I would like to see the relation between competence and strength of political alignment (as in, deviation from 50/50 red/blue vote for local government).

I naively expect that less strongly aligned cities are run more competently, because the concept of "consequences" can exist. Where I am, there's a very strong political alignment, so no consequences at all. The same group of people will be voted for, no matter what they do.

A lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.

Isn't this just the end result of larger and larger portions of budgets going to interest payments?

Governments at all levels have accreted increasingly ravenous parasites who are on the verge of killing any effective functions of the host.