Thank you so much, kathy. Its a particular pleasure, as you might imagine, to have the hospitality of a distinguished center at the Graduate Center the center on philanthropy and Civil Society and have the friendship of a terrific scholar who has been a friend of many years. I owe kathy the special debt in the generous invitation to be a senior scholar at the center and bring my Small Organization with me. Thank you very much, kathy. Its because of her im here today and here at the City University. I sworn after i left maryland having left rutgers i would not go back to the university again. Im glad i have broken that promise to myself and here. Its a pleasure to be on the podium again. We met in the 70s what we were both regarded as a radical scholar. Some might not think that anymore. Francis and i were asked by james mcgreger burns to be the cochair of the american Political Science invention program. We came up with a program that even i think jim burns was a little alarmed by. He in fact put in to action. I have known francis since then. She has remained an honest and authentic voice of progressivism and radicalism with a deep interest with those they have shown the homeless and the poor. Not how they can be helped but how they find ways to help themselves through the movement and work that they do. Its a pleasure to have her perspective this afternoon in responding to these comments. Im very pleasured to jackie davis, the chairman of the and rachel and members of the executive committee they are here today because that organization the Interdependence Movement which ill talk about a little bit today is central to the thinking that has lead me to this work on the cities. I hope if your not familiar with it, you will have a look at Interdependence Movement. Org online and gate sense of the work we are doing there. But let me make some remarks about the city and suggest its change in recent years. My thinking about in politics in ways i hope it might also change yours. And in a sense, just what i want to do this afternoon, i want to change the subject. For 400 years, roughly when we talk politics retalk nations, we talk sovereignty, the nation state, we talk about International Relations, relations among nations. We talk about the league of nations. The United Nations. The nations state have been the central preoccupation obsession of politics for 400 years. Its been the central and pivotal and Core Institution of western and ultimately global politics. Theres no question of primary actor in politics for the last 400 years has been the nation state. Its special role for the last 400 years has been a protecter of democracy. Its impossible to think about social contract theory. To think about representative institutions and think about democracy without thinking about independent nation state inside of which democracy has nestled and institutions has flour riched. The growth of the nation state and growth of democracy over the last had 400 years have gone hand and hand. Democracies and those who care about disple owe a debt to the nations fate. We know in the 21st century democracy is in crisis. I wont waste my time trying to persuade of you that since i think there are a few people who think differently not just here but in the western world, and even those part of the world that are yearning for democracy and seeking it when we see whether egypt, libya, syria, or iraq or somalia. We see how difficult to secure democracy today in the context of the struggle for an independent state. And the 18th century the decoration of independence spoke to the world by saying if you want lickety, freedom, justice. You must first secure independence. Thats been the mantra of democratseeking people and the discussion go o on far long time. I want to suggest that the crisis of democracy today is in part because its no longer true. That nations states can no longer vouchsafe, security and liberty of citizen. Its no longer well cared for in the nation state. That the nation state so powerful and valuable for 400 years has been outrun by the new circumstances of a global interdependent world which the nation state can no longer solve problems as it once did. The mantra of the nation state is independence. The trouble in the 21st century it happened in world war ii and world war i. We live in a world of independent challenges, independent problems but in a world of interdependence challenges. I wont enumerate them here, if you look at sustainability, ecology, environment, weapons of mass destruction, or tropical storm, every one of those threats pace little need boundaries. Every one of those threats is a crossborder challenge. Every one of those threats represents a new interdependent, take one example, al qaeda. One of the reasons al qaeda still lives despite the fact that the leadership is lick dated, the drones are taking out, its leader along with a lot of people who arent the leaders nonetheless the leadership being lick dated. One of the reasons al qaeda survives, it is what i call a belev lent ngo. Its a nongovernmental organization. It belongs to no state. Attacking states, laying low state government, defeating the taliban, al qaeda, making war in it will not stop it because terrorism like steanlt like markets are independenter in their character. What we have created beginning of the 21st century is a deep symmetry between the challenges we face and the political response the Political Institutions we have to respond to that. Every challenge is interdependent global cross frontier and the primary political actors that respond are bounded, frontiered, independent nation states. And in that a symmetry, you can see the dysfunction of the modern world. We watch, for example, starting four or five years ago in copenhagen and going through mexico city and due by and recent meetings where 180 or 190 nations came together to renew the protocol already out of date in term of the ecological challenges but to embrace