Treat Root Causes Rather Than Symptoms

Here in Seattle, we have lots of problems. Homelessness, property crime, terrible traffic, poor-performing schools, etc. In almost every case, the touted solution is more money. We are told we need more money to house homeless people, we need more money for police to reduce crime, we need more money for transit to reduce congestion, we need to fund our schools better, etc.

However, the more money we throw at these problems, the worse they seem to get. Could it be that the problem is not the lack of money? Could we be addressing the wrong problem or trying to address symptoms rather than root causes?

Identifying a problem is always the easy part. The more difficult task, one that’s almost always overlooked, is to correctly identify the source of the problem. When that step is skipped, the result is we spend increased amounts of money with no results. In fact, we often make the problems worse.

So, let’s start focusing on the sources of these problems.

Regarding homelessness, in the most comprehensive study conducted to date, 78% of the surveyed national homeless population reported a mental health condition, and 75% reported a substance abuse condition (alcohol and/or drugs). Rather than focusing entirely on providing subsidized permanent housing to those experiencing homelessness, policies should focus on restoring self-sufficiency through required treatment for mental health and substance abuse conditions.

Property crime is an outgrowth of the above problem. We must rigorously enforce our laws and allow our police to do their job. If we did that, property crime would diminish, and we would not need to hire more police.

Traffic congestion is being addressed by funding solutions that will take decades to work, cost billions of dollars, and then they will serve only a small percentage of our population. In the meantime, we’re making the issue worse. First, we replaced a three-lane viaduct with a two-lane tunnel (with a toll) and we wonder why traffic got worse. Then, to make matters worse, we condensed the lanes on the two most traveled streets to make room for bicycles. At Mercer Street, we converted two one-way streets, to one two-way street, and then wonder why traffic flow diminishes. We can’t even sequence lights on the one-way roads we have.

None of this makes any sense; it costs money both in infrastructure and lost time for commuters. It adds to pollution and reduces the attractiveness of going “downtown.” If we want to reduce congestion, we must focus on traffic flow and do all we can to move traffic as quickly and expeditiously as possible. We seem to be doing everything but that.

For the last 50 years, we have been hearing that our schools are underfunded, and if we simply give them more money, they will improve. Yet we now spend more than twice the amount per student in inflation-adjusted dollars as we did in 1970. Reducing class size has also been touted as a solution. Yet adult employment in our schools has increased four times the enrollment rate. America’s current education system employs more people who do not teach than those who do, and academic achievement has not materially improved.

Money is not the answer. We should have learned that we have a system problem, not a funding problem. Pouring more money into a failed system simply gives you a more expensive failed system. If we instead focused on improving teaching quality, leadership competence, and governance effectiveness, we might have a chance to improve our schools. None of those solutions are receiving the attention they deserve. And none will require more money, but only the political courage and a willingness to address the core issues.

Our city has problems. But we also have the ability to solve them. To do so, we need to focus on addressing root causes rather than symptoms. It’s time for some clear-headed thinking and decisive action.