If mayors ruled the world dysfunctional nations, rising cities

Includes bibliographical references (pages 361-402) and index.

If mayors ruled the world : why they should and how they already do -- Profile 1 : mayor of the world, Michael Bloomberg of New York -- The land of lost content : virtue and vice in the life of the city -- Profile 2 : the incorruptible as artist, Leoluca Orlando of Palermo -- The city and democracy : from independent polis to interdependent cosmopolis -- Profile 3 : the efficient jester, Boris Johnson of London -- Mayors rule! : Is this what democracy looks like? -- Profile 4 : governing in partnership, Wolfgang Schuster of Stuttgart -- Interdependent cities : local nodes and global synapses -- Profile 5 : the founder as president and the president as mayor, Lee Kuan Yew and Tony Tan of the city-state of Singapore -- Cities without sovereignty : the uses of powerlessness -- Profile 6 : the (not quite) indestructible, Yury Luzhkov of Moscow -- "Planet of slums" : the challenge of urban inequality -- Profile 7 : megacity headaches, Ayodele Adewale of Lagos -- City, cure thyself! : Mitigating inequality -- Profile 8 : her honor the mayor, Sheila Dikshit of Delhi-- Smart cities in a virtual world : linking cities with digital technology -- Profile 9 : the peacemakers, Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem and Qadoura Moussa of Jenin -- Cultural cities in a multicultural world : the arts of interdependence -- Profile 10 : civic comedy and teh art of citizenship, Antanas Mockus of Bogota -- Citizens without borders : glocal civil society and confederalism -- Profile 11 : the glocal community organizer, Park Won-Soon of Seoul -- A global parliament of mayors : bottom-up democracy and the road to interdependence.

"In the face of the most perilous challenges of our time--climate change, terrorism, poverty, and trafficking of drugs, guns, and people--the nations of the world seem paralyzed. The problems are too big for governments to deal with. Benjamin Barber contends that cities, and the mayors who run them, can do and are doing a better job than nations. He cites the unique qualities cities worldwide share: pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. He demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries. The book features profiles of a dozen mayors around the world, making a persuasive case that the city is democracy's best hope in a globalizing world, and that great mayors are already proving that this is so"--