Mayors can’t start nuclear wars.

June 25, 2017 12:54 PM

Red versus blue. Richard Florida calls for devolving American federal power to the cities, so that progressive and conservative urban areas can do their own thing.

Previously.

posted by doctornemo (66 comments total)

> By lowering the stakes at the national level, devolution is perhaps the only conceivable way Red and Blue America can respect one another’s differences and coexist.

Coexist or no, this is a pointless argument unless you actually think that forcing all of the people who disagree with you out of a place is good, or, even worse, making people live with whatever laws the tyranny of the majority seeks to impose.

I guess those people born into blue or red cities who are different than the majority should just wait patiently until they turn 18 and accrue enough money to move.
posted by durandal at 1:11 PM on June 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

I guess those people born into blue or red cities who are different than the majority should just wait patiently until they turn 18 and accrue enough money to move.

Isn't that basically how states work now?
posted by Artw at 1:22 PM on June 25, 2017 [36 favorites]

Local governments are not only less ideological than national and state governments; they are more pragmatic and stable, and less prone to partisanship and ideological excess. Trust in the federal government is at a historical low, falling from roughly three-quarters of all Americans in the 1950s and ’60s, to roughly 20 percent today, according to surveys by Gallup and Pew. But trust in state and especially local government has stayed consistently high, currently between 55 and 65 percent for state government and between two-thirds and three-quarters of people who express trust in their own local government.

This may be missing a point slightly, with people only frustrated by too much government and choosing local by instinct. But assuming that cities are efficient and the federal government is necessary, then American states and counties are outmoded (and maybe they always were as a legacy of feudalism). If we were starting over, all we would need would be incorporated cities and towns, and a multiparty federal government. A rural dweller, for example, would belong to a service funding district surrounding a city or large town and would be better represented than today. This is because most farmers and ranchers would likely vote for the same party spanning the entire nation, and they wouldn't just get lip service from a local political hack who financially represents their corporate enemies nationally in the same agribusiness.
posted by Brian B. at 1:23 PM on June 25, 2017

It would be the literal death of rural America if cities were allowed to keep their entire tax bases instead of sending it upstream to the feds.
posted by Talez at 1:30 PM on June 25, 2017 [53 favorites]

I think there's a lot to be said for localism on certain matters, but upon actually reading the article it's clear he's just insane.
posted by corb at 1:33 PM on June 25, 2017 [21 favorites]

No parties necessary. The parties are not a feature but a bug, but otherwise, I could agree with most of that comment. Counties are only necessary now, to the extent they are, because the Federal government is so weak. I'm less in love with the idea that states can or should actually function as "little laboratories of democracy," too. We usually consider it unethical to deliberately experiment on people without their consent, and the idea we can just pilot whatever hare-brained schemes at the state level and be okay with wildly divergent outcomes for different populations of Americans flies in the face of the principle of equality under the law. To achieve that, we need a basic level of uniformity of legal protection and process across whatever geographic boundaries we have in practice.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:35 PM on June 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

Even with service funding districts any place in Alaska is 100% guaranteed to be up shit creek without a paddle. West Virginia is screwed, Montana is screwed, Arkansas is screwed, South Dakota is screwed. People don't realize just how much money gets redirected from NYC/LA/SF/Chicago to the flyover country and the feds are the people who redistribute it.
posted by Talez at 1:36 PM on June 25, 2017 [13 favorites]

Money aside, perhaps we should take a lesson from the historical roots of what he's asking for - "Balkanization" - and whether or not that's a good idea.
posted by Punkey at 1:47 PM on June 25, 2017 [13 favorites]

Does this guy realize that what he's talking about would balkanize the living shit out of this country? Turn the metaphorical civil war we have now into a bullets, bombs, and lots of dead bodies kind of civil war? With dozens of factions?
posted by KHAAAN! at 1:48 PM on June 25, 2017 [8 favorites]

Does this guy realize that what he's talking about would balkanize the living shit out of this country?

Of course not, and he likely doesn't care if it does. This is Richard 'Creative Class' Florida. He's a eternal wellspring of poorly researched bad public policy ideas.

