What Is the Best Way To Run a City?

Alan Ehrenhalt, writing in Governing, describes the history of a little-known form of municipal government known as city commission government. Portland, Oregon, the only American city to use this management system, will now replace it with a “more conventional structure,” writes Ehrenhalt, using this as a jumping-off point for discussing the merits and drawbacks of different city management models.

Although city commissions are intended to “invest politicians with executive authority so that they would take government more seriously and to encourage voters to elect more capable candidates in the first place,” the problems with the model are easy to spot. “[The model gives] elected council members the authority to function as administrators of key city departments. You could win a place on the council and soon find yourself running the police department, even if (as was often the case) you didn’t know much about law enforcement.”

Nevertheless, the system paved the way for the city manager model common in many small cities and towns today. This system comes with its own flaws, such as how “city-manager government leaves no one in a position to serve as a public spokesperson and chief decision-maker.” Meanwhile, the strong-mayor system can lead to either success or corruption, depending on the people in office. As Ehrenhalt concludes, “A dedicated and shrewd public servant can make any system work — even a city commission — while a scoundrel or an incompetent can make any system fail.”