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There is a lot of variation in how officials have responded to protesters, though, from repression to response. I wrote about it in @washingtonpost @monkeycageblog today. TL/DR: Cities foster democracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/27/portland-beyond-city-national-leaders-respond-very-differently-protests-this-explains-why/#comments-wrapper
This piece is based on insights from my @OUPAcademic book, _The Cities on the Hill_, where I analyze how different kinds of places--cities, suburbs, rural areas--are represented in the national political conversation. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-cities-on-the-hill-9780190668884?cc=us&lang=en&
How can activists, especially from non-majorities (who have a tough time winning elections), get their voices heard? They can change minds and hearts, but maybe we don't have time for that. And many powerful actors won't care.
People power, changing incentives about what's in elites' interests about how and whether to respond to civil rights demands, works better in cities: there's a lot of $$ at stake when you Shut It Down, so reponsiveness works better than outright repression.
This is a lesson city leaders learned a long time ago, and some are re-learning today. Leaders from other kinds of places never learned it, so they still want to treat the city as a "battlespace."
This is part of the back-and-forth about what to do in Portland: seems like the most repressive actors are making it _worse_ in just about every way.
And Chicago didn't want to see that, so when 45 threatened to make things worse, the mayor averted Shut it Down by removing the Columbus Statue in the middle of the night, something she really didn't seem to want to do. That's a classic symbolic tactical retreat.
She gets a lot of "bang for the buck": confrontations in the middle of the city are less heated, and the Loop can kind of get back to business, but it doesn't cost much of anything. Probably nothing. It also isn't a huge substantive change in many peoples' lives, though.
Historically, repression has been a lot more effective against rights claims in rural areas. Revolts by the enslaved, beatings on the Pettus bridge, massacres of indigenous people across the continent.
This isn't to say repression and oppression don't happen in cities. It's probably happening right now. But the playing field between the state and the people is leveled out by some good ol' people power. Which is beautiful, courageous, and effective.
Since I focus on cities, I also learned a lot about the contrast in the countryside from @pfrymer 's _Building American Empire_. An amazing read, get it. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691191560/building-an-american-empire