He's an idiot trying to make a buck. This is just his new grift.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:58 PM on June 25, 2017 [25 favorites]

I think there's a lot to be said for localism on certain matters, but upon actually reading the article it's clear he's just insane.

Succinctly put.
posted by leotrotsky at 2:02 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

Florida Man strikes again.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:05 PM on June 25, 2017 [51 favorites]

Remember desegregation. That is all.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:16 PM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

The best part is that he is saying this while living in Toronto.
posted by srboisvert at 2:18 PM on June 25, 2017 [15 favorites]

While I think that the balkanization of the United States is a terrible idea - Stronger Together, people! Let's keep Clinton's campaign slogan alive! - I can see where liberals, in particular, might be wanting more local control and would be susceptible to ideas like this, because of Republicans holding power in all three branches of the federal government. If the Electoral College gives rural America disproportionate power, and rural America (to generalize) is brainwashed by Fox and Breitbart, the temptation to wash one's hands of them is so, so strong. I think "Okay, you Trump-loving, Breitbart-reading fuckers. If the blue states and cities refused to give you their librul-tainted money, you would starve to death in a New York minute!" But I don't really want this to happen, because I love my country and want to see it strengthened, not weakened.

There's a reason that "state's rights" has become a dogwhistle - from the Civil War onwards, and definitely in the era of the New Deal and Civil Rights, the federal government has been on the side of wanting to expand rather than curtail rights, and "states rights" meant Southern states wanting to keep Jim Crow and other retrograde laws (Southern states were also the last to allow women to vote). But now the shoe is on the other foot and it's pinching us badly. States such as California, who legalized pot and gay marriage, and have spearheaded a climate justice pact, want to expand rights; the Feds want to take it all back. Of course we want local control now! I don't want to see Donny Two Scoops and the Confederate Keebler Elf take my rights away!

I think that states being "little laboratories of democracy" is a good thing, if we're talking solar power and legal pot - things that expand our rights. But as Corb put it: I think there's a lot to be said for localism on certain matters, but upon actually reading the article it's clear he's just insane. Richard Florida is not the local-control expert we need. I want rights expanded, to all states, not curtailed to a few. Same-gender marriage everywhere, legal pot everywhere, solar panels on all houses, etc.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 2:18 PM on June 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

This May, the United Kingdom elected a new system of metro mayors in six regions including Manchester and Liverpool, which have been given funding and powers devolved from the central government over transport, housing, planning, jobs and economic development.

What he doesn't seem to know is that metro mayor's represent the exact opposite of what he is proposing - i.e. they cover both urban and rural areas within a particular region. If only the US could invent some sort of similar regional subdivision whereby it could emulate this...
posted by howfar at 2:19 PM on June 25, 2017

From the outside, it's always seemed to me one of the systematic issues that has long messed up the US is hyperlocalism. Whose idea was it to run schools at a local-government level? It just results in massive disparities in educational funding and management, and petty local bureaucrats and busybodies creating weird fiefdoms. The same goes for the police - I swear half of the problems you see with policing in the US right now are the result of every town/local area having their own indepdent police force, lacking the systems and management skill, the institutional inertia and responsibility that might come from being a state-wide organisation. Again, petty, local, politicized people in charge whose main priority is helping balance the county's budget, rather than 'protecting and serving'.

Local government is the most 'efficient'? I've always felt it's the most incompetent.
posted by Jimbob at 2:24 PM on June 25, 2017 [30 favorites]

Hrm, to engage with some ideas in this thread:

Coexist or no, this is a pointless argument unless you actually think that forcing all of the people who disagree with you out of a place is good

We don't have to do any forcing, because it already happened; this describes the status quo.

To the cities belong the wealthy and the progressive; to the sprawl and the suburbs belong the conservative. Tell me your zip code and I shall tell you how you voted in the last federal elxn.

--

More broadly, there's merit to the idea that local decisions need local knowledge. If a senator from Ohio could filibuster random New York City bylaws out of petty resentment, we'd all consider that untoward interference.

Within urbanist circles, there's a lot of currency to the idea that we need to renegotiate the powers of subnational entities; large cities have become such weird and engorged creatures that they require special consideration regional and national entities are conceptually or institutionally unable to deal with.

