2026 Brennan Lecture at OCU Law

American cities are under political attack. As U.S. politics divides along an urban-rural split that has now become a chasm, cities are increasingly isolated in their states and in the nation. This lecture, based on a book manuscript in progress, chronicles the law and politics of anti-urbanism, describing how state and federal governments are aggressively preempting municipal legislation, threatening local officials with removal and, in some cases, taking over cities’ core municipal functions. Cities are vulnerable to these attacks because hostility to city authority is built into our constitutional foundations. Addressing the weakness of America’s cities requires rethinking their role in a system that is designed to limit city power.