Solving Naperville’s Problems, Simply Adjust The Norms

Why does the Naperville city council wrestle with problems? Why don’t they just apply Occam’s razor, and also simply adjust the norms. Occam’s razor is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the correct one.

This is exactly how the city council solved the problem of homeless people in Naperville; they renamed them street-dwellers, and bingo, no more homeless people in Naperville. How simple was that. Naperville needs an ‘Occam’.

No matter what the problem is, just adjust the norm. Let’s take the Fifth Avenue Development’s need for parking spots. Just say that 200 new parking spots are needed, but we are going to build spots for 400 vehicles. If the good folks of Naperville are given a choice between 200 or 400, they will be twice as happy with 400. Problem solved.

Or how about this one. Just say the development calls for a 50-story building, but we are going to approve a 6-story building. Make the people happy. So simple. So much time and money can be saved without endless talking and studies and surveys.

There is no end to what city officials (who are they anyway) can say and do. “We need to raise the sales tax by 2%, but we are only going to raise it 1%”. That would make the fine folks of Naperville dance in the streets wouldn’t it.

Between Naperville’s Occam and adjusting the norm, we’d have no problems, only solutions.

Considering this is Thanksgiving weekend, watch and listen to Jim Gaffigan using the ‘adjust the norm’ solution to weight control on ‘CBS News Sunday Morning’.

Why focus on the 70% when it’s so much easier to focus on the 30%. It’s so much quicker to simply adjust of the norm.

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