For instance: housing policies seeking to deflate New York or San Francisco property markets set at the national level would devastate every other real estate market in the country.

The best part is that he is saying this while living in Toronto.

Toronto elected the primordial soup from which Trump emerged; give us some credit for being a microcosm of these tensions.
posted by pmv at 2:38 PM on June 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think there's a lot to be said for localism on certain matters, but upon actually reading the article it's clear he's just insane.

Corb is 100% correct.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:45 PM on June 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just a reminder that the Daily Show used to call state governments "Meth labs of democracy", and they weren't wrong.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:52 PM on June 25, 2017 [9 favorites]

To the cities being wealthy and progressive; to the sprawl and the suburbs belong the conservative. Tell me your zip code and I shall tell you how

Sorry, but this is bullshit. You've looked at too many of those red/blue maps, when the reality is way more purple.
posted by Jimbob at 2:53 PM on June 25, 2017 [10 favorites]

It won't get down to the municipality level, but I can see the authority breaking up to the sub-state level. When this will occur is open to debate.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:59 PM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

when the reality is way more purple.

Yeah, it's just easier to gerrymander rural districts because they don't get as much focus from Dems, have lower population density (making individual votes effectively count more), and because rural voters don't necessarily fight over districting boundaries as aggressively as the more politically sophisticated and more connected to the broader American mainstream urban voters. Plus, small town corruption makes the necessary graft/greasing of wheels easier to accomplish in secret.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:03 PM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Local governments are not only less ideological than national and state governments; they are more pragmatic and stable, and less prone to partisanship and ideological excess.

lolwhut
posted by entropicamericana at 3:05 PM on June 25, 2017 [14 favorites]

As a laboratory question -- if you gave rural and exurban counties in states where cities and suburbs outvote them (say, NY and Cali) the chance to secede -- would they? I think they pretty clearly would. And the reverse for Texas -- if you let Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio vote to become a state-of-enclaves, would they? A little less sure, but probably.
posted by MattD at 3:08 PM on June 25, 2017

Keep in mind that Richard Florida (hereafter to be known as R-FL -- think J-Lo!) is an "American urban studies theorist", not a political scientist or a historian. Give his idea fifty years and the pundits will be clamoring for America's Garibaldi.
posted by heatherlogan at 3:21 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

>Sorry, but this is bullshit. You've looked at too many of those red/blue maps, when the reality is way more purple.

I'm making a much more narrow claim: that we've already self sorted along ideological lines according to density.

Sort this list of counties by density (July 2014 est) and look up their electoral results. The top twenty or thirty are a list of huge Dem landslides, with the exception of Pinellas, Florida. I stopped checking around DeKalb, Georgia.

Yes, first past the post skews things - and not everyone is perfectly sorted. There's a lot of purple to go around.

But I would wager that if you look at polling stations intra counties and cross reference with previous elections, you'll find the same fractal split: the people voting conservative live in less dense areas within those counties.
posted by pmv at 3:27 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

Whether it is at a federal, state, county, city, township, borough, or neighborhood level, at any given time there is someone who wishes to control my behavior and that of those who think like me, out of simple more-money-for-us-fuck-you greed, your-race-or-caste-is-not-entitled-to-authority bigotry, but-Jesus-wants-it-that-way religious fervor, or some combo platter therein.

The Constitution makes for a pretty decent shield against many of the more ridiculous excesses of those people. All things considered, I'd just as soon hang onto it. (The actual Constitution, that is, not what Mark Levin or Sean Hannity thinks it says.)
posted by delfin at 3:37 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

In addition to all of the other criticisms of this article, let's look at what happens if say, Austin TX adopts liberal immigration policies, or Charlotte NC enacts laws protecting the rights of LGBTQ citizens. In these and many other instances the Republican controlled state government promptly passes laws overriding the local policies. Republican politicians only believe in small government/local control as long as it furthers their agenda.
posted by TedW at 3:42 PM on June 25, 2017 [19 favorites]

In her last book, Dark Age Ahead, Jane Jacobs warned that we were heading to wards a future where the only good governance would come from city states.

