My latest article is online in City Journal and is a look at the most recent failed attempt to merge St. Louis city and St. Louis county governments in light of the backdrop of civic challenges there. Here’s an excerpt:
Better Together, a drive to consolidate the governments of St. Louis County and its towns with the city of St. Louis, was over almost before it started. Following political blowback and the indictment of the St. Louis County executive who would have run the merged government, backers withdrew the proposal. But the problems that prompted it—regional demographic and economic malaise, fiscal distress, and segregation—aren’t going away. Attempts to shake up the region’s governance are likely to continue.
St. Louis is a rare “independent city”—not located within a county, that is, but existing as its own separate entity. Baltimore and some cities in Virginia are also organized this way, but few others. St. Louis was once part of St. Louis County. In 1876, however, city officials, unhappy with the county government, managed to push through a secession in which a newly enlarged city was carved away from the county. Practically speaking, the independent city of St. Louis was equivalent to a combined city-county government. In 1950, its peak population year, St. Louis was the eighth-largest city in the United States, with a population of 856,796, which even today would make it our 18th-largest municipality—bigger than Seattle, Denver, or Boston. Its land area of 62 square miles exceeds those of San Francisco and the District of Columbia. For a long time, independent St. Louis thrived, and separation from the county looked like a smart move.
Click through to read the whole thing.
There are a couple of reasons public service doesn’t matter. First, the people with influence over public policy live elsewhere, in gated communities where they send their kids to private schools, or the enclave equivalent to them.
Second, governments don’t want accountability. There are no few direct metrics for how well they perform. If there were, people would be fired.
Third, we have low expectations of government. Those expectations are so low that it is easy to meet them.
These are VERY broad generalizations, Rod. And certainly not the case in many cities and towns.
I wonder what “accountability” was imposed on the financial Masters of the Universe who invented the “financial engineering products” that have helped decimate the American economy? (read the fun little tale in the recent NYTimes about Remington) How many executives responsible for the recent debacle at Boeing have lost their jobs?
Reading the comments on City-Journal yields what you would expect; lots of defenses of segregation. I am of the opinion that the US’ unique urban planning and governing challenges mostly are the result, either directly or indirectly, of segregation (or the desire for segregation). Guns, and the reasonable fear that armed criminals generate, probably also play a large role as well.
America’s foundational crime. Some argue (unconvincingly but interestingly) that the Revolution was all about preserving the Peculiar Institution and its wealth-generating economy in the face of changing opinions in Metropolitan Britain.
Read a fascinating story about how Saint George of Mount Vernon was so…aggrieved…by a slave who ran away. (A young woman…I wonder if he was a jilted lover?) that he directed the Attorney General of the United States to undertake a search for his lost “property”. Almost Trumpian in its pettiness.