The misuses of power, as, for instance, in American city administrations, would have hardly attained their enormous dimensions if the rulers were not corporations, and the ruled not collectivities. Characteristically, it is sometimes believed that these misuses can be reduced by greatly increasing the power of the mayor so that there would be somebody who could personally be held responsible.

QUESTION: Does concentrating power in a mayor actually reduce abuses, or merely relocalize them? Worth investigating the empirical record on strong-mayor systems.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 5848