I happen to live in a state that effectively is a city state, and am increasingly inclined to agree.
posted by ocschwar at 3:50 PM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

For a multitude of reasons, Richard Florida can kiss my ass.
posted by jonmc at 3:51 PM on June 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Keep in mind that Richard Florida (hereafter to be known as R-FL -- think J-Lo!) is an "American urban studies theorist", not a political scientist or a historian. Give his idea fifty years and the pundits will be clamoring for America's Garibaldi.

This is a weird diss. He has a PhD in urban planning from Columbia. That's a legitimate academic field with a lot of overlap with history and political science. His opinion is bad for other reasons.
posted by Emily's Fist at 4:21 PM on June 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

This is a Let Them Eat Cake bit of shit from a cosmopolitan who fundamentally fails to appreciate the historical record on how cities have managed their local powers, and why we have a strong federal government.

The first, and easiest answer for why states evolve strong central governments: It's cheaper. "One size fits all," much as that's a misnomer in how many policies actually get enacted, benefits from economies of scale. Rather than having each city have to figure out what its baseline environmental regulations are, fewer people with more concentrated expertise can do that at the EPA. For all the free-market hosannas of libertarians, they often fail to recognize how the same considerations of monopoly efficiency advocate for central control rather than against it.

This even extends to the cost for regular citizen engagement — to make informed local decisions takes more informed engagement on relatively small issues, which is much harder to muster. In a significant way, the every-four-years voter is the equivalent of the Christmas and Easter Christian, who gets their salvation cheaper than weekly mass attendees.

The second big problem is that Florida's blithe urbanism here would FUCK MILLIONS OF POOR AND MINORITY CITIZENS. Really, one of the biggest conflicts between the anti-state right and the pro-state left is that things like civil rights aren't generally enforced out of the goodness of heart or habit — when conservatives say that they want to be "left alone," that being left alone often means shit like banning gays from public spaces or enforcing segregation or enacting policies that exacerbate local inequality.

That's amplified by something that Florida and plenty of the left/liberals overlook: Moving is not cost free. Sure, let people vote with their feet, right? But recognize that's a poll tax — thems that disagree but have no ability to move are disenfranchised. That's fucked up, but entirely overlooked by cosmopolitan elites — it's actually something that left/liberals should do a better job of addressing if they want to win rural/exurban areas again: part of why people are so desperate to maintain what they have in Shithole Holler is because they can't reasonably pick up and move — not only does it cost money directly, but their whole social support structures are there in place.

But hey, if Florida wants to pay for poor people to move from wherever they happen to have been born to a state of their choosing, devolving to the states makes more sense. If he wants to pay for people to take time off of their job(s) to enjoy civic participation, the localization of powers can be a good thing. If he wants to ensure that women in Alabama can still get abortions by flying them out to cities where it's a same-day-no-problem procedure, then yeah, let's give cities the ability to decide national policy.

And there we get to the third big point: As cities and states have limited jurisdiction compared to a federal government, and cities and states would have to massively increase revenue collection to compete with federal funding, wouldn't a rational super-rich person make their residence of record in Fuckapple, Tx., with its 0% tax rate, and still maintain a pied-a-terre in San Francisco, depriving them of the ability to collect the revenue needed to support these programs? Without an ability to collect revenue, the idea that the "rich" cities would be able to supplant federal spending is nothing more than a cunning wrist flick in a masturbatory fantasy.
posted by klangklangston at 5:40 PM on June 25, 2017 [16 favorites]

So Richard Florida's preferred political party is out of power and he suddenly discovers federalism?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 6:56 PM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Global Warming makes right now the worst moment in the history of civilization for this proposal, because it would allow red cities to burn all the fossil fuel they could get their hands on, and impose almost all of the disastrous consequences on the blue cities and the rest of the world, since they would experience those consequences only in proportion to their share of the whole human population.

