An interesting debate, I've heard great arguments on both sides.

I may be a little biased, seeing as how I was never the biggest fan of the free cities project as a whole. So I would like to show my support for closing one of them. Why? I simply do not see one of the cities going anywhere. I feel as though stagnation has set in. This could be to due to the glaring complacency of one crew leader.

At this point we do see Las Vegas and Los Angeles doing quite well. They are doing much better than I expected. Not from knowing the people who reside there too well, simply based on my previously stated bias.

I think enough time has passed to see some progress, some interest in the other city. I don't see it happening.

What i find kind of confusing and i guess another piece to inspect is that for whatever reason we have allowed ourselves to say we need to close one of the free cities so that way we can authorize new potential crew leaders into what is the city of Philadelphia.

The problem i see with this is that Chicago, as Neveah has stated, has room to set more authorizations up in the city if we the Godfathers wanted. New York and Detroit still have room to authorize new crew leaders as well. So why would we close one of the free cities to set up as a new place to have authed leaders when there really is no legitimate reason to?

I do find it hard to separate the crew leader from the city with which they reside. To ask Tellerium to move from Philadelphia, rather instruct her and her crew to do so, is unfair because at the beginning this was not part of her originally understanding of setting up in the city. Many of her crew members have come and vocalized in the streets defending her position to stay in Philly. I find that remarkable and something to be recognized. Speaking on my own experience, many of my own crew members do not find the streets that appealing, which is okay with me, if she has several individuals coming out asking to stay in Philly i think this, the originally free city conquest should be continued to be honored.  

The best way to view this, i believe, is to pretend you were a crew leader in a lone city. You have done everything you could to help foster an conduct an environment that benefits the community around you. When you originally set up, after departing from said city, you find out that you have to leave that town so they can help it do 'better business'. 

This is the best business this world has ever seen. To take this away from Tellerium is a sign that we are starting to fall into a regression. The ideas of growing and providing the best possible organized criminal business would then be fading away before our eyes. I think this debate is much deeper than we realize. I do not think this is just about Tellerium and Philadelphia. I think this debate taps into the very center of what the pillars originally set out to establish after removing the notorious doctor.

My answer, if a city loses its crew leaders that city is no longer a free city but falls to the pillars to decide what to do with it. I dont see anything more fair or more honest and more loyal to the members of this new age. 

When I opened this discussion, as I stated earlier, it was not with my own opinions. Instead, I was trying to objectively present this issue to the community, as the  members of the crewleader meeting requested, to see what ideas and opinions the community would share.

I'd like to now present my own thoughts. I've read everyone's comments; if I unintentionally repeat what has been previously said, I apologize. But I'm already going to have to review this discussion once for the paper, so I'll just dive right into it here without trying to source everything. 

I do not believe that we should close one of the free cities. I also believe it would be ridiculous to ask Tellurium to move.

Why do I believe these things?

Well, what do we mean by the term "free city"? A place where a man or woman, perhaps accompanied by people who believe in them, sets up shop and builds their operation from the ground up without relying on support from someone else. A place where leaders are expected to contribute something to the community. A place where, if a conflict breaks out, it is more likely to be resolved with the deaths of a few dozen people instead of a few hundred.

Aren't these all positive things?

Not only do I believe that Philadelphia should remain a free city and Tellurium should remain to continue her business, but I further believe that anyone leaving Chicago, New York, or Detroit to become a leader in another city should have to operate with the same protocol and expectations as anyone else joining a free city.

The only exception to this, I'd say, is that an existing leader should be able to bring their crew with them- but only if everyone in that crew, regardless of rank, has an "opt out" option to remain in their original city with a different crew. I don't think people should be penalized for inspiring loyalty; if it's an advantage, it's an advantage they earned and not one that was given to them.

But my argument, essentially, is that our community should do away with "traditional" auths to other cities. No one should be handed Philadelphia and have an existing Godfather say "Hey, this is yours now". They should have to take it themselves and earn their way.

Several people have already stated that the expectations for being a crewleader in a free city are not particularly high at the moment: it seems like you can basically find an empty district and relax. I have no doubt, however, that the expectations for running a CITY are substantially higher. I earnestly look forward to the coming weeks and months, as I hope more bold men and women take up the chance to lead a crew of their own- and the leaders of the free cities strive to distinguish themselves.

