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Despite resource limitations, American mayors work to provide tangible solutions for crime, violence, school quality, and budget pressures.

In the early modern period, just before the rise of the modern nation-state, there were hundreds of political units in Europe. Now there are comparatively few. Some observers project that at some point in the future there will be just a handful of empires running the world, but others think the opposite might happen: that the nation-state as a concept will fall into disuse, and that city-states hold the future of politics. In this article Michael Shermer explores these themes.

A City Without a Country IN THE FIRST SCENE of the new documentary Mayor, Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid walks to a modern city hall for a meeting on city branding. Seated around a conference table with an Excel spreadsheet projected behind him, Hadid and his advisors argue over a clunky bit of marketing lingo they are trying to roll out: “WeRamallah,” with the “R” pronounced as in Toys‘R’Us. Hadid seems underwhelmed, almost embarrassed. “I still don’t understand what city branding is,” he says. “You’re just giving me slogans!” He wants to talk about traffic lights, signag...