Tomorrow will be a worse moment for the proposal, and then the day after that, and so forth, of course.
posted by jamjam at 7:06 PM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Local governments are not only less ideological than national and state governments; they are more pragmatic and stable, and less prone to partisanship and ideological excess.

lolwhut

Yeah, I gotta say that doesn't really sound like any small town I've lived in, either.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:25 PM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

And there we get to the third big point: As cities and states have limited jurisdiction compared to a federal government, and cities and states would have to massively increase revenue collection to compete with federal funding, wouldn't a rational super-rich person make their residence of record in Fuckapple, Tx., with its 0% tax rate, and still maintain a pied-a-terre in San Francisco, depriving them of the ability to collect the revenue needed to support these programs? Without an ability to collect revenue, the idea that the "rich" cities would be able to supplant federal spending is nothing more than a cunning wrist flick in a masturbatory fantasy.

You think the US with its proud tradition of taxing income made anywhere in the world is going to have cities that balk at taxing income made by a "foreign" resident in their city if it comes down to it? My current state of Mass taxes income made in the state by out of state residents. Also, you don't get to have a nominal residence of record a'la a coroporation's PO Box. If you try to point to your license to Fuckapple, TX and you are domiciled in a city according to that city's rules you're probably asking to be arrested for not having a valid license on top of your tax cheat ways.

And honestly, if you're super rich you aren't making income. You're making capital gains.
posted by Talez at 7:56 PM on June 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Radical decentralization of government powers back to the states and counties is the only possible solution to our current problems.
posted by NeoRothbardian at 8:20 PM on June 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Richard Florida proudly calls himself a "radical centrist" and yes, it is just as oxymoronic as it sounds.
posted by JackFlash at 8:20 PM on June 25, 2017

Local governments are not only less ideological than national and state governments; they are more pragmatic and stable, and less prone to partisanship and ideological excess.

In Birmingham they love the governor... *hums along*
posted by jaduncan at 9:32 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

I got sick of Richard Florida well over a decade ago when a city I was involved in paid him an awful lot of money to say some very obvious things that were already being said by people locally. I've had him on the fuck that guy list ever since.
posted by Catblack at 9:39 PM on June 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

i agree with everyone's criticism of this guy. but on the most fundamental level, there's something else: the red/blue divide he is describing isn't a matter of two reasoned viewpoints that divide the country. not to belabor a point made in countless other places, but the democrats are (by global standards) a fairly middle of the road, centrist or center-right coalition. but the republicans today are not the conservatives of the past; they're turning into an ultra-nationalist mercantilist party that can't even coherently legislate when it has no opposition (see, e.g., the kansas state legislature revolt or the ACA repeal fiasco) and couldn't prevent itself being taken over by a borderline madman.

all this is to say that even in the hypothetical land that this guy imagines where power devolves locally (setting aside annoying legal questions like equal protection and such), it still would be terrible public policy to cede parts of the country to a political party that inherently operates in bad faith. his ideas are a slightly more palatable way of the old false equivalency canard that "both sides have their flaws," so let's just let them experiment and see who does better.
posted by wibari at 11:48 PM on June 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

How is it not obvious to this guy and everyone else on the left and right that this guy is a useful tool for Putin's blatant agenda of breaking up the U.S., the way the Soviet Union was broken up during its collapse after the Cold War. The problem with us is that even some of our supposedly smart liberal types are dangerously easy to manipulate with propaganda of different kinds on the basis of their resentments toward some other subset of Americans.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:14 AM on June 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

Bloomberg's Next Anti-Washington Move: $200 Million Program for Mayors - "Michael R. Bloomberg will announce an initiative to give funds to large cities as an extension of his advocacy for largely liberal policies."

also btw...
Why Cities Rock (w/ eric garcetti, the mayor of LA)*
posted by kliuless at 5:19 AM on June 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

Radical decentralization of government powers back to the states and counties is the only possible solution to our current problems.
posted by NeoRothbardian

As slogans go, that doesn't have quite the ring of "All power to the Soviets!" but it's about as meaningful.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:56 AM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Though I should be used to it by now, I continue to be shocked by how much Richard Florida writes about the accomplishments of Richard Florida, regardless of the ostensible subject of his piece. He even did it at a live event I attended back in November (which I only just learned was archived online; it's worth watching).

