Charles Skelley: It is time for a bipartisan “city’s rights” initiative in the US

I believe the time has come to group several big US cities together in a new economic unit, which will have “city’s’ rights”. Some basic models for my “city’s rights” program come from the Renaissance era in Europe. Wikipedia has several articles which discuss “City Rights” inside various countries: Netherlands and Germany; also Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Also the Hanseatic League cities of northern Europe were autonomous.

In regard to the US today, there are several Democrat big cities which probably deserve an opportunity to set up their own Federal “big government” programs which would only apply inside these “city’s rights” communities. Meanwhile the Federal Government would continue to supply the whole US with a group of “small government” programs, including even the cities which participate in my “city’s rights” initiative. In this way US citizens could choose whether to live in a “big government” region or in a “small government” region of the US. Here is a preliminary list of big cities (CSA’s) which I might invite to participate in my “Cities Rights” initiative. The following 11 CSA’s contain a combined 1/4 of the US population.

2003 population

Greater New York 18.0 million

Greater Los Angeles 12.9 million

Chicago 9.5 million

Philadelphia 5.8 million

Detroit 4.5 million

S. F. Bay Area 4.2 million

Baltimore 2.7 million

Boston 4.5 million

Seattle 3.3 million

Washington DC 5.2 million

Las Vegas 1.8 million

—————

combined population 72.4 million