How much power do mayors in the US actually have?
Posted by 6482john6482@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 44 comments
Prior to Zohran Mamdani's election, I didn't really get the hype because here in Australia local governments don't do much. However, he seems to be doing a lot. Like A LOT.
It seems like a lot of what he's doing is stuff that would be left to our state governments. For example, down here, transport is managed by the states. Likewise, education is solely managed by state governments in co-ordination with the federal government.
Local councils deal with things like rubbish bin collection, bike lanes, zoning laws etc.
So, how much power do mayors in the US actually have and how does someone like Zohran manage to co-ordinate his agenda with the various other local councils that presumably make up Greater New York?
Carlpanzram1916@reddit
A lot of what you’re reading is about what he’s proposing, not what’s actually been done.
The details will vary wildly in the thousands of cities with thousands of mayors. But I’ll stick to the big city mayors since we’re talking about NYC.
They have quite a lot of authority in their city. A lot of executive actions can be done by them. In Los Angeles, the police and fire chief serve at the pleasure of the mayor and they can terminate and choose their replacement on their own so that gives them a lot of sway in public enforcement. Other things need approval from a council.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
I didn't even think about law enforcement and the fact that it's more locally based in the US. In Australia emergency services are managed by the states. So, there's no Melbourne Police Department, for example. There's just Victoria Police and the police commissioner is appointed by the state governor who as a matter of convention acts on the advice of the Premier and the executive council given that governors are appointed by the King instead of being elected.
Dr_Watson349@reddit
Where I live, there is city police, county sheriff, state troopers, and I guess technically federal cops (FBI).
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
What do state troopers do. That's the only thing I don't think we have a direct equivilent to.
We do have Sheriffs' Offices but they are also state level entities. We also have the Australian Federal Police and ASIO. Which together do the same thing as the FBI (ASIO focuses on domestic intelligence gathering and the AFP acts on intelligence gathered by ASIO). ASIS is the foreign equivilent to ASIO and does the same things as the CIA.
Medium_Tomatillo2705@reddit
State Troopers are generally officers with authority in the whole state. They are shown on TV/movies as the highway patrol or traffic officers, but they also investigate crimes that encompasses multiple towns/cities. Or small towns with no expertise/budget for complicated investigations. Nice to learn about the local government in Australia btw.
SheketBevakaSTFU@reddit
It varies widely.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
Across the whole country or within the same city as well?
reyadeyat@reddit
The structure of local government can vary. Some places have what's called a "strong-mayor" system where the mayor has a lot more executive power (more akin to the type of power the president has in the federal government). Other places have a council-manager system where a council sets policy that the mayor is tasked with implementing. In my experience with the council-manager system, the mayor is a voting member of the council but doesn't really have any special privileges like a veto. (There are other systems, but I think something like 90% of our towns use strong mayor or council-manager).
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
How much power do the councils have in council-manager systems
Medium_Tomatillo2705@reddit
But even in NYC with strong mayoral system, the city council is powerful. Mamdani initially proposed a 9.5 pct real property tax hike. The council speaker Menin (from my district btw) is against it and the proposal was whittled down to just the pied a terre tax.
Dr_Watson349@reddit
Once again, this varies highly on each state and city.
Don't think of America as one country with different areas. It's 50 countries in a trenchcoat trying to be one.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
That makes sense.
Our federal system in Australia works in a similar way to your federal system (we have 6 states, 2 internal territories and a couple of external territories. The states have their own governments and are for the most part self-governing and we also have a federal government. The federal government has a house of representatives which represents the nation as a whole and a senate where each state gets 12 seats and each internal territory gets 2 seats). Despite this, I think things are a lot more uniform here. Local government works the same pretty much everywhere. Power within the states is extremely centralised (we don't have school districts or law enforcement run by local cities. Schools are managed solely by state and federal governments and all states have state level police forces like Victoria Police and state level Sheriffs' Offices like the Sheriff's Office Victoria). The federal government also has vastly more power, more so because it has just done more to wrest power from the states than your federal government has (it makes extensive use of tied grants (states also no longer collect income tax so they're highly dependent on the federal government for funding)).
SheketBevakaSTFU@reddit
The former. Some municipalities give their mayors lots of power, some do not.