I think Florida's "radical centrist" schtick is his way of deploying the "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" cliché while pretending not to. He's found a way to make himself attractive to some liberal/left-leaning folks with talk of making cities welcoming to gay folks and other marginalized people, while worming his way into the halls of power by promoting business-first policies that will often actively harm any of those marginalized folks who don't have some middle class privilege at the very least, through increased housing costs, encouraging the growth of businesses that are, at their core, about sidestepping regulations against discrimination, wage protection, etc., while looking shiny and futuristic and hip to tech-bros and the investor class that circles them like vultures.

The Baffler recently published a review of Florida's new book by Daniel Brook that takes him to task for being part of the problem:

Yet the curious thing about this unrelieved portrait of urban despair and displacement is that this new reality all seems to have unfolded without any of Richard Florida’s help. Even faint suggestions to the contrary promptly get the big thinker’s dander up. To those “mainly on the left [who] blamed . . . me personally for everything from rising rents and gentrification to the growing gap between the rich and the poor” he concedes only that “this criticism provoked my thinking in ways I could never have anticipated, causing me to reframe my ideas.” It appears Florida genuinely sees himself as a fly-on-the-wall social scientist, not a debate-altering propagandist. And he seems genuinely puzzled that anyone would take him to task for failing to notice economic problems that began in the Reagan era and unspooled over the course of three-plus decades.

Florida is just as blind in this piece to the active harm that can come to the marginalized as he's been in every other thing he's laid hands on. He wants credit, but not responsibility. Since some cities are already taking it on themselves to try and mitigate some bad federal/state policies insofar as they are able, Florida can now insert himself into that conversation in a way that makes him look visionary if even a sliver of his ideas are implemented and/or work out, but since he doesn't have any official seat at the policy table he can wash his hands of any negative consequences.

klangklangston and entropicamericana have hit the nail on the head here, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by Fish Sauce at 8:40 AM on June 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

... devolving American federal power to the cities ...

Isn't this what "Think Globally, Act Locally" means?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:16 AM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

No?
posted by octobersurprise at 9:31 AM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

No. Just no. I live in Utah. This state was founded on the idea of being a theocratic state separate from the US. The only thing stopping them from doing so fully is the Federal Government. Those who wish me to move - my job, family, and life is here. This place is awesome if you enjoy nature in any form. I don't want to live in a city of millions, even if they're like minded liberals. I'd rather stay here on our liberal island and fight to make this gorgeous place not be Mormon Iran. Those who would abandon us to hide within their castle walls and plug their ears shouldn't have to look hard to see why non-blue city dwellers turned away from them in the last election. I like the ideas of cities participating in things like the Paris agreement when they can spurn the Federal Government, but to encourage the further line drawing and breakup of the country is idiotic.
posted by msbutah at 9:36 AM on June 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

Case in point, an article about schools seceding from their districts encouraging segregation should be evidence enough that allowing people to dissolve along social, political, and economic lines is bad.
posted by msbutah at 9:40 AM on June 26, 2017

Local governments are not only less ideological than national and state governments; they are more pragmatic and stable, and less prone to partisanship and ideological excess

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Yeah, no.
posted by flabdablet at 10:29 AM on June 26, 2017

I think I read a different article then many of the comments suggest. I read most of the comments first and when I read the article they didn't match up. I'm going to have to sit with this for a while and figure out why because as much as I do agree that many of the on the ground solutions to the problems aren't great he's not totally wrong in describing the systemic issues at play. We've had pretty much the exact discussions here on Metafilter, albeit in piecemeal. While reading it I even thought hey he must read the site because it's like a summary of at least one thread of discussion that's been happening since the election.

I feel pretty strongly that forcing things the article suggests to happen as a political movement is wrong. That's where he misses. He sees something that is already churning in the mix and thinks that it's something that should be grabbed onto and directed. Trying to direct it at this point in time would be a huge, huge mistake because we're talking a huge meta level systemic change. It's also a miss to suggest that it would be all nice and great for several of the reasons pointed out in the comments, such as not being able to move if you end up in city-state that is regressive.

