IF MAYORS RULED THE WORLD ALSO BY BENJAMIN R. BARBER Consumed (2007) Fear’s Empire (2003) Th e Truth of Power (2001) A Place for Us (1998) A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (1998) Jihad vs. McWorld (1995) An Aristocracy of Everyone (1992) Th e Conquest of Politics (1988) Strong Democracy (1984) Marriage Voices (A Novel) (1981) Liberating Feminism (1975) Th e Death of Communal Liberty (1974) Superman and Common Men (1971) IN COLLABORATION Th e Struggle for Democracy with Patrick Watson (1989) Th e Artist and Political Vision edited with M. McGrath (1982) Totalitarianism in Perspective with C. J. Friedrich and M. Curtis (1969) BENJAMIN R. BARBER IF MAYORS RULED THE WORLD Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities NEW HAVEN & LONDON Copyright © 2013 by Benjamin R. Barber. All rights reserved. Th is book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. offi ce) or [email protected] (U.K. offi ce). Designed by Lindsey Voskowsky. Set in Adobe Caslon type by Westchester Publishing Ser vices. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barber, Benjamin R. If mayors ruled the world : dysfunctional nations, rising cities / Benjamin R. Barber. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-16467-1 (hardback) 1. Mayors—Case studies. 2. Municipal government. 3. Leadership. 4. Comparative government. I. Title. JS141.B37 2013 320.8'5—dc23 2013016680 A cata logue record for this book is available from the British Library. Th is paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To our cosmopolitan mayors everywhere, who take responsibility for a world they have not been given the full power to govern and who— insisting on solving rather than debating problems— have allowed us to step away from the precipice And in partic u lar to these mayors past and present whom I have been lucky enough to know, a representative few whose glocal leadership in their cities has been my inspiration: Mayor Paweă Adamowicz of Gdansk Deputy Mayor Aileen Adams of Los Angeles Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York Mayor Rafaă Dutkiewicz of Wrocăaw Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver Mayor Yury Luzhkov of Moscow Mayor Antanas Mockus of Bogotá Mayor Leoluca Orlando of Palermo Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul Mayor Olaf Scholz of Hamburg Mayor Wolfgang Schuster of Stuttgart Mayor/President Tony Tan of Singapore Mayor Walter Veltroni of Rome Mayor George Kaminis of Athens Th e local is the only universal, and as near an absolute as exists. —John Dewey, Th e Public and Its Problems Th e 19th century was a century of empires, the 20th century was a century of nation states. Th e 21st century will be a century of cities. —Wellington E. Web, the former mayor of Denver Look, I’ll fi x your sewers if you knock off the sermons. —Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek CONTENTS Ac knowledg ments, xi I. WHY CITIES SHOULD GOVERN GLOBALLY CHAPTER 1. IF MAYORS RULED THE WORLD Why Th ey Should and How Th ey Already Do, 3 Profi le 1. Mayor of the World MICHAEL BLOOMBERG OF NEW YORK, 25 CHAPTER 2. THE LAND OF LOST CONTENT Virtue and Vice in the Life of the City, 29 Profi le 2. Th e Incorruptible as Artist LEOLUCA ORLANDO OF PALERMO, 50 CHAPTER 3. THE CITY AND DEMOCRACY From Inde pen dent Polis to Interdependent Cosmopolis, 53 Profi le 3. Th e Effi cient Jester BORIS JOHNSON OF LONDON, 79 CHAPTER 4. MAYORS RULE! Is Th is What Democracy Looks Like?, 83 Profi le 4. Governing in Partnership WOLFGANG SCHUSTER OF STUTTGART, 103 CHAPTER 5. INTERDEPENDENT CITIES Local Nodes and Global Synapses, 106 Profi le 5. Th e Found er as President and the President as Mayor LEE KUAN YEW AND TONY TAN OF THE CITY- STATE OF SINGAPORE, 141 CHAPTER 6. CITIES WITHOUT SOVEREIGNTY Th e Uses of Powerlessness, 145 Profi le 6. Th e (Not Quite) Indestructible YURY LUZHKOV OF MOSCOW, 172 II. HOW IT CAN BE DONE CONTENTS CHAPTER 7. “PLANET OF SLUMS” Th e Challenge of Urban In e qual ity, 177 viii Profi le 7. Megacity Headaches AYODELE ADEWALE OF LAGOS, 210 CHAPTER 8. CITY, CURE THYSELF! Mitigating In e qual ity, 213 Profi le 8. Her Honor the Mayor SHEILA DIKSHIT OF DELHI, 238 CHAPTER 9. SMART CITIES IN A VIRTUAL WORLD Linking Cities with Digital Technology, 241 Profi le 9. Th e Peacemakers TEDDY KOLLEK OF JERUSALEM AND QADOURA MOUSSA OF JENIN, 268 CHAPTER 10. CULTURAL CITIES IN A MULTICULTURAL WORLD Th e Arts of