I've been told since at least 1980 that small, local government was best. I was given the impression that state level government was probably the optimum level to decide things, cities and counties could go off the rails in various ways.
I haven't see a coherent rationale for reversing course on this doctrine, which was extremely strongly held, and cited a lot.
That has never been true in practice. Just yesterday, the Supreme Court said that ICE can detain people solely if they are Hispanic and where they are.
I also think smaller administration cells are more efficient, but when the president of the federation can just reshuffle the congressional districts and meddle with universities internal politics we gotta rethink how independent these states really are. There is no silver bullet, specially in politics.
There is a rule of subsidiarity -- problems have to be solved at the lowest level possible, because it has the most information. If it's not, it bubbles up to the next level upwards. EU, US and Catholic church all do this to the various degree.
I haven't see a coherent rationale for reversing course on this doctrine, which was extremely strongly held, and cited a lot.