Largest U.S. cities use ward system

Representatives elected by districts tend to be more responsive, government experts say

By Mark Hornbeck / Detroit News Lansing Bureau

    LANSING — Detroit and Columbus, Ohio, have something in common besides an intense interest in college football: They’re the only two cities among the 15 largest in the nation that still elect all their city council members at-large.

    Cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York all elect city council members to represent a geographic district, or ward. Others, such as Houston, Philadelphia and Indianapolis, use a setup that combines district representatives with a few citywide council posts.

    The trend is away from city governments such as Detroit’s, which elects all nine council representatives on a citywide ballot.

    “Most everybody has gone to some kind of ward system,” said John Pionke, spokesman for the National League of Cities. “As cities have evolved, and technology and communication have gotten more advanced, the cities have gone to wards because they’re more efficient and they work better. There are fewer layers between people and their government.”

    Advocates of the ward plan say it’s a better way to address the needs of specific neighborhoods and minority groups. In Chicago, for example, when a resident has a problem with a street light on his block he can call his alderman.

    “When I drive around the neighborhoods of Detroit, I see with my own eyes there are areas that obviously have been neglected,” said George Ward, a former assistant Wayne County prosecutor who sat on the 1973 committee that revised Detroit’s city charter. “It’s clear to me that no council member lives in these areas. If they did, they’d say, ‘My God, I won’t win re-election unless I do something.’”

    John Kelly, political science professor at Oakland University and former state senator, agrees that a ward system would make each council member accountable for resolving problems in their section of the trouble-plagued city.

    “Who’s accountable for cleaning up that lot on the corner of Linwood and Martin Luther King if none of the council members live in that neighborhood?” Kelly asked. “A council candidate running for re-election would no longer be able to say Gee, I was busy taking on the mayor for four years, so I didn’t have time to take care of those abandoned houses on your block where little girls are being raped.’”

    Kelly added that first-time contenders for council seats would have to show some record of getting things done before running for office.

    Ward-elected council members also would be closer to the electorate because they could depend on individual donors rather than well-heeled city institutions to finance their campaigns, said Sen. Burton Leland, D-Detroit, who has introduced legislation to move Detroit to a ward system.

    “When you represent a district that has certain geographic boundaries, you tend to be very hands-on. You greet your constituents like family. You can’t run, you can’t hide,” Leland said.

    Detroit went to an all at-large election plan in 1918 as part of a social reform movement that tried to root out the corruption, cronyism and special-interest politics that plagued ward elections around the turn of the last century. Some fear a return to that system would bring back the same kinds of problems.

    “One system is not inherently better than the other,” said George Beam, professor of public administration at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “There are flaws in both. It depends on what the people in Detroit are trying to do with their electoral system.”

    Detroit voters rejected a ward plan on the ballot in 1974. Other efforts to revive a district system since then have stalled and died.

    Joe Darden, professor of urban affairs at Michigan State University, said a return to wards in Detroit “is long overdue.

    “The ward gives better representation to the neighborhood groups, especially those that are disadvantaged,” he said. “They need vocal leadership, and they’re not getting it with the at-large system.”

You can reach Mark Hornbeck at (517) 371-3660 or mhornbeck@detnews.com .