that now and failing to do so. And going home and saying that is because our sovereignty said china, the u. S. , now canada, even leaders doesnt permit us to monitor. Doesnt permit us to report to International Body. Doesnt permit an International Body to tell us what to do with emission. Sovereignty has become the obstacle to cooperation and increasely made states look more and more dysfunctional. How is that the most powerful, well equipped military nation in the world has ever seen the United States of america cant bring a handful of terrorists to heal in benghazi or mali, or afghanistan. The asymmetry between a massive military based on big ships, planes, and bombs and the reality of every day cross borders that a symmetry means that the war machine, the war machine of the greatest state there ever was is largelier relevant to the security threats we face. As we learn on 9 11 when in this city, a handful of hijackers living in the United States for years hijacked our planes and turned them to weapons. They didnt have to be given weapons by anyone. They seize them and use them and created devastation here. That, again, is a sign of this new asymmetry. And you find it in every one of these areas from disease, pandemic that effect us today, when i was growing up in manhattan in the 0s my mother used to say dont go to new jersey. I think theres flu. We worried about the new jersey flu. We worried about disease today come in pandemic no matter how good the health system, ours isnt that good, no matter how good it is no Health Position in position to take on the global threat we face. Global world challenge, indper dependence as the reality and independent nation states born two, three, four hundred years ago in world which sovereign territory and jurisdiction could be and was the gairn or it of liberty and security. We need in short new political entities, new institutions to deal with an interdependent world. Theres candidates around traditional multinational cop corporations which are interdependent and global which pay little attention to the states. That is not a great candidate to go the work. They can do a fair amount but they lack power of any kind. They are unrepresentative and undemocratic. They represent the interest of the people, but they dont consult the interest of the people. The International Monetary institution that came out of they are mostly nation state based in the nation that own them and the banks that own the nation more or less the term in the policy. They are not useful. We are in need of new actors politically. That can act democratically, acrossborder, and have an impact on the interdependent problems we face. Its there i dont idea that there is in the oldest and original Political Institution possible potential for a new 21st century interdependent world. Namely the city. The town, the entities we first formed in every early culture people come together around trade, creativity, living together, the neighborhood which we gathered. The ancient palace, which is where we started could conceively today act as an alternative agent in a modern world. And the great irony, beauty of that is that it closes a great circle. Western civilization, civilizations everywhere started in towns, township, trading posts, and cities. But by the end of the ancient world it was clear that those cities were too small in the scale. Too limited in their Political Representation to be capable of governing in the world that emerged in the mid evil empire and in the renaissance. In other words thats the scale of human societys grew. The township proved too small to deal with a large scale problems and so it required the invent of this of the renaissance in the early modern period to create the new idea of the nation of people. Who then substituted themselves as a large entity capable of ruling and social contract theory of people and conceived themselves as being in a contract with one another to obey a larger power in some the nation state emerged as a solution to the limited scale and limited capacity of the city to deal with a new growing problem of europe and north america and asia. The nation state was the solution to the problem of inadequate scale on the part of the city. But now, as i just described, its the nations state who has the scale too diminutive to deal with the global reach of the problems we face today. What im suggesting is that we circle back to cities but not one city, town, palace at the time. But what cities can do together in networks. To work and corporate across borders to do what individuals sovereign states cannot do. The old palace reconstituted in a networking of can become a global instrument of global cooperation. The subtitle of my book if mayors rule the world why its a good idea. The more important of the sub title is if mayors rule the world how they already do. Because part of what im saying is notlet pluck the city from on security and get them to talk to one another and get them to work together. Maybe if they can do that we can create a new utopia. On the reason contrary is that seis already are deeply erk inned. That innercity associations if you look what is happening successfully global world are doing so. That cities are already well on the path to soft, informal Global Governance. Not an executive authority with a mandate telling people what to do through laws made but a group of cities and mayors and counselors and citizens working together across borders voluntarily developing best practices, exploring common urban vir chow to solve problems states have proven no longer able to take care of. And i will bore you with it here. Its boring. Important as it is. I name for you the innercity networks that already in operation doing important business around the globe. You would be shocked and suppress a long yaun. The names are boring and bureaucratic. The reality is great. One of the most important institutions nobody has ever heard of, for example, is the