5 ms·

For whatever it's worth, it's not just the South. I live in Wisconsin and a lot of our city governments are not even half as competent as the city governments y

For whatever it's worth, it's not just the South. I live in Wisconsin and a lot of our city governments are not even half as competent as the city governments you probably have in the South. (Of course, I guess I don't really know how bad it gets down there so I shouldn't say that? But it's pretty bad up here is my point.) That said, yeah, Seattle is something else altogether in terms of governance. What's funny is that people from Seattle would probably complain about their city government... until they tried to live somewhere else for a little while.

komali2 8y ago
My life took me from Wisconsin to South Carolina to Texas to San Francisco, as well as abroad, so I've seen the gamut. Government in places like Wisconsin, SC, rural Texas are so comically incompetent it's no wonder there's so much anti-government or libertarian sentiment out there. When you have to dig your own well because the muni can't sort getting clean water piped to you, you may not realize that that's precisely what taxes are supposed to be paying for. When you have to homeschool your kids cause the local schools aren't even good enough to be classified as day care, you may wonder what the purpose of the Department of Education is. God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  It seems these places prove the old saying about groups that claim that government is incompetent and when they come in power, they prove it.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  >God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again. If it makes you feel any better, most of the cities are fucked as well if you aren't rich enough to get into good school districts. Rural areas just throw it in your face because there is no bypass for rich/upper middle-class people.
existencebox 8y ago
Chiming in as a seattelite having spent significant time in Baltimore, Philly, and Colorado: We do some things rather well (Transparency, not entirely atrophied ability to enact infrastructure progress, reasonable decent levels of participation without rampant nimbyism, govt. not entirely compromised by special interest groups/corruption) and some things much less well. (Transit/road funding, communication with our constituencies (Although this could just be my own experiences), growth planning, Marijuana legalization, cryptocurrency policy) I don't think you should sell short the people who would complain about their govts, "there are worse elsewhere" always struck me as vacuous as the "Starving children in africa" argument; the fact that places like Flint exist doesn't make me happier at seeing building firms lobby for reduced contributions to e.g. sewage costs. In politics I've found there's usually something worth complaining about, and it's our impetus as citizens to be attentive and stay on top of it :) (I optimistically hope we complain because we, or at least I, am never going to think "well I can't improve it more." If we complained and never did anything about it, _THEN_ I think we'd deserve the jab)
- loeg 8y ago
  Did the city have much power over marijuana policy? It seems like that was mostly the state legislature, no?
  - existencebox 8y ago
    You're entirely right. I was, laxly, overlapping county/city/state legislature, since they all have some amount of impact on your day to day. (Transportation, another of my example, at least in my county, is largely being hamstrung due to a trickle down of "lack of fed funding so lack of state funding so lack of city funding so ...")
- mediaman 8y ago
  Lack of transit funding no longer rings true. The area just funded $50 billion in one of the most ambitious public transit expansion projects in the country, with heavy expansion of the train network. This is after an expansion still completing to grow its rail network. (Granted, it should have happened earlier, but this criticism seems less valid now than 20 years ago.) And SPD stopped enforcing marijuana laws well before the state legalized it. It was classified as "the lowest possible enforcement priority". And then, last year, Seattle vacated all misdemeanor marijuana charges from prior to legalization. Seattle, overall, seems reasonably well-managed. I think City Council gets up to antics now and then - they nearly lost $12 million in federal funds because of some political grandstanding in December - but the staff who actually run the city seem to do a good job. Sometimes the level of effort to communicate and involve citizens slows down needed progress, such as the upzoning efforts designed to increase density, but they would get criticized for not doing that too.

komali2 8y ago

My life took me from Wisconsin to South Carolina to Texas to San Francisco, as well as abroad, so I've seen the gamut. Government in places like Wisconsin, SC, rural Texas are so comically incompetent it's no wonder there's so much anti-government or libertarian sentiment out there. When you have to dig your own well because the muni can't sort getting clean water piped to you, you may not realize that that's precisely what taxes are supposed to be paying for. When you have to homeschool your kids cause the local schools aren't even good enough to be classified as day care, you may wonder what the purpose of the Department of Education is. God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again.

maxxxxx 8y ago
It seems these places prove the old saying about groups that claim that government is incompetent and when they come in power, they prove it.
pathseeker 8y ago
>God damn am I glad I got the fuck out of those places. I wish I could be more patriotic but as an ex rural-american, I confidently say rural America is fucked and hopeless. Feel free to argue otherwise because I'd love to be able to cling to hope again. If it makes you feel any better, most of the cities are fucked as well if you aren't rich enough to get into good school districts. Rural areas just throw it in your face because there is no bypass for rich/upper middle-class people.

existencebox 8y ago

Chiming in as a seattelite having spent significant time in Baltimore, Philly, and Colorado: We do some things rather well (Transparency, not entirely atrophied ability to enact infrastructure progress, reasonable decent levels of participation without rampant nimbyism, govt. not entirely compromised by special interest groups/corruption) and some things much less well. (Transit/road funding, communication with our constituencies (Although this could just be my own experiences), growth planning, Marijuana legalization, cryptocurrency policy) I don't think you should sell short the people who would complain about their govts, "there are worse elsewhere" always struck me as vacuous as the "Starving children in africa" argument; the fact that places like Flint exist doesn't make me happier at seeing building firms lobby for reduced contributions to e.g. sewage costs. In politics I've found there's usually something worth complaining about, and it's our impetus as citizens to be attentive and stay on top of it :) (I optimistically hope we complain because we, or at least I, am never going to think "well I can't improve it more." If we complained and never did anything about it, _THEN_ I think we'd deserve the jab)

loeg 8y ago
Did the city have much power over marijuana policy? It seems like that was mostly the state legislature, no?
- existencebox 8y ago
  You're entirely right. I was, laxly, overlapping county/city/state legislature, since they all have some amount of impact on your day to day. (Transportation, another of my example, at least in my county, is largely being hamstrung due to a trickle down of "lack of fed funding so lack of state funding so lack of city funding so ...")
mediaman 8y ago
Lack of transit funding no longer rings true. The area just funded $50 billion in one of the most ambitious public transit expansion projects in the country, with heavy expansion of the train network. This is after an expansion still completing to grow its rail network. (Granted, it should have happened earlier, but this criticism seems less valid now than 20 years ago.) And SPD stopped enforcing marijuana laws well before the state legalized it. It was classified as "the lowest possible enforcement priority". And then, last year, Seattle vacated all misdemeanor marijuana charges from prior to legalization. Seattle, overall, seems reasonably well-managed. I think City Council gets up to antics now and then - they nearly lost $12 million in federal funds because of some political grandstanding in December - but the staff who actually run the city seem to do a good job. Sometimes the level of effort to communicate and involve citizens slows down needed progress, such as the upzoning efforts designed to increase density, but they would get criticized for not doing that too.