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NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

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Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#11

Post by njarboe »

mtalantikite wrote: post #7

Years ago I read about how Norway was redistributing agencies out of Oslo and into other cities across the country. This felt like it made intuitive sense, as you'd maybe get to distribute jobs to other localities and break up the concentration of bureaucracy. I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

On the other hand keeping all of the federal workforce in D.C, instead of the states, reduces the political desire to prop up federal projects just for the local jobs. Much easier to reduce wasteful spending when you don't layoff people you want voting for you.

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#12

Post by xeromal »

bachmeier wrote: post #10
mtalantikite wrote: post #7

Years ago I read about how Norway was redistributing agencies out of Oslo and into other cities across the country. This felt like it made intuitive sense, as you'd maybe get to distribute jobs to other localities and break up the concentration of bureaucracy. I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

I'm not sure the current status, but during Trump I, they moved USDA research from Washington, DC to Kansas City.

Doesn't seem like a bad place to move it to!

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#15

Post by bilbo0s »

mtalantikite wrote: post #7

Years ago I read about how Norway was redistributing agencies out of Oslo and into other cities across the country. This felt like it made intuitive sense, as you'd maybe get to distribute jobs to other localities and break up the concentration of bureaucracy. I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

Not familiar with how Norway works?

But I am familiar with the US. We have so much corruption that it's a virtual certainty any moves of the kind you postulate would be precipitated by a desire for more and easier access to corruption. We actually have a long history of doing this sort of thing in the US. Sometimes we get more corruption, but the service in question is objectively better off. (Some moves made by the military when the Berlin wall came down.) More often we get more corruption and the service in question is objectively worse off. (NASA being forced, via corruption, to build solid rocket boosters a long way away from where the boosters would be used. Thus necessitating the modularization of the boosters into transportable segments. "No problem! We'll just use O-Rings!")

Here's the thing. Whether the results were objectively better, or objectively worse, corruption increased. So the US, as a whole, deteriorates.

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#16

Post by bilbo0s »

njarboe wrote: post #11
mtalantikite wrote: post #7

Years ago I read about how Norway was redistributing agencies out of Oslo and into other cities across the country. This felt like it made intuitive sense, as you'd maybe get to distribute jobs to other localities and break up the concentration of bureaucracy. I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

On the other hand keeping all of the federal workforce in D.C, instead of the states, reduces the political desire to prop up federal projects just for the local jobs. Much easier to reduce wasteful spending when you don't layoff people you want voting for you.

The political desire to prop up federal projects for the local jobs is exactly the reason they want to do the moves. It's corruption all the way down.

The corruption isn't an unintended consequence of the moves. The ability to engage in the corruption is the entire point of the moves.

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#17

Post by ceejayoz »

xeromal wrote: post #12
bachmeier wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the current status, but during Trump I, they moved USDA research from Washington, DC to Kansas City.

Doesn't seem like a bad place to move it to!

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963207129/usda-research-agenc...

> She says that more than half of agency employees decided to quit rather than uproot their families and move. Despite aggressive recruiting in Kansas City and making many new hires, both USDA research agencies are now roughly half the size they were before the move.

(As intended, of course.)

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#18

Post by dogleash »

mtalantikite wrote: post #7

Years ago I read about how Norway was redistributing agencies out of Oslo and into other cities across the country. This felt like it made intuitive sense, as you'd maybe get to distribute jobs to other localities and break up the concentration of bureaucracy. I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

> I haven't read about the outcomes, but I've always wondered what could happen if the DC area did the same.

If the central office has any say over the location someone works, you get the phenomenon where the population of less-desirable living locations get to suffer local employees that aren't good enough at their job to be given higher prioritization in choosing their station. And the organization looses good workers they can't accommodate.

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#19

Post by bilbo0s »

xeromal wrote: post #12
bachmeier wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the current status, but during Trump I, they moved USDA research from Washington, DC to Kansas City.

Doesn't seem like a bad place to move it to!

It's a horrible place to move it to.

If we make moves, Ok. How about this..

We move these agencies to get adversarial impulses going in service of cost control.

We move the USDA to the middle of New York City.

Urban Development to Tomah Wisconsin. (I'll settle for Nacogdoches Texas just to make sure the South gets some of these HQ's).

Department of the Interior should be moved to Miami Fl.

Department of Defense to Berkeley California.

And so on and so forth.

All should be legally obliged to hire only locals in civilian roles.

Having the USDA in Kansas City guarantees the tax payer gets robbed blind.

Re: NSF getting kicked out of headquarters by HUD

#20

Post by LeifCarrotson »

xeromal wrote: post #12
bachmeier wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the current status, but during Trump I, they moved USDA research from Washington, DC to Kansas City.

Doesn't seem like a bad place to move it to!

It's not a bad place, but you'd have to move it there slowly if you wanted it to work. Establish a satellite campus, bring a few people there from the original HQ who want to move or will accept whatever incentives you can offer to move, hire locals where possible, work to build relationships like internships with UMKC programs or other local businesses and agencies, hire aggressively from people already in the surrounding area, and then over a period of a few years to a decade people looking to get an education and future job in this industry will realize there's opportunity in Kansas City, and you can start closing down the original location and building up the new one.

If you do this with no plan and no incentives in a matter of a year or less, it's going to decimate the whole agency.

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