https://quillette.com/2019/11/27/mayors-wont-rule-the-world/ Published on November 27, 2019 Mayors Won’t Rule the World written by Joel Kotkin Earlier in this decade, cities—the bigger and denser the better—appeared as the planet’s geographic stars. According to Benjamin Barber , author of the 2013 book If Mayors Ruled the World , everyone would be better off if the ineffective, aging nation-state were replaced by rule from the most evolved urban areas . This, Barber argues, would provide the “building blocks” of global governance run by a “parliament of mayors.” In reality, the validity of the “back to the city” meme was never as pronounced as its boosters believed. And now it seems, if anything, to be reversing—first demographically, then economically—as workers and key industries seek more affordable and congenial environments. Furthermore, many elite urban centers are diverging, sometimes radically, from national norms which produces a...
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