To fix local government, learn to ask the tough questions. To ask the tough questions, learn the gory details.
Local governments should prevent crime, maintain infrastructure, and deliver services effectively and efficiently. But too often, they don’t. Yes, there are some amazing civil servants that go above and beyond the call of duty. I’ve worked with many of them. But the bureaucracy as a whole fails to live up to citizens’ expectations. And while trust in local government remains high relative to federal and state government, that trust has eroded rapidly in the past few years.
Issues that get public attention drag on for years without resolution. Citizens start to ask: Does public pressure even matter? Do officials care? Can government actually change?
The answer is yes—but only when public pressure is truly informed.
To hold government accountable, the public has to be able to ask the right questions that get to the root of why the government falls short. A surface level understanding won’t suffice—if we want better government, we need to understand how it actually works.
The problem is that local bureaucracy is complex, and few have the time—or access—to decipher it. Fortunately, I spent a decade in City Hall across three cities—Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Denver—working on every major policy and operational area. I know the details, and I know that those details transfer from city to city.
This publication will break down the departments, functions, and systems that make up the machinery of local bureaucracies, making bureaucracy legible. Through a mix of data analysis, process breakdowns, and case studies, it will provide the insights needed to ask better questions—and demand better results.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
