Befitting his roots in city politics, O’Malley gushes about the re-birth of American cities, a renaissance he said is driven by young people who “have an awareness of our interdependence” and chafe at hierarchies and top-down leadership. He praises the power of technology to streamline government, slips terms like “innovation cluster” into his commentary, and name-drops the urban theorist Richard Florida.

“Baby boomers and older were often told that if we specialize in terms of our skills, we will be more secure and prosperous, that the definition of ‘making it” was living out in the suburbs as far way as possible with the biggest lawn possible,” he said. “Young people have flipped that on its head. Younger people are choosing to live in cities. They realize that connections to each other are making us better. That WiFi is a human right. That proximity is important to entrepreneurship, access to capital and talent and diversity. There is an opportunity there for us as a nation to embrace that new perspective.”