Sea_Analysis_8033@reddit
The mayor is in charge of 8.5 million people so they have a lot of influence, the major of small town Iowa obviously does not wield that kind of power. He’s basically representing a third of Australia.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
That makes sense. What I've figured out from other commenters is that our cities are a lot more divided than your cities. Melbourne has a population of 5 million, but the City of Melbourne only has around 190, 000 so Melbourne City Council and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne have very little influence over the broader city. I was imaging it was the same for New York, that Mamdani would be in charge of some small central part and that the rest would be divided up amongst other councils.
bloopidupe@reddit
So specifically for New York City, we have the Mayor at large, who is in charge of the 5 boroughs. Each of those 5 boroughs have a borough president. The borough president is the representative for theirs area, they work in tandem with the Mayor. The Mayor still has to answer to the governor.
One item you mentioned: transportation. The Mayor does not control the public transit system (MTA for NYC). It is run by the governor and the legislature. That is a sore point for people from the city as they feel like the decisions are made by people who do not live there.
So even though he campaigned on a lot of items, he can't just make the decision by himself. He has to get the powers above him to agree to what he wants to do, and have the support of those below him.
You only hear about NYC's mayor because it makes a lot of money. It is has the largest regional economy in the United States. So you will hear more about him vs the Mayor of Milwaukee.
LynnSeattle@reddit
How does the mayor answer to the governor?
spintool1995@reddit
That varies a lot here too. NYC is kind of a outlier among older US cities. Most other older cities, like Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, even San Francisco have relatively small local divisions like Melbourne. The newer big cities like LA, Houston, Miami have much larger unified cities.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
That makes sense. We don't really have many newer cities. Most of our population lives in capital cities that were founded when the respective colonies were founded. My state, Victoria, has around 6 million people. The capital Melbourne has 5 million and the next largest city Geelong has around 250, 000. When cities expand, existing local government areas in the regions just become part of the city.
SheketBevakaSTFU@reddit
New York City just has the one council, and Zohran has no power outside the city.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
Ah okay. Just to clarify, when you say New York City do you mean the entire greater metropolitan area or just the central area. The City of Melbourne, for example, has one council with a Lord Mayor but the rest of Greater Melbourne is divided up into 30 local government areas each with their own Mayor. Melbourne can refer either to the local government area right at the heart of the city or to the broader city. Likewise, the City of Melbourne is basically just the Central Business District but the term city is applied to the whole of Melbourne as well.
If Mamdani is mayor for the entirety of the greater metropolitan area that would explain why he has so much power and honestly makes me kinda jealous of New York.
reyadeyat@reddit
Wikipedia has this image highlighting the boroughs of NYC. These colored areas are NYC, where Zohran Mamdani is the mayor. That is not the entire metro area, but it may be a larger area than you had in mind if you were just thinking about, say, Manhattan. There are about 8.5 million people living in NYC and nearly 20 million in the metro area.
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
Looking at that map it's a way larger area than what I had in mind. This is a map of how my city's divided (each division is a local government area with its own mayor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_areas_of_Victoria#/media/File:Australia_Victoria_Melbourne_Metro_Area_LGA_names.svg. This is Sydney. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_areas_of_New_South_Wales#/media/File:Sydney_councils.png. Melbourne has a population of about 5 million but the City of Melbourne has a population of about 190, 000.
Ok_Sentence_5767@reddit
Nyc is essentially a state within a state. They handle a lot pf their own shit that the state of ny simply doesnt for some reason. For example they have their own college system called cuny, city of ny, meanwhile state schools are suny state of ny
boilerromeo@reddit
NYC metro area has nearly the same GDP as Spain.
It’s a bit more than a state within a state, even if the Mayor just manages the burrowd
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
That makes sense. From what some other commenters have said, I've learnt that New York City has a population equivilent to the entire population of our largest state, New South Wales (NSW).
I laughed quite a bit when you said that their university system is called cuny. If you add an extra n in there you've got yourself a very rude word.
