A bloke named Lennon noted there were 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And that was in 1967.
Nobody wants to fix the potholes. We've looked at this topic a few times.
From Brussels Signal, May 21:
It is not an accident that the man most likely to replace Keir Starmer as British Prime Minister is Andy Burnham, the directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester. Such is his myth and reputation, built on a perceived decade-long record of delivering some improvements in local government and public services, that he is now known, at least in Labour circles, as the “King of the North”. We live in an age when, more than ever, the political classes are discredited by their broken promises and the increasing prevalence of parliamentarians with no real-life work experience beyond politics itself. So, leaders who have demonstrated they can do something – anything – in practice, even at the head of some kind of a sub-national authority, tend to have an advantage with voters exasperated by the run-of-the-mill politicians who believe in nothing and can only offer more empty words and slogans.
Boris Johnson followed a similar path: His tenure as Mayor of London (2008–2016) strengthened his national name recognition and gave him a power base that ultimately propelled him to Downing Street. But none of this is new, of course. Jacques Chirac used 18 years as Mayor of Paris (1977-1995) as a springboard to the French presidency. José María Aznar was provincial president before becoming Spanish Prime Minister. Germany has a strong tradition of state (Lander) premiers or big-city mayors – from Adenauer and Brandt to Kohl and Scholz – moving to the Chancellery. At the other end of Europe, Romania’s last three presidents were previously mayors; and the runner-up in Poland’s presidential election last year was the mayor of Warsaw. Even Vladimir Putin’s early power base was rooted in St Petersburg networks, where he served as deputy mayor.
The path from local government – or, for wider applicability, “sub-national” power – to the very top of a country’s political system is, therefore, well trodden. But we tend to discount the extent to which it is turning into the main route to supreme power, or the ways in which it is competing with national power to begin with. The fact is that in the 21st century the lower levels of government are growing in influence, legitimacy and resources while central administrations are increasingly failing.
This is one of the most important structural tensions that modern states – irrespective of their outlook on the democratic-authoritarian spectrum – must resolve soon. It is also one that receives comparatively little attention, as such. Certain types of pundits may obsess over supranational projects and schemes – such as the EU’s ever-closer union or ideas like CANZUK – hoping to bring whole states into new consortia, on the assumption that great “blocs” are required in order to compete effectively in a world dominated by the US and China.
But the real – and perhaps more desirable – shift in political power is heading in the opposite direction: Downwards from state-level authority to sub-national leaders in charge of provincial governments or great municipalities. The dream of re-creating imperial-sized entities may continue on paper, but the harsher reality is that larger polities, today, only compound the problems of managing complex modern systems at vast scale. National-level dysfunction is spreading, and across this landscape of growing failure and frustration some of the only good news in terms of governance and things like public service performance comes from sub-national authorities....
....MUCH MORE
Also at Brussels Signal:
Bataclan terrorist already granted penitentiary leave in Belgium
EU’s Spring 2026 Economic Forecast sees growth down, inflation up
October 2021 - Global Warming: London's Mayor "to call for cities like London to have greater powers and funding"
....In the introduction to October 14's BlackRock's Larry Fink: "Rich Countries Must Bear the Cost if We Can Ever Hope to Achieve a Net-Zero World":
Having studied the science, economics, politics, finance, psychology, law, messaging, regulation, sociology, and policy prescriptions of global warming since 1992 the overriding lesson learned is:
It's always about the money.
If you take away nothing else from this little blog, take that.
And save yourself an eighth-of-a-million pages of reading.
I obviously wasn't thinking large enough.
It's also about power.And although the two are to a large extent fungible (see the next post for an example) money and power are separate and distinct manifestations of the reality of human existence.
And earlier looks at various aspects of mayoral might and moolah:
Trends to Watch: "Can mayors actually rule the world?"
In low-key but very persistent ways technocrats* have been aiming at this target for years and now it seems to be gathering some momentum. Here's a good introduction by Harvard's Diane Davis.
"Mayoral Powers in the Age of New Localism"
One of the problems with politics is that the people attracted to power are exactly the ones who should not be allowed anywhere near it."Cities Are Rising in Influence and Power on the Global Stage"
Go figure.
We've been watching the mission-creep trend in municipal governance for a while now, trying to get in front of it—"Il faut bien que je les suive, puisque je suis leur chef"*—to make a bucko or two but, to date, have only come up with the tautology that these people would rather jet off to Buenos Aires during the Northern Hemisphere winter for the Global Parliament of Mayors** than stay home and fix potholes.
It was ever thus, or at least has been since 1967 when John Lennon noted "4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire"
*Ledru-Rollin, 1848—schoolboy French translation: "I must follow them for I am their leader."
**This year the get-together was actually held in Stavanger in late September. Nice 'hood, nice time of year.
A subject near and dear to our jaded hearts.
It's the manifestation of the age-old thirst for power, to make the world as you want it, and an acknowledgement that fixing potholes is boring.
A Warning On Mayors Ruling The World From A Surprising Source
There is a determined push to decrease the importance of nation-states while elevating the worldwide political power of municipalities and their mayors, a trend I had assumed CityLab backed come hell-or-high-water.
Maybe not.
The writer of this piece, Amy Liu, hangs her hat at Brookings....
"Gadabout Urbanist Richard Florida Has a New Book...
"It advises cities on what to do about problems that result from advice he gave them in his previous books..."
Yesterday two Alphavilleins, Izabella Kaminska on Twitter and Kadhim Shubber in the Further Reading post highlighted this Dani Rodrik essay at Aeon.
We've been kicking around ideas on how to profit from a devolution of power from larger entities (nation-states) to smaller (city-states) should said devolution occur. So, stealing a way of thinking from Eisenhower, in another context, obvs.:
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. EisenhowerOur most recent piece on what may or may not be a phenomena was last month's "Return of the City-State, Or: The End of the Nation State May Be Upon Us" which also linked to Aeon.
I'm not sure where Kadhim comes down on the structure-of-power thing but I suspect Izabella might not be aghast at a return to prominence of the Baltic City-States although probably not the Hanseatic League...
And many more, you know the drill.