I digress that I do hate to nudge the topic of on a rabbit hole, but I do feel a need to clarify to Mr FitzChivalry here. Implying that the cities must be full to encourage contribution is implying that by filling the cities either contribution is forced or someone will setup kill the non contributor and take their spot as per the 2 crews per district ruling. Is that not what you are implying? Would that not encourage constant bloodshed? I believe the goals with the system where to encourage people to make their bones as leaders and contribute to the community, not to create entertainment via wars and bloodshed. The 2 crew per district ruling was a way to limit the number of people setting up so that there are not 500 CLs out and about in this thing we do. And the favor system in itself was not written to force contribution from all CLs, it was meant to encourage. Those are 2 different words with 2 different definitions, and we would be ill advised to confuse the two. I welcome GF RobOakheart and Don ChristianGato into this thread to correct me if I am wrong on my interpretation of their system.

That being said I will not dilute this discussion with another off topic post for the sake of keeping the discussion on point with the issue at hand. If you need further clarification from myself Mr FitzChivalry please send an associate to me with a letter and I will reply in kind.

The big problem from my end is, if so many end up out of favour the fact is first why are they there? two whether they are liked or not someone in more favour can shoot them sooner or later even if was just to poach their members as they will be out of favour anyway?

I always thought the idea was that the free cities were to bring more to the community as well as house members, if they are not bringing more then it has failed at that point in some cases? is that not why criteria which has been hinted at in other threads and crewleader meetings?

I guess this is where my idea of People stepping down if constantly out of favour as i mentioned when closing a free city could work even if free cities stayed open.  The question is hows that leader gonna take being told step down?

Hey LucioOtiag,

Thanks for inviting me to clarify a bit. The free cities and the favour-system exist for a number of reasons. But in short, they aim to increase the overall quality of our society.

It allows people who are truly skilled and motivated, to create a family, without the need to be friends with the person that carries the biggest gun. It allows for spreading the community across the country. This leads to smaller crews and smaller cities. Which increases the need for the few members that are there to work hard and be skilled. With that increased need, crewleaders should really be teaching their members well in all aspects of our world. Less members allows for more quality time. It also means a crewleader can't rely on that Godfather-Chairman to decide on direction, action and communication. A crewleader needs to decide all that themselves, meaning they'll get more expertise in running a family, building relations and politics.

A wider spread population that is more actively involved in the community will obviously create all kinds of incidents. Because where people gather, issues arise. That is not entertainment, that is not bloodshed, that's the reality of life and something we actively chose for when turning to this side of the law. The issues however are smaller, fairer and relevant. Only the people actually involved get touched by these incidents. These incidents give people fairer fighting chances, which to me seems more rewarding after the hard work people have put in.

Tell me differently, but I've been around long enough to know for a fact that majority of the population here is less efficient and less involved as they could be in the time they spent here. To me, that's a bad return of investment of time. That's leads to a poor quality, not only of the community, but also to a lot of personal careers. Many of the people in this world can perform far better than they show. And for most of that group it's not that they don't want to sit at 100%. Someone, or perhaps the greater community gave them the impression they already are at 100%. And 100% isn't set in stone. It doesn't equal to hundreds of hours on the training range. It doesn't equal to tons of public speeches. It doesn't equal to whatever ever can be done often and much. 100% is about being efficient in the time you can spend on this side of the law. We don't have to be equally invested, but for our collective good, we should stop disguising mediocre efforts as excellent efforts.

The free cities are an attempt at getting rid of that disguise, by drawing individual and crew efforts out in the open.

More on topic, Philly and Tellurium's crew is an example of what I said earlier. Many have seen a somewhat shaky Philly. Perhaps my position allows to see more. Where other saw Tellurium stumble, I saw her get up. I know she has a training program that teaches her less confident, less experienced members different aspects of role-play and public speaking. An effort we have witnessed the result from in this debate. It's simply a fact that not many crews employ such a system.

