YOLO policymaking
Nine years ago, a giant rubber duck sailed into Toronto’s harbour.
One thing you should know about this giant rubber duck is that it was in fact very large, as far as rubber ducks go. Six stories tall, 13,600 kg.
Another thing you should know is that it caused some people to get pretty mad. The installation received about $120,000 in provincial funding as part of Canada 150 celebrations. Then-MPP Rick Nicholls (later booted from the PCPO caucus for refusing to get vaccinated) called it a “cluster duck“ which is a great line to be delivering in the legislature. Others asked what giant rubber ducks have to do with the 150th anniversary of confederation.
I think both of these criticisms suffer from an important blind spot that comes up too often in policy analysis, they fail to place any value on fun. And when you design to maximize a narrow definition of efficiency or ROI, you miss the chance to put a little joy into people’s lives, and to make policies work better.
Take the RxKids program, an unconditional cash transfer program for moms and babies in Michigan. It’s run by Michigan State University and GiveDirectly. So far sounds good but very few people’s idea of fun. But this program has a difference - it actually seems to be designed by people who enjoy the presence of children. so they’ve added some twists to try to make it fun, the standout being baby parades in the communities, featuring marching bands, ice cream and other good stuff.
The total cash value is a bit more than the Canada Child Benefit in the first year (a total of $7,500 USD, or about $10,670 CAD, compared to $8,157 for the Canada Child Benefit), but much less when you consider the CCB is available through age 17. But still, it has led to lower food and housing insecurity, better birth weights and healthier pregnancies, and lower parenting stress for mothers. It also led to higher birth rates.
Naturally the cash is doing the work of helping people pay for food, rent and diapers. But I wouldn’t underestimate the work that baby parades can be doing in improving outcomes. We know that stigma is one of the barriers that stops people from taking up supports that are there to help them; sending new parents the message that people in their community want the best for their kids and associating the program with sunshine and ice cream instead of soulless fluorescent lighting and drop ceilings is an obvious win. If we’re looking for political sustainability, a literal parade of babies is likely to have more lasting impact than peer-reviewed studies. And connecting people to their neighbours is surely helpful on that parental stress angle. South of the border a national nonprofit Block Party USA, is looking to bring the grape juice gospel to every community.1
We can, and should, have nice things when it comes to infrastructure too.
Take electrical pylons - those big towers that carry electrical wires. Simply put we need more of these as we ramp up and modernize electricity generation and transmission, but they are also unappreciated eyesores. In the UK the pylon debate spiked recently to become a national issue. The National Grid sponsored a competition for innovative designs and landed on a boring if a bit more minimal telephone-pole-style “t design.” Turns out, people still hated it.
They could have gone with much more interesting ones that looked like sails. Or they could have steered into fun and gone with this idea for the land of giants, designed by an Icelandic architecture firm. It would be an indisputable improvement to life on this earth if some of the linear parks along hydro corridors in Toronto had these.2 But you don’t get there by issuing another standard RFP or designing a process optimized to avoid a little bit of rubber duck controversy. You need a little YOLO policymaking; we only get so much time on this earth, might as well enjoy it.
Give me the choice between a life in which I get to see a giant rubber duck, or one where the electrical infrastructure looks like giants, and one where I don’t get that opportunity, and I know which I choose.
If you’re looking for ideas for your own neighbourhood block party, candy sushi with rice krispie treats rice, fruit by the foot ‘seaweed’ and Swedish fish was a big hit last year on our street.
Thank you to Richard Carlson for answering me when I asked about the feasibility of these pylons and pointing me to some of this background. Highly recommend having phone-a-friend experts around. Any errors are mine.