Mayors must diagnose urban shocks

City executives should explicitly treat post‑COVID downtown decline as a specific technical problem (remote‑work demand shifts, land‑use mismatches, commuter patterns, and secondary shocks) rather than as generic 'revitalization' rhetoric. That requires targeted data (foot traffic, commuter flows, office vacancy, small‑business revenues) and operational fixes (permitting speed, targeted subsidies, workforce programs). — If mayors fail to diagnose the precise drivers of urban decline, recovery policies will miss, and those local failures will cascade into national political consequences—affecting congressional and mayoral races.