What Would You Ask If You Could Ask a Mayor Anything?

In many ways, the local mayor is the most accessible high-ranking public official most of us are likely to come across. Mayors may have varying degrees of power and influence depending on the city or town they serve, but nearly all of them engage in the sort of street-level politics that puts them directly in touch with their constituents. They open new supermarkets and make personal visits to the neighborhood school. The good ones, anyway, are plugged in to community groups and senior centers. If they want to be effective, mayors have to show up and meet the people.

So odds are fairly decent you've had a chance to shake the hand and maybe even bend the ear of your own mayor. But what about the mayor of the next town over? Or the one who presides over the major city in your state? How about the mayor of the biggest city in the country? The world?