Why California’s Weakest Local Governments Should Not Survive COVID-19
Instead of Mourning Their Collapse, We Should Consolidate Local Governments to Make Them More Powerful
California is finally getting the local government apocalypse it has long needed.
And, thankfully, it’s going to be even worse than I had hoped.
For the record, I love and revere local government. In most of the world, it’s the most democratic, participatory, and effective level of government, and it deserves to be the most powerful and best-funded.
But in California, local governments are too weak and too small to be of much use. Why? There are simply too many of them. And so, for the past decade—in columns, speeches, and a book …
