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I wrote an article about the likelihood of undemocratic state takeovers of cities in the face of an unprecedented austerity crisis https://www.citymetric.com/politics/coronavirus-economy-city-budget-control-boards-5193
The numbers are terrifying. One study shows state and local governments facing a $1 trillion shortfall by the end of 2021. Another that states are facing average revenue declines of 20%. Massive federal intervention is needed, but the Republicans seem loathe to do it.
Without federal $, states are screwed but cities are even more screwed. Most of the experts I spoke with believe that in the years to come, many states are going to do what they've done before: take final authority over state budgets away from local leaders.
This has happened before in New York, Washington D.C., Detroit, Philly, Camden, Flint, etc, etc. In the more extreme cases, the emergency managers in Michigan after the Great Recession overrode local power to undermine public unions, privatize public assets, and cut services.
In Flint it had tragic consequences. The EM's quest to impose austerity at the local level directly resulted in the choice to switch the city's water supply to the Flint River. We all know what happened next: mass lead poisoning.
The current situation, of course, is v. different from Michigan post '08 or NYC fiscal crisis. Its v. hard to blame covid fallout on feckless local leaders! But in the years to come, many cities that were already on the brink are going to be in deep trouble no matter what happens
And a lot of experts I spoke with believed that conservative lawmakers would be happy to use this crisis to impose their visions of radically reduced government on cities, which in the Trump era have often been trying to do their own, progressive-ish thing. We'll see.
