Show‑Off Mayor as Governance Signal

Mayoral attention to staged, camera‑friendly acts in the opening days of an administration is a detectable signal that can predict resource allocation, board appointments, and whether the office will prioritize spectacle over slow, technical fixes. Tracking these early performative choices (inaugurals, press stunts, civic photo‑ops) offers a cheap, practical early‑warning for whether an administration will deliver on hard municipal governance tasks. — If normalized as a metric, early showmanship provides voters, journalists and city councils a quick heuristic to hold new executives accountable before budgets and appointments harden outcomes.