taxes across the board for most Anaheim businesses – while small, home-based and start-up businesses were exempted from city business taxes altogether. Businesses that had been operating without a license had penalties waived if they came forward and applied for a license during the three-month holiday.

Once again, a freedom-friendly approach worked: more than 2,000 new businesses formed -- an increase of more than 33% over the prior year – and 550 companies took advantage of tax amnesty.

When government steps aside and fosters an environment in which entrepreneurs can succeed, they will take that opportunity and run with it.

Anaheim’s “Freedom Revolution” has been called a new direction in urban policy, but in a deeper sense it’s an old policy reborn - grounded in the founding principles of this country.

Ronald Reagan spoke often and eloquently about freedom. Americans of all partisan persuasions intuitively grasped that is wasn’t just a word to him, but a deeply cherished right that he knew belonged to everyone. It was inspiring, and a primary reason Reagan was able to attract the support of so many Democrats and independent voters.

That same phenomenon is at work in Anaheim. The Anaheim City Council is composed of three Republicans and two Democrats, and I would not have been successful in enacting a slew of freedom-friendly reforms were it not for the support not only of my Republican council members, but of my Democratic council colleagues as well. We may belong to different parties, but we share a devotion to the classic American ideal of liberty, we understand that opportunity follows freedom, and favor public policies predicated on these goals. What is happening in Anaheim is a lesson in the power of freedom to bring Americans of all parties together. Ronald Reagan understood that power, and he used that insight to build a governing coalition of Republicans, independents and what became known as “Reagan” Democrats, and created a political environment that can still live today.

Love of liberty is the soul of the Republican Party. It is the reason we are America’s governing party – which is why we can never allow ourselves to drift into the belief that government is always right, that it can always be trusted with more money and power – and this is true regardless of which party is running it. I keep that caution in mind and remember that the real creators of Anaheim’s renaissance is not our government or City Council, but our citizens acting in a free market that welcomes their innovations and aspirations. What we hope to do in Anaheim is to be smart enough to get out of their way.
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Curt Pringle has served as Mayor of Anaheim since December 2002. He previously served in the Assembly from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1992 to 1998. In 1996, he was elected and served as the longest serving Republican Speaker of the Assembly in a quarter century.