Comment by atleastoptimal
11 hours ago
US cities over the past decade seem to be in a competition to see who can be the least competently run.
11 hours ago
US cities over the past decade seem to be in a competition to see who can be the least competently run.
I would like to see the relation between competence and strength of political alignment (as in, deviation from 50/50 red/blue vote for local government).
I naively expect that less strongly aligned cities are run more competently, because the concept of "consequences" can exist. Where I am, there's a very strong political alignment, so no consequences at all. The same group of people will be voted for, no matter what they do.
> The same group of people will be voted for, no matter what they do.
This is more true than people realize. Basically, they choose each other in rotation who will be elected. Who will be the city manager and who will be the Mayor. They are all cronies and know how the system works.
A lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.
Big city government is almost entirely Democrat run. The primaries are everything. The voters in primaries are city union workers. The way to win in city primaries is to promise more money for less effort to them. That is the central issue of big city American politics - it’s just poorly run, very expensive, and operated to extract money from taxpayers to hand over to the unions
Isn't this just the end result of larger and larger portions of budgets going to interest payments?
Basically, every city hall is like the show Parks and Recreation from a competency situation. Then it’s about rubbing each other’s back and staying in power.
You have to jump through hurdles to get hired into a real position, or know someone that can sidestep those hurdles to get you hired, then once you’re in, it’s about staying there. This combination means you never do anything really useful, at least not quickly. The citizens take a backseat while the clowns in power perform in the circus.
Governments at all levels have accreted increasingly ravenous parasites who are on the verge of killing any effective functions of the host.