America’s Electoral Systems Are Stacked Against Cities. What Comes Next?

Both the Senate and the Electoral College are weighted against urban areas, as are many state governments such as, most famously, New York. State gerrymandering is relentless in its minimization of urban influence. And the dismantling of the Voter Rights Act of 1964 means that it is again open season for restrictive voting laws, reducing the voices of people of color and the young, in particular, and amplifying the votes of older rural America in the most callous possible way. None of these democratic structures are easy to reform, and when it comes to voter turnout, especially for congressional elections, the United States lies at the bottom of the list of Global North nations.

If cities end up resisting Federal registration or deportation mandates, it might make it easier to continue the work that’s been done on reforming police practices in urban areas around race and profiling. Decoupled from the militarized police state apparatus, and with a rift opening up between urban areas and their exurban fringes, it’s conceivable to imagine cities that are better able to radically rethink policing. Should city-states replace the broad liberal state in some senses, it’s possible to imagine political leaders on the left becoming more focused on urban racial justice issues. Cities like Minneapolis might literally become sanctuaries for people of color or Muslims seeking religious tolerance, particularly when compared to smaller cities like Saint Cloud or Willmar, where racial animosity may become much more common under a Trump Presidency.

The notion of cities dealing with inequality on a municipal rather than regional or statewide basis comes with a lot of problems. For example, if there’s a $15 an hour minimum wage in Minneapolis, as seems likely, but lower wages in neighboring cities, this would have a negative effect on parts of Minneapolis’ economy. Political organizing would have to focus city-by-city on these edge spaces, and you might end up with a situation where policies aimed at equity form a haphazard patchwork across the state and metro areas. This is nobody’s idea of a perfect solution, but without the possibility of larger-scale consensus-driven action, this would be better than nothing. Place and politics would be increasingly fused, with city governments at the center of social change.