united cities and local governments uclg. 3,000 cities and local authorities that meet globally every year and the networking cities around work and environment, transportation, immigration, secure city, and a number of other issues. I hadnt heard of it two years ago. I doubt too many people here other than the urban specialists have heard of it. Its a living organization. Most people know what you mean the American Congress of mayors, sister cities, maybe. They pale in the context of the actual innercity organizations literally hundred of them. Some regional, some national, some with global scope that exists. The forty cities or 58 cities now working on Global Environment and doing better jobs than the state have done. Cities for mobility. Mayors running the world city. City protocol and organization in barcelona that shares best practices. Claire the counsel of local authority. The climate alliance. Partnership of democratic local government in southeast asia. The International Counsel of local Environmental Initiative and so on and so on. They go on and on. They are there working. I know, if i sit there and study and do a full report, your Junior High School kids would say isnt there Something Else i can do for the report . They are important because they are achieving results in the very area where nations states are in lockup. Unable to make any readies tings progress. They are actually doing things in important things together. And they do it because when you look at cities, the approach to governance, the approach to citizenship, the approach to policy problems turns out to look different from what happens when you look at nation states. What mayors are and do prepare to what president s and Prime Minister are and do is striking in the distinctions. And ill start with a simple fact that might startle you. Theres not one mayor of any American City despite the greatnd of americas cities and the names American Mayors has become president of the United States. Mayors mostly dont become president s because mayors are a different kind of politician than president s. And part of what my book explores is what makes mayors different. Why dont they become president s . Theres some places where they do in france they do. Because they are chosen by the political system. Not by local candidates and being mayor is part of a political career. But in most places are they are elected they dont. The starting point is that mayors are among the most pragmatic problem solving politician the world has ever seen. Thats because their job is specific. If you become you have go the to achieve world trade regulation. You have to top the taliban and deal with chaos in libya and mali. You have to ban guns across the country or not. Saling up the board ears and fig those vast large scale problems lend themselves to ed yolings. No government, Big Government, selfgovernment. When youre mayor, you have sircht set sircht set of task. You better get the snow off the road when it snows. Mayor lindsay, some of you may recall in 1960 when failed to plow. Almost lost his job. Because he didnt plow the streets. Mayor teddy, pragmatic mayor of jury was known as a pragmatist and famous for having said he was in a meeting with rabbi and christians who were arguing about access to the holy site. He finally said to them, spare me your sermons and fix your suers. A wonderful phrase that contrast the religious that divide israel and palestinian and the middle east. From the practical problems that have to be done. Theres another rather unmown mayor same period, very much like him who was a mayor. He almost got himself killed insisting his job to make the city function as a city. Not to engage in universal debate about the jews and the arab and palestinians and who owned the land and who was there first and should do. It its typical of mayors that they focus on problem solves. If you look at what they actually say, youll find again and again we did survey of mayors in many Different Countries and they ended up saying the same thing. Or job 0 is is to get it things fixed and do thing and make it happen. A moi your in philadelphia said the mayor the president of the american conference of mayors said we could never get away with some of the stuff that goes on in washington. You either fill pothole your dont. The pool is open or it isnt. Someone responded to 9 11. When youre in the city being socialists, being a conservative. They have impact on how you view government. In the end you have to do the work of govern innocence. The other thing about being mayor if youre president of the United States, youre a figure head. If youre president of france or china and 99. 9 will never to more than see your face. If youre a mayor in a big city like new york let alone a smaller city. If youre mayor there your neighbors know you. They see in the coffee shop. You cant get away with much because you are a neighbor and a politician who is a neighbor is a different breed. Whenit was a different man than when i was president of france. The new president of fran spent seven years as mayor of tule in the south of france. As part of the political career, he grew so fond and involved when he took the pledge of office last year when he became the president of france he went down to tule and took the oath of office in front of my neighbors. Sop the mayor as neighbor means that in fact mayors are to use the phrase mayors are home boys from the neighborhood. They are about the neighborhood. We read about mayors like our friend in newark who run to burning buildings and poor out people or mayor johnson who stopped on a mugging on the street of london. Even if barack obama or bush wanted to, obviously the secret service would not let them get out of limo and interfere with a mugging. Its a different kind of job as a symbolic power. Ed in the end youre not surprised when a mayor you see a mayor out on the side of an accident or pulling somebody out of burning buildings. Ul