If Mayors Ruled The World
August 3, 2012
Here’s a fascinating new talk given by Benjamin Barber at the Long Now Foundation on the city as the ideal political unit for democracy. From the intro:
Democracy began in cities and works best in cities. Mayors are the most pragmatic and effective of all political leaders because they have to get things done….Most of humanity now lives in cities, and cities worldwide connect with each other more readily than any other political entity. By expanding on that capability, Barber suggests, “Cities can make themselves global guarantors of social justice and equality against the depredations of fractious states. And they can become, as the polis once was, new incubators of democracy, this time in a global form.”
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Let A Thousand Nations Bloom 
Not only an ideal political unit, but an economic one as well, see Jane Jacobs “Cities and the Wealth of Nations”.
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