Democracy Local's year-end poem is about the relationship at the heart of local governance
Here's a new tradition at Democracy Local: the year-end poem. (Image credit: Joe Mathews, working with Google Gemini)
THE TECHNOCRAT AND THE LOCAL CAN BE FRIENDS
The Wonk loves grids and the perfect line,
And the silence of data, aged like wine.
She dreams in metrics, precise and neat,
Safe from the chaos of the street.
While the People—oh, the People are loud!
A messy, glorious, shouting crowd,
Who spill their coffee and change their minds,
And leave the slide-rules far behind.
They say these two are a fatal mix,
Like oil and water, or windows and bricks.
That the Technocrat sneers at the anecdotal,
That the Local hates the sum-and-total.
But look closer at the scene:
The magic happens in between.
It happens when the Suit steps out,
To find what’s the fuss about,
And trades the boredom of the board
For a plastic chair and a vocal ward.
It’s not just hearings and official speech,
But the awkward pause, the sudden breach
When the Ph.D. in Urban Flow
Asks the Baker where the buses go.
There is comedy in the start,
When the Pie Chart
meets the Apple Tart.
When policy written in "Section B"
Gets a rewrite over spicy tea.
The Expert learns the map is wrong
(The street is short, but the wait is long),
Then the Local learns that the scary plan
Was drafted by a nervous man.
Turns out Governance isn't a ghost.
It’s quiet talk with the morning toast.
It’s the engineer in a hard-hat zone
Realizing she shouldn't work alone.
For the grandest problems our planet faces—
The melting ice and drying places
Cannot be solved by decree from high,
Nor by shouting at the empty sky.
We need the nerd to check the math,
We need the neighbor to clear the path.
A playful dance of heart and head
Where spreadsheet meets the daily bread.
To save the world, we must conspire
To mix the logic with the fire.
