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Comment by robteix | Hacker News Reader

> The county is home to 88 incorporated cities, ranging in population from 76 (Vernon) to 3.9m (Los Angeles itself). Beverly Hills (population 34,506) is its own city, with its own police force, fire department and school district. So is Santa Monica (92,495). Even Vernon has a police department, with some 50-odd staff.

Am I misreading this? How/why does a city of 76 have a police dept with 50 people?

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The reason, it seems, is that a lot of people come there to work, but live elsewhere: ‘Founded in 1905 as the first exclusively industrial city in the Southwestern United States, Vernon currently houses more than 1,800 businesses that employ approximately 50,000 people, serving as a vital economic engine in the region.’ (http://www.cityofvernon.org/about-vernon)

Yep. Signal Hill,CA (pop. 11k) is 2sq miles, is engulfed smack dab in the middle of the city of Long Beach(pop. 500k) yet has BOTH Home Depots and THE Costco, the only ones 'in' Long Beach.

The story of Vernon in LA County is actually fascinating. It was created as sort of a corporate owned state. The neat trick is that nearly all the housing was owned by the people who run the town, so while nominally it’s a democracy if you don’t like how things are going you can just evict all your voters and replace them.

The second season of True Detective is based in a fictionalized version of Vernon, with lots of footage shot in and around the area.

You don't have to live in the city to work for the city.

"Leonis Malburg, the mayor for fifty years, was convicted of voter fraud, conspiracy, and perjury in December 2009." [1]

Wow! Trying to spread democracy in the world, when you have little dictators in your own backyard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Elections_o...

To be fair, America has no problem with dictators so long as they are supportive dictators.

Like Pinochet? Supported by the US while he tortured the chileans who opposed him?

So.... you're opposed to democracy if neighbors of its advocates are impure? Or was the mayor one of the advocates spreading it abroad? Maybe they shouldn't have convicted him in order to keep their record clean?

I'm having trouble getting at the meat of your criticism.

The accent was on "the mayor for fifty years".

Local government is still a government. Things like this and the Electoral College make US an archaic democracy. Maybe it's better to fix your own system, before trying to teach others?

The fact that you had a banana republic with a life-long dictator just 5 miles from downtown LA - speaks something.

No criticism, more like a surprise. I don't care about politics and even if I did, I'm from a country which is a strong US ally.

It's notable that when the U.S. tries to help install democracy in other countries they don't attempt to install their own presidential system. Among its flaws is that it is exceedingly difficult to amend.

It's fun but not helpful to pretend other countries are ignorant of their own problems and have monolithic opinions (in which case, why vote?).

Among its strengths is that it is exceedingly difficult to amend.

I think it's clear that the US political system isn't exactly serving the people. Personally, I'd wish for recall elections or 'votes of confidence' for the presidency ... say, to replace the 'State of the Union' mirror.

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