| SamuelRSmith said: I see. I just see very little correlation between "proximity" and the size of Gov't. I'm sure NYC dwellers love that they are just a subway ride away from city hall... must give them so much influence over city policy. In fact, it seems to me that some of the most crippling jurisdictions (in the West, at least) are within the cities. In the East, it's a little different... city states in South-East Asia seem to be some of the "freest" places in the world (Hong Kong, Singapore)... but those countries have very little to do with democracy. |
Well, it's not about physical proximity, of course. Cities are so unfree because there's a ton of people all living on top of each other, trying to tell each other what to do and live at one another's expense. That rapidly becomes a spoils system. Doesn't help that western cities are so balkanized, either, as it's easy to carve out your little coalition of ethnic voters and keep exacerbating tensions so that identity politics trumps real issues.
Singapore, Inc., has a very peculiar type of freedom. I imagine it'd be a great place to live if all you cared about is business and an orderly existence, but I hear horror stories about resentful natives. Sometimes things that don't seem like they should work do work, especially in Asia, but it doesn't really seem like a tenable situation.