With the way things are heading right now, if 'liberals' don't just roll over and go with it some sort of devolution and political struggle between states and their cities and the Feds is inevitable. Even if it's just certain leading cities taking point to try stem what is happening at the Fed level it's going to happen. The seeds of it are already happening (sanctuary city fight, declarations by mayors over LGBT, Paris deal, healthcare in CA etc).

I do think that it's not too late to stop inevitable but it is pretty clear to me that the political culture of the country is teetering on the edge of unity vs not so unified in order to protect at least some semblance of people's rights and liberal civil function.

If Trump et al isn't dealt with and 2018 doesn't go in a sane direction I think there is a very good chance that political culture wise that will be the point where the divisions gets cemented in people's mind. Right now there is still some hope that people as whole will walk it back. What happens if it ends up keeping on this Trump like road?

If it's not walked back it's very easy to see Blue side(generalized) fall off the edge into 'fuck unity' territory and this is going to be a hella more popular sentiment at the policy level. Right now this sentiment and emotion is mostly churning at a personal level. It's all over the place with Metafilter filled with examples. Red (generalized) at a political policy level is already at 'fuck unity'. If Blue gets there as well then yeah, some sort of devolution is going to happen in response because of the importance of trying to hang onto to at least pieces of what came before.

And no, it will not be pretty if it happens. I still hold hope that it is reversable.
posted by Jalliah at 10:41 AM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I always liked what Mr. Lincoln said.

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow?

Never!

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined,...could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by the menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:12 AM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Obligatorily, Metafilter: upon actually reading the article it's clear he's just insane.

His opinion is bad for other reasons.

Yup. His bona fides are totally legit, they just landed him in a position as a hot take/big idea-book thinker who gets things half right in a way that appeals to a certain type of urban elitist. Dude is basically a walking TED talk.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:24 PM on June 26, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yet another set of cultural bigotries I find myself squeezed in the middle of: after I was kidnapped to the U.S., I grew up in a rural area and still feel some sentimental attachment to my time there, but on the other hand, all the rural natives always called me city boy because I'd come there from Frankfurt and stuck out like a sore thumb. Aargh, stop tearing it all apart, people, please. It's going to take decades to rebuild and suck for everybody in the meantime. It's so much easier to destroy than create. The rural folks aren't the monsters Putin-Republicans and other agitators want you to think. They're actually mostly pretty sweet and kind hearted, just easily misled and resentful because they've been so isolated from the centers of economic power for so long! Honest!
posted by saulgoodman at 2:50 PM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

"You think the US with its proud tradition of taxing income made anywhere in the world is going to have cities that balk at taxing income made by a "foreign" resident in their city if it comes down to it? My current state of Mass taxes income made in the state by out of state residents. Also, you don't get to have a nominal residence of record a'la a coroporation's PO Box. If you try to point to your license to Fuckapple, TX and you are domiciled in a city according to that city's rules you're probably asking to be arrested for not having a valid license on top of your tax cheat ways.

And honestly, if you're super rich you aren't making income. You're making capital gains."

1) It's not the will, it's the enforcement. Cities like Detroit have income taxes now — the idea that every business that operates at all in Detroit would have to be registered in Detroit and submit proof of earnings for an address outside of Detroit in order to be taxed is a logistical nightmare, and the common practice of having businesses incorporated outside of Detroit for tax advantage is well known.

2) The compliance regime for state taxes now relies overwhelmingly on federal IRS investigations. Most states have comparatively few resources, especially for investigations of income tax cheats. Somehow, increasing the number of competing jurisdictions while cutting funding is going to make it easier to enforce income tax?

3) The pattern of high-tax city ringed by low-tax suburbs and exurbs is more common than not in America, even in states that allow municipalities to have income taxes, and even those tend to have much lower income taxes than state or federal levels. Why wouldn't making cities the primary tax bodies simply continue this trend?

