As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, the first half of 2026 has been tumultuous and unpredictable. Last year, if you had told me that the phrase “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” would take on new meaning, I would never have believed you. We always know there are bad actors abroad, but the domestic threats we now face are real and serious. What is most troubling is not that the Democratic Party has formally embraced communism, but that its leadership refuses to criticize or distance itself from the socialists and Marxists now operating within its ranks. When politicians openly identify with communist ideology and win primaries in New York, or when leaders like the mayor of Los Angeles have long histories of praising Castro’s Cuba, the silence from national leadership becomes an unspoken endorsement. Power protects power, and refusing to speak against extremism is how extremism gains legitimacy among those dependent on the federal government for subsistence.
History Rhymes
Some of us are old enough to remember the hearings in the 1950s, when Senator Joseph McCarthy became obsessed with the possibility of communists operating within our government. His hearings produced many headlines but few results and were eventually disbanded. But, in my opinion, he was directionally correct, just orders of magnitude off. Today, we are left with the term “McCarthyism” as a reminder of paranoia about perceived threats.
After the McCarthy hearings ended, other clear examples of hidden Soviet espionage within our government emerged. Most notable was the Rosenberg trials, in which Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who supplied the Soviets with secret information about our nuclear programs, were found guilty and sentenced to death. Debate over their guilt persisted, with liberals portraying their persecution as the result of an overly aggressive FBI. But with the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, documents revealed that Julius Rosenberg was, in fact, a Soviet agent. They were both executed in 1953 for their crimes. Fast-forward to today, and what we see is not McCarthyism; it is real. We now have a Democratic Party that does not reject communism when it appears within its own ranks. It neither condemns it, distances itself from it, nor treats it as disqualifying. That silence is meaningful. It is how fringe ideology becomes normalized.
The breeding ground for this dissent is our megacities, including New York, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Denver. These cities have become environments where unemployment, poor civic management, sanctuary policies for illegals, and welfare converge and ferment into civil disobedience. Politicians have intentionally created conditions in which failed ideologies appeal to the masses, masked as “free everything, tax the rich, and America is an evil empire.” Democratic Party leadership is engaging in “accountability laundering,” hoping that their failed education systems leave voters in the dark. Managing cities to the point of failure and then promising to lead people out of the dark they created and into the “light” of communism and Marxism is the playbook. When leadership refuses to criticize any of this, it is not neutrality. It is permission.
Our Enduring Constitutional Foundation
Our Constitution is the foundation of our republic. It is not a relic of a bygone era. It is a living framework that has carried America through wars, depressions, and ideological threats. It is a shared promise between citizens and the state. It preserves constitutional principles, serves as a remedy for extremism, and anchors us when political movements drift from our republican form of government.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was written, America’s largest cities were small by today’s standards. New York had about thirty thousand residents. Philadelphia had fewer than thirty thousand. Boston had eighteen thousand. Charleston and Baltimore were even smaller. The founders lived in a nation of cities, towns, and villages, not megacities. They designed a constitutional system that values dispersed power, local accountability, and human-scale governance. They recognized strength in the distribution of power. Our growth has never invalidated our founding principles. Our Constitution was written to guide a free people, not a fixed population.
Governance Built for Scale and Integrity
As cities grow, their budgets become larger and more complex. Complexity is not only a matter of size. It is a matter of systems, agencies, and layers of responsibility that can expand faster than the skills of the people elected to manage them. Modern elections reward charisma, promises, and social media popularity, yet none of these is a qualification for office.
There is no management test when running for office. There is no test to see if a candidate can read a financial statement, manage people, understand a bond issuance, or conduct a simple meeting. The test is likability and voter approval. The incentive is to promise more, give out more, and get reelected. Competence is optional. Popularity is required. And once hired, firing a civil servant for incompetence is almost impossible. Incompetent elected officials can then multiply the issues by handing out jobs to donors and friends with little oversight of qualifications. The bigger the city, the greater the incompetence and the greater the incompetence multiplier. Scale magnifies every weakness in leadership.
This skills gap creates opportunities for people seeking access to taxpayer funds. Large agencies in megacities can attract individuals who thrive on opacity rather than accountability. When budgets reach billions, the temptation to redirect money to political allies and special interests grows. The structure of megacities makes it easier to hide mismanagement and harder for citizens and taxpayers to see it.