There's really two approaches possible on whatever area of our world we're talking about, so not just the public speaking. We either settle with not being that confident, that skilled or that involved. Or we try to create a society where greater efforts are rewarded over lesser ones. The free cities and the favour-system aim to do that.

Does it contain flaws? Hell yes. But that's okay. When we try to grow, it's okay to make mistakes. We fall. Learn from our mistakes, get up and try again and do better. This debate is the learning from our mistakes part. We are defining what is good and what is not.
The turf-war concept that should make being in- or out of favour more relevant doesn't really pick off due to too many vacant spots in too many free cities. That means the efforts we hope for can sometimes stay behind, which too me is unfair to the people who do put in more efforts. Regardless of Tellerium and Philly or whatever city, the relevancy of the favour-system is something we probably need to address to further it's influence.

Overall as a community, you are to be congratulated I think. Comparing ourselves with six weeks ago, I think we've come a long way. We're in a place where open and respectful dialogue is possible. We have fierce debates about our society without it triggering angry or fear inspired reactions. More and more people are giving their input on what they think is right. And that input is being worked with. It's being used to shape a society that the people seem to want. 

Are we in Utopia? Not even close and we'll never get there. But to me it seems we are traveling towards something. Something good.

On that clarification removing one free city would not solve the perceived "issue" that is addressed by this thread. We have a total of 8 crews spread between the 3 free cities at this point in time. Dropping down to 2 cities would still allow the community 12 crews before there even needs to be turf wars.

How about a completely different approach to solving the perceived problem of no interaction from CLs or CLs just taking the spot and then doing nothing. If a CL falls out of favor and stays out of favor for an extended period of time then the powers that be just step in and remove them, offering up a protection order for their active members. That would seem to allow the 3 cities to remain free cities while affecting the change we apparently want as a community. Would that hold as a viable option for the community?

Good point Lucio. We've discussed different plans already that allow for consequences regardless of a turf-war. Any other consequence than removal, can have a blowback, which will probably hurt others than those enforcing the consequences. When Evolve was being warred for being out of favour, he didn't war effectively war those who attacked him. As soon as he realised there was no way to win this, he choose to go down swinging and hit people that had nothing to do with how he got punished for showing aggression while being out of favour.

A turf war could potentially be a battle that can be won. Fighting the greater community is a lost cause and the go-out-with-a-bang mentality is real in those cases. In any situation, even a controlled war it's possible that someone goes out swinging though. We saw that with Mr. Costa recently. Those alternative consequences is a topic which is already on our radar and not the discussion we're having here. However seeing the positive response and contributions to this discussion, it might be interesting to debate on that matter as well. But let's not deviate from the original topic as that in itself a pretty large debate as well. This debate is really to poll the communities sentiment regarding potentially closing or changing the order in a currently free city.

Thank you.

After speaking his mind Bjorn had been observing the futher discussions and opinions raised in this discussion. One speaker mr @FitzChivalry made an interesting statement:

I'm implying that once people set up they will be encouraged to stay in favour by contributing to the community. As pillars of the community every leader should offer some sort of contribution. Even more so when the cities are full as they wont be able to sit idle and get away with doing the bare minimum and reaping the benefits of what being a CL brings. If someone does sit idle we may see bloodshed,if they offer something to the community then we may not. Dependent on if a protected group wants more turf or not.

Very interesting proposition, but I would not know what kind of benefits one gets from being a lazy CL that wishes not to contribute to the society or the betterment of their members and/or associates. I mean yes you can ask them to provide you with tributes and donations to pay for your own protection detail, but what is the enjoyment you get yourself? What would you see happening to a CL that sits back in their HQ showing 0 interest in anything that moves around in and outside their HQ? 

To me their members have the choice to voice their discontent and see the reaction of the leader, in the absence of any proper answer I would see it as the responsibility of the hands to pursuade their leader to step up. When this leads to no effect I do believe the leader is a detriment to not only their family but also their city and should no longer be inspiring any loyalty or cooperation. Not saying whether that should always lead to the removal of the family leader but personally if I was committed I'd be trying to boost this persons motivation to step up. When this person would ignore me I'd show dissatisfaction and request to leave the family either to join another more respectable family or set up one of my own.