4) The one state that has every county set its own tax rate (on top of a state-wide flat tax) is Indiana, and according to the non-partisan Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, there's an average of a two-year lag between assessment of the tax and distribution, in large part because compliance relies on state bureaucracy — and because of competing claims between county tax districts.
posted by klangklangston at 5:07 PM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

oh hey, fwiw...
America's 11 Most Interesting Mayors - "It's early still, but many top Democrats have started assuming Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will skip that step entirely and run for president himself in 2020. Garcetti has helped fan that speculation, already talking to strategists and big donors about the prospect."

and also: "Of America's 10 largest cities, only one has a Republican chief executive..."
posted by kliuless at 6:14 AM on June 27, 2017

and also: "Of America's 10 largest cities, only one has a Republican chief executive..."

Is that really a surprise? Republicans spend a lot of breath telling us how terrible cities are and how awful the people who live there are. Why would any city-dweller want to vote for a member of a party that hates them?
posted by octothorpe at 7:18 AM on June 27, 2017

Plus running a city is a bit more like having an actual job than they are really up to. Posturing on the sidelines while accepting fat subsidies is more their speed.
posted by Artw at 9:38 AM on June 27, 2017

New York City has an income tax for people who either work or live in the city. Just saying, city-wide taxes aren't impossible to do properly. It's not as useful as, perhaps, a land tax, but it at least avoids the perverse incentives of driving businesses out into the suburbs.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:35 AM on June 27, 2017

Actually, NYC got rid of the income tax for people who just work in the city — unless you work for city government. There is a commuter transportation tax, though.

And for a little bit more in depth discussion, see page 16 of Progressive Policies for
Raising Municipal Revenue, prepared primarily by Local Progress, a national non-profit dedicated to progressive local achievement. Their gloss: There are ample studies proving that people and businesses will relocate to avoid municipal taxes, but not state-level taxes.

So, yeah, for Florida's argument to work, it's not enough that a few places (i.e. NYC) have functional municipal taxes — they've got to be something that works in many places, otherwise most are better off with state and federal collection.
posted by klangklangston at 4:31 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

"Is that really a surprise? Republicans spend a lot of breath telling us how terrible cities are and how awful the people who live there are. Why would any city-dweller want to vote for a member of a party that hates them?"

To be fair, cities have been bastions of Democratic voters for like the last 50 years, though once upon a time, that meant that Republicans would regularly get elected by being centrist and getting the GOP votes on top of half the Dem votes, as a check on single-party rule.
posted by klangklangston at 4:32 PM on June 27, 2017

Actually, NYC got rid of the income tax for people who just work in the city — unless you work for city government. There is a commuter transportation tax, though.

Ah, mea culpa, I didn't realize.

Their gloss: There are ample studies proving that people and businesses will relocate to avoid municipal taxes, but not state-level taxes.

They also propose getting around this by earmarking part of state-level taxes for the specific municipalities from which they originate -- which, good luck, but I agree it sounds like a good alternative.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:58 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

No parties necessary. The parties are not a feature but a bug, but otherwise, I could agree with most of that comment.

I agree about parties being optional, but they are inevitable, in order to focus resources and vet candidates that might be insincere. The problem with having a land-based system, like the US, is that it results in only two parties because a winner takes all within a boundary area, and then a minority is unrepresented by default. I don't think the founders saw gerrymandering in their crystal ball, but they allowed for almost any method to choose representatives by state, and it is the state laws that define it. Besides non-representation for a minority, seniority from longevity became an undesired corruption, because of pork barrel politics. Without district representation, an ideological or partisan method would take its place, at least promising some proportional representation. As a thought experiment, if a virtual city existed, and people paid dues to belong, the services they provided would be mostly political in nature, perhaps in a religious or cultural vein. These would be parties or unions as we understand them, and their leaders would be candidates in elections. They already exist, but we can't see them.
posted by Brian B. at 7:24 AM on June 28, 2017

We could eliminate a lot of political problems by replacing all elected officials with citizens who are chosen at random to fill the role.
posted by runcibleshaw at 7:05 PM on July 2, 2017

You must know that this is how most positions in the government of Classical Athens were chosen during many periods, at least if you were a man who was not a slave or a metic (a "foreigner", though as with Jews in the history of Europe and attitudes on the right toward many non-white Americans, your family could have lived in the city for many generations and still be considered metic non-citizens.)
posted by XMLicious at 8:02 PM on July 2, 2017