Ok_Sentence_5767@reddit
They def are a bunch of cunts out in the city! Really NYC has one of the most unique governments in the country, here's the wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_New_York_City
ExitingBear@reddit
The New York City is just really big and really dense. It's bigger than just the central area (in total, NYC is about 800 km^(2) - which seems to be much bigger than Melbourne) and the New York metropolitan area is much bigger than just the city and includes multiple cities (each with their own mayor) and parts of three different states.
The mayor of NY is just the mayor of NYC, but that's still 8 million people. (the entire metropolitan area is about 2.5 times as many people.)
cyvaquero@reddit
He is Mayor of New York City proper, which is made up of the five boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. These boroughs are actually five New York state counties. NYC has a city population of 8.8 million and a metro pop of roughly 20 million. It is completely surrounded by other municipalities and the metro area covers half of New Jersey all the way into Pennsylvania.
FunTricky903@reddit
When they say New York City, they mean New York City.
Justthetip74@reddit
I mean, the city had a $12b budget shortfall. He was given $8b. The state who gave it to him has a $34b shortfall. Its almost like nobody cares about budget deficits
Zealousideal_Draw_94@reddit
Most places not a lot. Most places it’s a part time gig, unless there is an emergency.
Major cities are different, more people = more responsibilities.
Also different states, have different laws and procedures that require different things.
B_A_Beder@reddit
Additionally, NYC has a population of around 8.5M, which would make it around the 13th largest state (out of 50) on its own
77sleeper@reddit
Remember, if NYC was a state, it would rank 13th out of 50. So i would think he is at least as powerful as 37 governors. As far as people represented
B_A_Beder@reddit
Regarding education, we have lots of local school districts that encompass only one or a couple of cities in a small region
6482john6482@reddit (OP)
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that. We've got nothing like that here.
Verdammt_Arschloch@reddit
Good Mayors - You don't even notice them unless there's a natural disaster or large emergency.
Bad Mayors - You can't avoid them.
Dear_House5774@reddit
Short answer: It depends. /////// Long answer: different cities in different states have slightly different forms of government. For example The Mayor of NYC, New York (Zohran Mamdoni) has more power than the mayor of Los Angeles, California (Karen Bass). The reason for this is because the municipal power in New York City is centralized to the Mayor's Office while in Los Angeles it is split between the Mayor's office and a like (15?) person committee. Zohran Mamdani can pretty much do whatever he wants as he controls a city that houses the US's main east coast Financial Hub and international shipping port. Karen Bass on the other hand is spineless and corrupt which paired with a large committee that has no term limits, the central committee becomes riddled with California's uber rich who then in turn bribe and intimidate the Mayor's office into looking the other way or act on their behalf.
Certain_Bit3809@reddit
The US has thousands and thousands of mayors. Most are pretty unimportant. But you gotta understand, NYC’s economy is \~2/3 the size of all of Australia’s economy. It’s like if he was mayor of every city there. All of them.
That said, yes, there is a city council and other elected officials. He has a lot of limitations.
Starfoxmarioidiot@reddit
It depends on the agreements they have with state and federal governments and which laws are already in place. In a city like New York the channels of power are complicated and they can run all the way to the White House if the mayor is savvy. In most towns it’s enough to have connections with water, power, and transportation commissions.
Check out a summary of The Power Broker if you want to understand how much impact municipal government can have on the entire country. Or read the whole thing if you have a lot of time on your hands.
FunTricky903@reddit
The MTA is a state agency.
ColdNotion@reddit
It varies depending on local laws, the size of the town/city, and the budget the mayor has to work with. In the US, the mayors of many large cities have a fair degree of power to organize needs that would otherwise fall to the state government. New York City is an especially unusual case, given its considerable wealth, population, and complex infrastructure. The mayor of NYC has a degree of political influence nearing that of the governor of New York State, and often is more visible in national news, as NYC is a media hub.
Formal-Radish1413@reddit
It really depends on the city. In most cases its like a much much smaller version of the government. The mayor acts as the head of the city but has to answer to and wirk alongside city council members. Together they manage the city and any laws etc. to be created. Most laws are still voted on by the city residents to take effect.
In a larger city like NYC, their mayor has a LOT of pull and responsibility purely because of the size of city, population, and the international nature of the city.
However, compare it to a smaller one, the mayoral job is not that busy or super powerful.
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