This paper, presented as the William J. Brennan Jr. Lecture at the Oklahoma City University School of Law in November 2025, argues that American cities are under attack. U.S. cities are politically isolated; their elected officials are increasingly under legal threat and compulsion; their laws are regularly rejected and overruled by state legislatures and governors; and their citizens are being assaulted, arrested, and, in some cases, killed. How did this happen? And why now?
My first claim is that fear of cities is deeply embedded in the country’s political and constitutional fabric, namely in state constitutions that sharply limit municipal power. My second claim is that we have entered a new era involving multiple legal and political attacks on American cities, with special emphasis on the growing phenomenon of state law preemption of local laws. My third claim is that these attacks on city power are a threat to democratic self-government. Hostility to American cities has distorted our state institutions and national politics since industrialization; anti-city politics has become increasingly virulent in the last decade, however, with predictable effects on our democratic institutions.