Politics:
What does it mean for American politics that cities often oppose the policies supported by both the federal government and the states they are located in?
What does it mean for American politics that cities often oppose the policies supported by both the federal government and the states they are located in?
By and large, though, cities hold the weaker hand. It makes sense that these areas, finding themselves economically vital, increasingly progressive, and politically disempowered, would want to use local ordinances as a bulwark against conservative state and federal policies. But this gambit is likely to backfire. Insofar as states have sometimes granted cities leeway to enact policy in the past, that forbearance has been the result of political norms, not legal structures. Once ...