US cities over the past decade seem to be in a competition to see who can be the least competently run.

Isn't this just the end result of larger and larger portions of budgets going to interest payments?

A lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.

Governments at all levels have accreted increasingly ravenous parasites who are on the verge of killing any effective functions of the host.