Smaller cities disperse power, money, and control. They reduce the payoff for corruption. If there is less to gain, there is less reason to go there. Visibility into budgets, financing, and spending is easier. Problems are harder to hide. Solutions are easier to implement. The skill sets required to manage smaller cities are closer to those of competent corporate executives, who are accustomed to complexity, accountability, and measurable results. Cities are not companies, but management skill sets can be similar.
The Constitution assumes accountability. It assumes leaders who can be seen, questioned, and held responsible by the citizens they serve. Megacities break that design. They concentrate power in ways the founders never intended. They create systems that reward promises over competence and opacity over transparency.
A desire for greater transparency across all levels of government is a patriotic act. It is how citizens honor the republic. It is how the government honors our founders and the Constitution. Transparency is one of the safeguards that keeps power in check.
Greenfield Cities and True Renewal
The term “greenfield” may have originated in the construction world, but over time it has taken on a deeper meaning relevant to our discussion. In some ways, it means “throwing in the towel” or “giving up,” or, in our case, a fresh start, a complete renewal. It signals a chance to “get it right” by starting over.
Relocating from one megacity to another does not solve our current problems. It only transfers them. When industry leaders leave New York for Miami or San Francisco for Austin, they are not escaping the structural failures of megacity governance. They are carrying those failures with them. The scale is the same. The incentives are the same. The opacity is the same. Moving from one large city to another is relocation, not renewal. This decision can also recreate the problems of the old within the new location as complexity grows with population.
True renewal comes from building new cities. Greenfield cities let us start fresh, with clear governance, transparent budgets, and human-scale accountability. They decentralize power, reduce corruption, and restore the connection between leaders and the people they serve. We have discussed our abundant land and the ability to build anywhere, but business must lead the way.
Greenfield cities also create new economic ecosystems. New cities generate new markets and opportunities, and they magnify the renewal of the American Dream through new small businesses. They allow entrepreneurs to build rather than inherit. They reward innovation rather than incumbency. They renew the American economy the same way the frontier once did, through courage, creativity, and perseverance.
America has always renewed itself by building. That is how we expanded west. That is how we created towns, villages, and cities that reflected our values in the abundant forests and plains. That is how we will restore accountability today if we do not miss the opportunity created by today’s megacity failures. Once we understand the potential of greenfield cities, anything becomes possible because you are working from a blank slate rather than within the constraints of preexisting, decaying infrastructure.
Our Path Forward
In this installment, we focus on diagnosis and identifying our mess. It has shown how megacities break accountability, how complexity magnifies incompetence, and how our constitutional design depends on human-scale governance. Our next discussion will focus on renewal. We will explore how greenfield cities can be built, why business must lead, how mobility protects our freedoms, and how entrepreneurship can restore the American Dream. Next time, we will outline a path forward and show how we rebuild our republic as we cross our 250th birthday.
Resources and Further Reading
Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It, by James Q. Wilson, Basic Books, 1991. (On why government agencies struggle with competence and accountability).
Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, discussion on local accountability and civic virtue, 1835, Paris, France, New York edition published by George Dearborn & Company. and Adlard and Saunders.
Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, by Arthur Herman, Random House Trade Publications, amazon.com, 2013, (On business-led national renewal during World War II).
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, by John Philip Jenkins, Britannica, britannica.com, June 10, 2026.
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, by Peter Drucker, Harper Business, 1993, (On managerial competence and organizational scale).
Political Order in Changing Societies, by Samuel P. Huntington, Archive.org, archive.org, Yale University Press, New Haven and London. 1968. (On institutional decay and renewal).
SpaceX Starbase, Wikipedia, wikipedia.org, last accessed July 5, 2026, (Elon Musk and SpaceX’s Starbase development, (a modern example of business-led city building).
Sprawl: A Compact History, by Robert Bruegmann, The University of Chicago Press, press.uchicago.edu, 2005, (On the benefits of dispersed development and human-scale communities).
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, Random House, 1961 (on organic city growth and the limits of centralized planning)
The Federalist Papers, Nos. 10, 14, and 51, by James Madison, on dispersed power and human-scale governance; form of government and a republic versus a democracy, roles for states and federalism, various checks and balances. Discussions also available on Wikipedia.org, Number 10, Number 14, and Number 51.
The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek, The University of Chicago Press, uchicago.edu, 1944. (On centralized power and the dangers of coercive systems).
Toyota’s Woven City project , Toyota Global, woven-city.global, (a corporate-led greenfield city designed for innovation).
Triumph of the City, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, by Edward Glaeser, Penguin Books, 2012, (On why cities succeed or fail based on incentives and governance).
