2023 Was the Year Cities Sued — And Won
City legal departments are sleepy no more
Welcome to The New Urban Order — where urbanists discuss the future of cities. Here’s another short wrap-up from 2023. I’ll be sharing a few more of these before signing off for the year. If you enjoyed this newsletter this year, please consider upgrading before 2023 is done and joining the community of interesting subscribers!
Earlier this year, New York City sued Kia and Hyundai for making cars too easy to steal. After viral Tiktok videos showed how to steal these cars using nothing more than a USB cord, thefts of the cars escalated: nearly 1,000 Kias and Hyundais were stolen in NYC during the first four months of 2023. Meanwhile thefts of the cars increased by 767 percent in the Chicago area and 2,400 percent in Rochester. Those two cities, along with about a dozen others, have also sued the automakers.
The cities are seeking recompense for the havoc, economic losses, and crime created by the easy theft of the cars, which were made without updated anti-theft technology. And cities might just win their case: Kia and Hyundai have already settled a $200 million class action lawsuit with some 9 million car-owners.
Cities are usually on the receiving end of lawsuits. They get sued all the time for personal injuries on their unsafe streets, and sometimes they get sued for more notable issues, such as not zoning for affordable housing. City law departments, filled with lawyers who could probably triple their compensation if they worked in the private sector, are usually seen as slow-moving and conservative.
But city law departments are increasingly using the power of the law to address problems they can’t solve with policy, a kind of law known as “affirmative litigation.”
New York City sued 30 upstate localities that are refusing to take in asylum seekers after New York City’s shelter system exceeded capacity. In its annual report, the city’s affirmative litigation department recounts its work on projects such as getting guns of streets, opioids recovery, and tenant protections.
More than two dozen cities and states are suing Big Oil over climate change, taking a page from a recent success in Washington State. Newark joined other cities in a class action against 3M and Dupont pollution and got some money.
So, should cities be thinking of their legal departments as part of their policy team? I spoke with Philadelphia lawyer and urbanist Lauren Vidas who says litigation is a “very blunt tool for driving policy.” For cities that have limited staff resources, going to court should be a last resort.
But how else are cities going to solve many of the big challenges of our times — gun control, environmental protections — that are seemingly unsolvable at the national level? Even Vidas agrees, these lawsuits “are an indictment of federal regulation.”
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