Progressive Cities Aren’t Living Up To Their Values

How Ideology is getting in the way of good city building

Progressive cities have been telling themselves a myth for (at least) the last 20 years. Conjuring an identity based on virtue, and strengthened by a sort of moral superiority that looks down its nose at every other part of the country, large, prosperous, and blue cities have come to believe that they’re the champions of the marginalized, working and middle classes, carrying the torch on policies that everywhere else should seek to emulate in the pursuit of more equitable communities. Places like New York, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, DC, and LA (among others), have held their heads high, perhaps too high, incredulous that anywhere else could be as successful, desirable, or noble as them. As the bastions of the intelligentsia with the best schools and culture, most amenities and enlightened values, who else could compete?

Maybe that was true one day in the past, but not today. This belief has largely not been met in reality. These cities have rested on laurels earned from the hard work of prior generations. The truth is, prosperous progressive cities have largely failed in the progress that should be at core of their mission. It’s right there in the name! People can argue online about how they feel a city is doing, and that’s all well and good, but the data doesn’t lie. We, and I use “we” to include myself as a progressive who has lived in several of these cities, have not lived up to the values we claim to embody.

I’ve used the word progressive a few times so far, so, before going further, I’d like to define what exactly I mean by it. I’m not using it as a stand in for “left” or “Democrat” in the context of our modern political system of conservatives v. progressives. Rather, I’m using the word to explain the intention behind progressivism. Tim Urban uses a definition in his book What’s Our Problem that I think works well:

Concerned with helping society make forward progress through positive changes to the status quo. That progress can come from identifying a flaw in the nation’s systems or its culture and working to root it out, or by trying to make the nation’s strong points even stronger. If the country is a car, progressives are in charge of the gas pedal.