Interdependence, 271 Profi le 10. Civic Comedy and the Art of Citizenship ANTANAS MOCKUS OF BOGOTÁ, 295 CHAPTER 11. CITIZENS WITHOUT BORDERS Glocal Civil Society and Confederalism, 299 Profi le 11. Th e Glocal Community Orga niz er PARK WON- SOON OF SEOUL, 333 CHAPTER 12. A GLOBAL PARLIAMENT OF MAYORS Bottom- up Democracy and the Road to Interdependence, 336 Notes, 361 Index, 403 ix CONTENTS This page intentionally left blank AC KNOW LEDG MENTS Th is book builds on an encompassing corpus of work undertaken earlier by a host of scholars who, knowing the urban fi eld far better than I ever will, have made the city their subject and sometimes their lifework. Much of what I do here is merely to hold up a megaphone before them so that their mea sured and per sistent voices on behalf of the redemptive potential of the urban can be widely heard. Tom Bender, Manuel Cas- tells, Eric Corijn, Mike Davis, Richard Florida, Edward Glaeser, David Harvey, Peter Marcuse, Saskia Sassen, Richard Sennett, and Ronald van Kempen— and before them Lewis Mumford, Max Weber, Jane Jacobs, and the many others who are cited below—have built a scholarly edifi ce I feel lucky to have been able to inhabit and explore. My task has been to apply the results of their work to the challenge of establishing a form of constructive interdependence—global democratic governance— in which cities are prime actors. Like all authors and scholars, I have benefi ted enormously from myr- iad others in conceiving and executing this project. Th ree research asso- ciates who worked with me on various stages of the manuscript have made especially important contributions: Patrick Inglis, who helped with research and thinking about the project at the outset, when my fo- cus was just beginning to move from global governance to global cities, and whose own work on India and the urban is so important; Deirdra Stockmann, who was a research associate during the writing of the fi rst half of the book, where her research on networks and in e qual ity proved so valuable; and Daniel London (below). Th ough not involved directly in research, my former executive assistant and coordinator of programs for CivWorld, Harry Merritt (now returned to graduate school in his- tory to pursue his own scholarly interests), has been a presence through- out the writing of this book, and I owe him much for his curiosity and contributions. Daniel London, who has worked on research for the manuscript throughout and was a principal creator and overseer of the book’s website, has been much more than a research assistant. He has been a careful edi- tor, an exacting compiler of charts and data, and a valuable contributor of AC KNOW LEDG MENTS ideas. Daniel also spent time as the research coordinator for my CivWorld team at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His role xii in this project has been major. I have also been the benefi ciary of relationships to former students (now colleagues) including SungMoon Kim, with whom I wrote an essay on a new interdependence paradigm for global governance several years ago that was one platform for the ideas here, and whose own work on civil society East and West is so important; and Stuart MacNiven, whose research on Rousseau and love of politi cal theory in combination with his friendship have been a continuing inspiration. Trevor Norris, in his capacity as editor of a forthcoming Festschrift, has also taken a lively and contributory interest in this work. A number of friends and colleagues, some of them also funders, have off ered valuable support for my work leading up to and through this book. Th at support has helped my NGO CivWorld thrive and allowed me to develop its research side in crucial ways. Th e friendship and sup- port of Sara McCune, whom I fi rst met in the 1970s when I was editing the journal Po liti cal Th eory at her then young Sage Publications, has been especially vital, along with the corollary support of her CEO, Blaise Simqu, with whom I worked de cades ago when we were both young editors. Heinrich Th yssen has been a friend for many years and has shown repeat- edly how business leaders can also be critical thinkers about interdepen- dence. Th yssen’s support and that of his Nomis Research Foundation have facilitated my research and my interdependence work. Heine also intro- duced me to his colleague Jerre Stead, who off ered vital support to my work at one key moment.