This. Centralization causes many problems. Everything is nowadays decided "far away". Facing whatever problem, most now think that "the government has to do something" or one of the usual variants (the most common one being "with SOMEBODY as president, this would already be fixed!").
The government/president won't fix anything, as usual.
Gov/prez are too far away, too absorbed by being re-elected and cronyism, reigning on a too big and therefore heterogeneous and complicated territory...
Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. Leopold Kohr described it clearly (~60 years ago)!
The single biggest problem in America is excess consumption due to single family homes with garages and zoning separating residential and business areas. That’s definitely not getting solved on a local level.
When I've had to appeal zoning laws, I've had to do it on a city or county level. No state I've worked in has involved higher level governments, at least not for homes/small businesses, unless there were environmental concerns.
Are those cities or counties populated by more than a few hundred souls? They are too big. This is not 'local' in my book, whatever the denomination (city, county...).
Moreover some/many underlying principles of many "local" laws are induced by higher level governments, either by direct or indirect pressure (no funds granted without such and such law), or by "culture" (local public servants being, or willing to be/resemble, like the big guns).
The government/president won't fix anything, as usual.
Gov/prez are too far away, too absorbed by being re-elected and cronyism, reigning on a too big and therefore heterogeneous and complicated territory...
Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. Leopold Kohr described it clearly (~60 years ago)!