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The Mayors Who Aren’t Burning Out
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The Mayors Who Aren’t Burning Out
Local politics in a polarized era can be stressful. To survive, some municipal leaders have managed to mix pragmatism and wonkiness with a flair for creativity — and a thick skin.
Just before the holidays, Houston voters elected John Whitmire as the city’s 63rd mayor, choosing the state senator over US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee in a hotly contested race. Before that two-person runoff, no fewer than 14 candidates were on the ballot.
And that raises a question: Why would so many people actually want that job?
Like so many US cities, Houston is facing a constellation of challenges. Schools are struggling and infrastructure is aging. Budgets are strained. There are fights over everything from zoning to police response, even as locals brace for the next hurricane or winter storm to swamp the place or overwhelm the power grid.
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That’s not to pick on Houston, to be sure. It’s just that so many urban challenges — with climate-change-fueled natural disasters chief among them — are utterly beyond the control of any one City Hall. That could be why a recent Politico survey identified an uneasy post-pandemic era for municipal chief executives, who appear to be burning out and struggling with the demands of the gig.