Every big city in America where the population is declining, businesses are closing, public safety is failing, and national relevance is diminishing suffers from the same handful of leadership failures.

John Perry | June 27, 2026

Every big city in America where the population is declining, businesses are closing, public safety is failing, and national relevance is diminishing suffers from the same handful of leadership failures. Cities don’t become helpless has-beens due to budget shortfalls, racial tension, natural disasters, or any of the other common excuses cities like Los Angeles use to explain or justify their decline. Along with New York, Chicago, Seattle, and other cities currently spiraling down the drain, LA is going from bad to worse because of four mistakes its leaders have perpetuated.

These failures are both predictable and preventable. But history tells us that as mayor, Karen Bass will have a hard time implementing the simple changes required.   

Here is why cities wither and die:

1. Failure to keep citizens safe — If people don’t feel safe on their own streets, nothing else matters. Productive, law-abiding, taxpaying residents deserve protection from criminals, vagrants, and other undesirables. It’s the responsibility of the police and the judicial system to establish and preserve a safe environment. Failing cities prioritize the rights of criminals over those of their victims. This turns the whole public safety system on its head. Lax policing standards, cashless bail, soft-on-crime prosecutors, and continued financial investment in policies that have failed to solve homelessness, addiction, and street crime all lead to trouble. Where the government turns a blind eye to criminal behavior, hard-working taxpayers who generate jobs and revenue leave for safer pastures, to be replaced by hordes of the unemployed who contribute nothing. Certainly, there are mentally and physically needy people in any city who must be helped. Letting them shoot up in a tent under the freeway is not helping them.

Angelenos could take a cue from the former mayor of Coronado, California, Richard Bailey. In his city, homeless people had two choices: get help or leave. “Although there are a myriad of reasons that people end up homeless,” he observed, “they eventually only fall into two camps — those that want help and those that do not.” City police “make it very clear that we don’t tolerate encampments along our sidewalk, and we don’t tolerate other code violations… An individual either chooses to get help or they end up leaving.” As a result, the homeless population of Coronado was zero.    

2. Failure to provide effective schools – Families with children are the backbone of any thriving community. Responsible parents — the ones who have steady jobs, volunteer in the community, support local businesses, pay taxes, and obey the law — will stop at nothing to send their children to the best schools they can. In Detroit, the decline of public schools in the 1970s sent more residents packing for the suburbs than the racial upheavals of the 1960s. The city had some of the highest per-student costs in the country, yet consistently ranked last among major cities in student performance. Other failing cities today have a similar story: Chicago schools are more than $9 billion in debt, even as enrollment declines, and produce some of the worst results in America.

Successful leaders face this and other problems not with studies and platitudes but with action. After years of weak performance and broken promises, the Texas Education Agency took control of Houston public schools. In the face of predictable whining, race-baiting, and calls for “due process,” the state, after reviewing 462 applications, installed Mike Miles as the new Houston superintendent. With degrees from West Point, UC Berkeley, Columbia, and a stellar track record, he had no time for excuses. “Schools do not struggle because of the students they serve or the communities they are in,” he said. “Students fail because the district fails to support them.” His results have been spectacular. Problem solved. This is one of the reasons why Houston is on track to replace Chicago as America’s third-largest city.

America’s third-largest city.

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3. Failure to keep the cost of living manageable – Los Angeles, like Chicago, Seattle, New York, and other failing cities, is living hopelessly beyond its means. In order to fund vast social programs that attract homeless addicts from around the country, meet extreme and unrealistic environmental standards, and support a hopelessly bloated bureaucracy, the cost of living in LA is through the roof. Less expensive options, with fewer restrictions and less red tape, are available nationwide to prove that high prices are not inevitable.

Prospering states help their cities keep costs in check. The average price of a house in California is about twice that of Texas. Yet Texas has no state income tax, and a budget surplus. Florida has a population of about 23.5 million; New York has about 20 million. Florida’s state budget is half of New York’s. Yet Florida has no state income tax and a budget surplus. Although Florida and Texas face the same national and international challenges as California and New York, they produce very different results. Ambitious people and their capital go where they’re welcome, not where leaders treat them like piggy banks to be looted.  

4. Failure to keep corruption in check – There is corruption in every American city; it’s unavoidable in a fallen world. But it has to be held in check for governments to function and serve their constituents. While Detroit suffered over the years with mayors Charles Bowles (a fan of the Klan who became the first mayor in America to be recalled), Richard Reading (sentenced to prison for accepting underworld bribes), and Kwame Kilpatrick (convicted on 28 felony counts, including mail fraud and racketeering), Los Angeles makes news almost every day now with another corruption story. There is probably one in the headlines today.

Unchecked corruption robs cities of their resources, energy, and legitimacy. One of the reasons Chicago struggles is there has been no change in leadership to clean house: Democrats have controlled the city since 1930. Like Chicago, Los Angeles desperately needs a new team to sweep those nasty streets from top to bottom.     

All these urban failures are a result of poor leadership. The way to turn them into success is to vote out failing leaders and vote in new ones. This is harder than it sounds due to the Curley Effect. Named after James Michael Curley, the fiery Irish mayor of Boston in the early twentieth century, this is the tendency of mayors elected on the basis of identity politics to promote policies popular with their core constituents rather than policies good for the city. Thus, history tells us that as mayor, Karen Bass will continue to govern not to improve the lives of Angelenos, but to safeguard her voter base.  

During his twenty years as mayor of Detroit (1974-94), Coleman Young stayed in power because he knew who his voters were and what they wanted, and satisfied them no matter how the city suffered as a result. Taxes and expenses went up; policing and other services went down. Between 1970 and 1990, Detroit lost a third of its population, falling from 1.5 million residents to 1 million (today it’s about 650,000). Unemployment doubled. Households in poverty rose 60%. But the black population – Young’s most reliable constituents – increased from 43% to 75%, cementing his position in the seat of power.  

Zohran Mamdani, Brandon Johnson, Karen Bass, and others follow the Curley Effect playbook. Their base is defined by race and class identity politics. They play to these constituents’ demands for less policing, more welfare, environmental extremism, supporting the unions, and soaking the rich.

The results are there for all to see: Great for being re-elected. Terrible for the citizens and cities these leaders are supposed to lead.

John Perry is a ghostwriter and collaborator, as well as the author of more than a dozen books including Sgt. York: His Life, Legend, and Legacy (Fidelis, 2021). His latest book is The Detroiting of America: What Happened to the Motor City, Why Other Cities Followed, How Detroit is Coming Back (Fidelis, 2024).