A pointless but costly government shutdown, a close shave with national default — these Tea Party-induced crises have many people at home and abroad wondering if American democracy still works. It does, only not so much in Washington.
Our national government is paralyzed by extremists who disdain compromise and majority rule. But look outside of Washington, and you’ll see that state and especially local governments haven’t lost their ability to solve public problems.
Thank heaven for American federalism. Its subtle dynamics seem to ensure that not every level of our government can be broken at the same time.
About 20 years ago, for example, the nation’s big cities were synonymous with dysfunction. From New York to Detroit, Cleveland to Los Angeles, U.S. urban centers were beset by deindustrialization and rising poverty, soaring crime rates, municipal corruption, racial friction and middle class flight to the suburbs.
Overwhelmed by this concatenation of economic and social maladies, many urban leaders took refuge in victimhood and looked to Washington for salvation. The U.S. Conference of Mayors seemed to develop a cargo cult mentality, waiting like Pacific islanders during World War II for pallets of federal aid to drop miraculously from the sky.
It never came. Instead a new wave of reform-minded mayors came to power preaching self-reliance and homegrown solutions to local problems. They used data-driven analysis and community policing to drive crime rates down. They reduced welfare dependency and demolished public housing complexes that concentrated and isolated the poor. Some brave souls took over failing urban school systems, cutting swollen central bureaucracies, holding teachers accountable and launching innovative charter schools.
Fast forward to today. America’s cities and metro regions are now the star performers of our federal system. As Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley argue in The Metropolitan Revolution, cities and metro regions are now America’s main hubs of economic innovation and dynamism. They are reviving the U.S. economy from the ground up.
Continue reading at The Hill.
