Keep Sending the Mayor to Asia
To Drum Up New Business—and Dig Into Ever-Deeper Wallets—Cities Need to Connect Across the Pacific
When a California politician leaves on an overseas trade mission, as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti did when he went on a 12-day journey to Asia last November, public reaction is often skeptical. Media and political foes are apt to label the trip an unnecessary diversion–or even a vacation–from the nitty-gritty realities of the elected official’s “real” job. In L.A., the police union pointedly registered its disapproval of Garcetti’s “junket.”
Yet those who would confiscate the mayor’s passport and confine him to the city limits are utterly wrong in contending that …
