I think it's important to draw a distinction between outsiders who do not have a long-term interest in how a city or community functions and residents who do have such a long-term interest. Outsiders have, in my opinion, no legitimate claim to being considered stakeholders in government regulations. Resident, however, do.
Having predetermined that a community of 'outsiders' are the cause of a local problem, the historical data regarding municipal planning by lay people does not usually result in a story that reflects well on the municipality.
> I can imagine locals who live there full time having problems getting city see that a guy who lives there 3 weeks a year doesn’t care about
There is a balance of interests. That doesn’t mean anyone not somewhere all the time should get zero representation. This is part of finding that balance.
The people who show up to city council meetings and pay attention to local politics are a tiny minority. It is not a stretch to believe that they do not represent what most people want.
This also boggles my mind. The only ones allowed a say in what happens to a city are.. the people just moving to it? Aka the same ones who are responsible for a majority of the current issues?
"You can't fight city hall". But you can fight your neighbors. We accept the government's monopoly in some spaces, like enforcement, taxation or surveillance. But we may not accept that our neighbors can exercise those same powers.
Alternatively, one petty neighbor may not symbolize a trend.
It’s sad how much our local governments main job is to try and freeze everything in place and prevent change.
That's not really what the local government's main job is supposed to be. Local government is supposed to be a venue for regular people to participate in the kinds of everyday decisions that affect their lives. But then it ends up mainly representing local property owners and developers who are its most interested (in the sense of stake or investment, not curiosity) constituents. It is these special interests who try their hardest, not necessarily to prevent change, but to protect and grow their investments.
> Besides that, city governments don't answer to the industry; they answer to their voters.
Do you find your city government to be very responsive to your desires? Maybe it actually is in small towns, but in larger cities, the government basically does whatever it wants on niche issues like this, with no real oversight.
> Local government is supposed to be a venue for regular people to participate in the kinds of everyday decisions that affect their lives.
Because it takes time and energy to sit through public hearings, something most people working manual labor or evening/night jobs with variable schedules don’t have (i.e. lower income/wealth people with few investments).
Hmm do you think that people who live in a city and pay taxes to maintain its infrastructure don’t deserve to have opinions on how said city spends tax dollars on transportation infrastructure. Seems a little entitled to me
No, it's not vacuous at all. "The people (who have an interest in the matter)" and "the people who live there and vote for city government" are not the same "people." That's a large part of the problem.
Which is it? Try to work through official public channels, and you’re just telling people they’re doing it wrong. Take action yourself and you’re usurping power that rightly belongs to the community. Do nothing and you’re a miserly transient failing to care about or invest in your community. Stay away and you’re an uppity, entitled elite who thinks you’re too good for the place.
The locals are going to resent you no matter what, so maybe just do what you want.
More like a certain kind of people. More likely those who have the time to attend city council meetings and consistently vote in elections. The kind of people who can afford to.
The business on the other hand, does not suffer at the hands of a poorly designed political system.
If renters and young people were more engaged in local politics this wouldn't happen.
It's baffling to me how engaged people are with Federal politics, where many of the issues are distant and may never affect peoples' lives, while at the same time they have zero interest in local politics, which affects their lives closely, directly, every day.
Additionally municipal government is so approachable and citizens have incredible access. You can just email people and they'll get back to you. You can go to meetings and address council directly. In my town of 600k+ I've coincidentally came across a councillor on the street multiple times.
Local government in places with a waterfront is almost completely made up of people who have a special interest to champion and spends 90% of it's time bickering about said interests.
reply