This morning David A. Graham’s piece at Atlantic, “Big Cities Are Ungovernable”, caught my eye. I suspected that I knew what it was about and I was right. It was a reaction to Lori Lightfoot’s rejection at the polls. Here’s the meat of it:
A mayor can try to hire more police officers or reform the department, but that’s slow. She can seek new leaders, but Chicago, for example, has churned through police superintendents recently to little effect. (The current one yesterday announced plans to resign, facing the alternative of being sacked by whichever candidate wins the April runoff.) Pushing too hard risks alienating police, who can either come down with “blue flu,†potentially sending crime higher, or line up behind a challenger; the Chicago police union endorsed Paul Vallas, the top vote-getter on Tuesday. Most cities have little control over gun regulations. A mayor can try to address root causes through economic development, but that, too, is slow and subject to larger trends.
Lightfoot proved (ironically enough) not to be fast enough on her feet to navigate these currents, but her failure should be seen not just as one politician’s misstep but as a sign of the ungovernability of big cities today. She’s the biggest major-city incumbent to get turned out in some time, but she could be a trendsetter.
I reject the thesis. Cities are not “ungovernable”. Neither presidents nor governors nor mayors are sovereigns. Cities, states, and countries have always been complex. What has changed is that relatively inexperienced people are being elected to high political office and they don’t have the political skills to do their jobs.
What do I mean by that? Creating a base of support, carving out alliances, and rewarding supporters are all parts of the job of mayor, of governor, of president. Those aren’t written into the statutes but they’re parts of the job nonetheless. Lori Lightfoot had never held elective office before being elected mayor of Chicago. She had no constituency. She didn’t try to create one. She tried to rule by fiat. She built no alliances. She didn’t think she had to. She alienated lots of people with her imperious manner and occasionally bizarre behavior.
Now she knows better but it’s too late to do Chicago any good.
The obvious solution is not a popular one: leave outsiders outside. Elect governors to the presidency; elect mayors to be governor; finding good mayors is hard. You can elect individuals who’ve served on the city council but they may lack the organizational skills to be mayor. County states attorneys are good possibilities—that was the job Richie Daley held before he ran to be mayor but in the Daley home the kitchen table conversation was obviously Chicago politics and the mechanics of being mayor. Some business executives might be a possibility, particularly if their companies are large enough for bureaucracy and politics to be significant parts of running them.
When you look at a failed mayor like Lori Lightfoot in all likelihood you will see someone without any of those skills. Paul Vallas had been CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. He is light in experience with elective office. Brandon Johnson has never held a job that required significant organizational skill. He undoubtedly has political skills and he has a constituency—the CTU. Is that a qualification or a disqualification?
