… Cities and their inner suburbs need an immediate lifeline from Washington to stabilize their finances after the devastation of the pandemic. But once those communities regain their balance, they could become crucial allies for Biden. By working with big metros, the president would be aligning federal policy with powerful economic, social, and electoral trends—and empowering local officials overwhelmingly sympathetic to his core objectives. If Biden can forge such partnerships, he could both ignite a new wave of local innovation and solidify the Democratic Party’s advantage in the fast-growing, diverse, and well-educated metro areas that have become the bedrock of its electoral coalition. “If Joe Biden could be the president who reclaimed federalism and rewrote federalism for this next generation,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told me, “I think that’s going to be one of his most lasting legacies.” CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic
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