Americans all live in the United States, but we do most of our actual living, working, playing and dying in a local city. Whoever is mayor affects our immediate home, business, family, school and lifestyle much more than whoever is president.
Local governance, to put it plainly, is the leading factor affecting individual quality of life. The U.S. crime rate may be a national outrage; the state crime rate may be an embarrassment or challenge at the state capital; but the local crime rate determines whether you lock your doors.
Your city's everything--economy, shopping, dining, health care, education, employment, streets, sanitation, recreation, parks, sidewalks, safety and, yes, politics--affects your personal citizenship experience more directly than Washington, D.C.'s anything.
The nation's largest cities have something significant in common besides million-plus populations and multibillion-dollar budgets.
Of the top 10 most populous cities, eight are run by Democratic mayors, and only one by a Republican. Only five of the 30 biggest cities in America have Republicans in the mayoral seat.
There are 20 cities in the U.S. with budgets over $2 billion, and 19 of them are headed by Democratic mayors. The total spending of the 10 largest city budgets--all under Democratic mayor administrations--is greater than the combined sum of the 16 smallest state budgets.
For better or worse, urban voters have turned to Democrats for leadership in two-thirds of our largest metropolitan area cities. And as events in recent months have laid bare, that blind allegiance has frequently been for worse.
WalletHub annually ranks worst-run American cities, and this year's edition looks like a Republican campaign ad: Only two GOP-led cities show up among the 30 worst-rated; only six in the worst 50.
In the sublist of "Quality of City Services" ranking--which includes granular measures within categories of financial stability, education, health, safety and economy--every single one of the 20 worst-ranked has a Democratic mayor.
The magnitude of difference between the best and worst in some categories is astonishing. In Long-term Debt Outstanding per Capita, for example, the worst debt levels (in Washington, D.C., Nashville, Atlanta, San Francisco, New York and Chicago) are 36 times higher than in the best cities.
Violent crime rates are 22 times higher in the worst cities (Detroit, Memphis, Birmingham, Baltimore and Flint, Mich.) than in the best ones.
A well-run city delivers a superior community life experience for its residents, and conversely, a poorly run city deprives them of the same.
What good is national civil rights reform to local citizens deprived of life and liberty in a neighborhood with an off-the-charts murder rate? The failure to control crime at the city level--where local law enforcement is tasked with protecting the public--results in a far more oppressive violation of civil rights than any perceived hypothetical threat Congress might be debating at the moment.
Divisive race-baiters give Democrat mayors a free pass over the racially disparate nature of urban violent crime. In St. Louis so far this year, murders are up 24 percent. The city suffered roughly a killing a day in June, and 22 homicides in the first 13 days of July. As in previous years, about 90 percent of the victims are Black.
Democrat mayor Lyda Krewson blamed the spree on a delay in launching a "Cure Violence" project due to covid-19, rather than on the killers (most of which are also Black). But a springtime 2020 anti-violence program doesn't address or apply to St. Louis' longtime role as the city with the nation's highest murder rate.
As bad as the current murder spike is in St. Louis, it's outpaced by homicide surges in Chicago, Houston, Memphis, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
In Chicago, murders are up 48 percent, and shootings up 46 percent. After a weekend that saw 63 people shot and 12 killed, police reported 25 more shootings on Monday.
Then on Tuesday the Windy City was rocked by a drive-by mass shooting incident at a funeral home that sent 14 people to hospitals and scattered more than 60 spent shell casings in the street. The victims were mourning a young man killed a week ago--in a drive-by shooting.
Democrat mayor Lori Lightfoot's response was a hollow call for "accountability." She directed more pointed condemnation toward President Trump for considering the deployment of federal agents to stem the out-of-control violence.
Chicago is ranked ninth on the WalletHub worst-run city list, just behind Detroit and two spots ahead of St. Louis. Washington, D.C., tops the list (reason enough alone to derail calls for statehood), with San Francisco second and New York fifth.
The bulk of the worst-run cities are bastions of liberal, Democrat rule, where Democratic Party control and influence has been exercised to mismanage all policies and departments, schools, local tax schemes, and public service and safety.
It's baffling why residents of the worst-run cities don't tire of being the most-dangerous, least-healthy places, and suffering from above-average unemployment, poverty and homelessness.
To keep voting the same party into power and hoping for different results is, literally, crazy. It's also one of the best validations of the genius behind the electoral college.
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.