Designed Inefficiency and the Failure of the Whole
The chronic lack of coordination and rivalry between city agencies–DOT, DEP, DSNY–is not a management problem but a structural feature of the bifurcated state. Mamdani’s analysis of decentralized despotism helps us see that these agencies function as competing fiefdoms, each with its own “customary” domain of power, budget, and political patronage. This siloed structure prevents a holistic, efficient response to urban problems because its purpose is not to solve problems for the “native” population, but to manage them through fragmented, unaccountable bureaucracies. A street may be repaved by DOT, only to be torn up weeks later by DEP for water main work–a visible symbol of a system not designed for public good. The liberal solution is to create “czars” or “offices of coordination,” which just add another layer of bureaucracy. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is to break down these silos through the creation of integrated, neighborhood-based service centers controlled by community boards with real budgetary power. This would force agencies to collaborate under democratic, local control, replacing top-down rivalry with bottom-up integration focused on actual community needs.
