Look a little deeper, and a common thread emerges: cities that thrive tend to elect mayors and city council members who bring a mix of executive private sector experience and civic or nonprofit leadership. It’s not just about charisma or community roots — it's about governance, strategic insight, and the capacity to manage a city like an enterprise and a neighborhood.

Provo, Utah: Where Professionalism Meets Planning

Take Provo, Utah — a model of municipal stability. Mayor Michelle Kaufusi spent six years on the local school board before taking the helm. The city council includes:

• Gary Garrett, with over 30 years of combined business and civic leadership;

• Craig Christensen, a serial entrepreneur who’s launched four businesses and created hundreds of jobs;

• Travis Hoban, a Chief Technology Officer;

• Rachel Whipple, a civil litigation attorney.

This lineup isn’t accidental. It’s strategic. Provo is governed by professionals who understand operations, regulation, technology, and law. The result? A city that functions like a well-run company with a heart for the people.

Nampa, Idaho: Budget-Savvy and Business-Forward

Nampa, Idaho placed second on WalletHub’s list, but ranked #1 in “Total Budget per Capita”. Their outstanding debt per resident is just $478 — compare that to cities where the number ranges from $23,000 to $33,000.

Here’s why: Mayor Debbie Kling served as CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce. Of the city’s six council members, four are current or former business owners, including those in real estate, construction, architecture, and consulting.

Nampa runs like a lean enterprise, because its leadership thinks like operators — not just policymakers.

When Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

Now compare that to Detroit — a city of immense cultural and historical significance, but one that routinely ranks toward the bottom of governance and fiscal metrics. The issue isn’t intelligence, integrity, or passion. It’s background.

Detroit’s city council includes many lifelong community leaders and activists, but fewer individuals with proven experience in enterprise operations, large-scale planning, or public-private integration.

The same trend holds in Gary, IN, Flint, MI, and Jackson, MS. In many Black-led cities, we’re drawn to candidates with the strongest voice — those who resonate with the people emotionally and culturally. But without real executive or planning muscle behind that voice, even the best ideas can stall in bureaucracy or burnout.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a critique. It’s a call. Our communities elect brilliant, passionate leaders — but they deserve systems and support that turn vision into results.

In business, no board would hand over a multi-billion-dollar operation to someone without operational experience or proven oversight skills. Yet in politics, we often do. The difference? In business, there’s a bottom line. In city government, the cost of inexperience is often harder to trace, but felt deeply — in every delayed housing permit, underfunded school, or mismanaged infrastructure project. Good intentions aren’t enough. The complexity of modern city governance demands more.

What Can Be Done?

Here are a few structural changes our communities can push for to elevate leadership and execution without compromising representation:

1. Implementation Committees

Create dedicated implementation committees to carry out campaign promises with real follow-through. These teams should be:

• 50% appointed by the elected official’s team

• 50% nominated by local stakeholders (school boards, chambers of commerce, etc.)

These committees would be split into sub-groups tasked with community outreach, performance monitoring, and progress tracking. It's about accountability — not just ambition.

2. Fix the Micro Before the Macro

Before tackling homelessness, ask: What’s fueling it?
If mental illness is a root cause, then why aren’t school boards and city councils jointly tracking the trajectory of underserved special needs youth? Without that data, there’s no targeted funding. And without targeted funding, we’re just hoping the problem solves itself.

Big problems often have small beginnings. Addressing those is real leadership.

This also means breaking down budget silos and looking at social outcomes holistically. For example, instead of allocating separate funds for education, policing, and housing, what if cities created performance-based funding pools that rewarded cross-departmental impact? Think of it as a shared P&L — one that ties early childhood interventions to long-term public safety outcomes. In business, synergy drives efficiency. In government, it could drive equity.

Modern city management must be proactive, not reactive. And proactive means knowing where the first cracks form, not just cleaning up after the collapse.

3. Bridge the Three Pillars: Education, Commerce, and Council

Our school boards, chambers of commerce, and city councils should have scheduled public coordination sessions. They need to:

• Collaborate on curriculum planning to better align student skills with local workforce needs

• Use student performance data to inform long-term economic and public safety initiatives

• Build unified strategies for neighborhood development that reflect both business needs and community realities

These institutions are too interconnected to operate in silos.

Final Word: Legacy Deserves Leverage

Black cities have legacy. Culture. Resilience. What we need now is leverage. Let’s start prioritizing leadership experience the way we prioritize lived experience. They’re not mutually exclusive.

It's time to evolve from just voting for who we like or who speaks our language — to also including those who understand systems, strategy, and scale.

We’ve got the heart. Now let’s hire the hands and minds that can help bring the vision home.