| badgenome said: 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. |
Which is what I mean by how I don't see why local Government is necessarily better, because of concerns you raised about cities here, amongst other things.
Accountability is a funny thing... I mean, a politician doesn't even know who's voted for him, or why they did... and yet he's somehow accountable? Leeland Yee case shows how accountable local politicians are. At least the local drug dealer or mafia has some level of accountability, far beyond the most local of politicians.
