Really good piece, worth reading the whole thing. And of course the federal officials at the meeting were condescending, telling one mayor he should run for Congress:

CHICAGO — Near the end of a two-day summit here that brought together mayors and federal officials to talk about city design, the mood turned confrontational.

It started when Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, in the middle of a Friday discussion on the federal government’s role in city development, turned toward the Washington officials who were sitting with him on stage and expressed his disappointment.

“Mayors could never get away with the kind of nonsense that goes on in Washington,” he said. “In our world, you either picked up the trash or you didn’t. You either moved an abandoned car or you didn’t. You either filled a pothole or you didn’t. That’s what we do every day. And we know how to get this stuff done.”

That evidently hit a nerve, as cheers erupted through the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton hotel, where many in the audience were mayors. Manny Diaz, former mayor of Miami, who sat on stage with Nutter, gave an impromptu speech criticizing Washington lawmakers. Other mayors stood up and took the microphone during the question and answer session — not to ask questions, but to get things off their chests.

The event, co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Architectural Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, became, for a few minutes, a forum for mayors to express a difficult truth: Two-and-a-half years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the nation’s cities still struggle with chronic budget gaps that can’t easily be filled. Tax revenue has plunged as property values have fallen and payrolls have shrunk. Local governments, many of which are legally required to balance their budgets, have made cuts that a few years ago would have been unthinkable.
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