Oakland mayoral candidate and former U.S. Congressman Ron Dellums is bringing his social engineering agenda to the local level. In this profile from today's SF Chron, the former Washington, D.C. lobbyist for Rolls Royce and AT&T says he'll push for universal health care and an end to poverty for Oakland residents, and hopes to ensure that economic development - which has flourished under outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown - doesn't price minorities out of the housing market. Dellums:

...wants to make Oakland a model...by eradicating poverty and bringing health care to every resident...voters...believe he will bring...dedication to social justice to City Hall, balancing the needs of the people with the needs of the business community.

Saville Row suits aside, Dellums can play the stone-cold diversity hustler to a "T," as the public was reminded last fall when he began talking about moving back to Oakland from Washington to run for mayor. When you hear that phrase "social justice," reach for your wallet. We're really talking about the gospel of "managed outcomes," from government mandates clothed as "public-private partnerships."

Dellums has made it clear that, if elected, he will address issues far beyond the scope of City Hall -- particularly poverty and health care. He sees nothing wrong with a mayor addressing broader social issues, because, he said, they go to the very core of creating a thriving city.

Dellums says such extra-local priorities do not pose an "either-or" choice for Oakland against core concerns such as policing and public education, but I believe he's blowing smoke. There's only so much money in any municipal budget, and so much time, energy and political capital that can be expended to make a city more livable. As mayor of a place like Oakland, you best address poverty through better public schools; an insistence on greater parental involvement and enduring two-parent families in at-risk populations; and through increased police staffing, and economic development without the retrograde "social justice" dogma. People want jobs, and they want to shop. Exhibit A: the response to Wal-Mart's new store in Oakland.

Dellums has drawn some fire -- and raised some eyebrows -- with his views on development, and some developers worry he would put the brakes on the growth Brown has made the centerpiece of his administration. Dellums says he has no desire to staunch Oakland's recent housing boom but wants to see some new housing made available to the poor and working class. He's worried that the city is losing one of is greatest assets -- its rich cultural and ethnic diversity. "It doesn't mean development doesn't go forward," he said. "What I'm saying is no one segment of society should be determining the direction of the city. I'm a believer and a practitioner of government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Look, I like a peppery peanut stew or linguica as much as the next urban aesthete, but the plain fact is that the people with the capital to develop property are the ones who come forward with plans. The color of these people is green, as in Benjamins. In a capitalist economic system, rising demand for housing in a given area will tend to drive up prices. Lower-income renters faced with those free market forces are suddenly reminded that railing against "business" and the monied clases isn't what's going to keep them housed in a gentrifying neighborhood. Neither, in all likelihood, will necessarily watered-down government mandates for a small handful of "affordable" housing units at something like 80 percent of market rate, which is still going to be too much for low-income holdouts.

The silver bullet is earning power and all that precedes it - solid two-parent nuclear families; demanding public schools; self-determination, and economic empowerment. As opposed to the warmed over 1970s nanny-statism proferred by Dellums and his coterie of faded, guilt-plagued Oakland leftists.

In the end, despite the rhetoric from Dellums and his supporters, diversity isn't really something that can be successfully stage-managed. You'll retain more blacks in a gentrifying Oakland if they can compete economically. And you'll draw the children of white middle- and upper-income Seattle families back into this city's public schools only if those schools first demonstrate an across-the-board commitment to academic excellence and rigorous curricula.

Sorry, but my kids aren't a social experiment, which is why we cough up private school tuition. To my wife and I, their best interests come well before those of parents and children in Seattle's struggling public schools who would benefit from their presence. In a competitive marketplace, diversity (much like health care benefits) can be no more than a consequence of personal commitment - across racial and class lines - to achievement and success. This commitment is rooted in the nuclear family, but also depends on a government wise and respectful enough to govern less, rather than more.

TECHNORATI TAGS: OAKLAND, RON DELLUMS, MAYOR, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, POVERTY, EDUCATION, SELF-EMPOWERMENT, ROLE OF GOVERNMENT, AT&T, ROLLS ROYCE