"Break Up the Liberal City"

[Storebought]

I used to believe that DC was too centralized, but now I've come to oppose efforts at decentralization. DC is in fact to small, and far too limited for the role it should take on in federal governance and in the nature of America's consciousness.

And many cities already have urban universities (Buffalo, Houston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Denver, etc.). With the exception of Pitt, they tend to be commuter campuses not really engaged in either high-profile research (which draws in federal grants that the GOP will cut in any case) or are too strapped (commuters make for a poor alumni donor base) for much community involvement. That can be reversed with increased state funding for public universities, but that doesn't fit Douthat's thesis.

The other proposals sound like even more federal subsidization of sunbelt suburban sprawl.

As for the media being concentrated by a coastal clique, a better idea would be to (re)instate FCC rules to make news agencies report news -- factual events documented by eyewitnesses and credible sources and recounted by impartial journalists -- and suppress editorialization and marketeering by fining offending outlets (to oblivion). That can be done just as well from DC, but that wouldn't support Douthat's intention to make the US even more primitive and decentralized.