JOEL KOTKIN: Mayors to Cities: Drop Dead.

As jobs, talent, and investment head to Sunbelt cities or the countryside, some MAGA partisans may cheer the troubles of places like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. But their decline is no blessing for the United States. To see New York, or any of the other great cities, fall victim to the politics of grievance instead of pursuing growth, innovation, and advancement, would remove “a beacon of hope and opportunity for people around the world for centuries,” as the American Enterprise Institute’s Sam Abrams puts it.

Cities are hard to kill—they’ve survived riots, pandemics, and even, in Gotham’s case, Bill de Blasio. But they can’t mount a resurgence unless they abandon their ideological fixations and start meeting the needs of citizens, and at reasonable cost. “Excellence in governance is not impossible,” Rick Cole insists, as we walk through the crowded streets of Little Tokyo. The obstacle? “Cities have an arrogance that is almost nihilistic. People see the iceberg, but they don’t seem to want to avoid it.”

We’ll see how New York rearranges its deck chairs tomorrow. I’m sure it will be a night to remember.