What changes, What stays the same

A colleague of mine recently posted that they discovered a 1930s/1940s vintage City Manager’s writings.  In further researching, he was a legend of the profession, probably in the mold of LP Cookingham and some early stalwarts. What surprised the researcher friend, was a fact from that period - the average tenure of a City Manager was less than 3 years.  Gasp!  You mean that 2026 rising incivility and the challenges of the STP and life in the public fish bowl nowadays ISN’T worse (as an influence on tenure) like all the pundits want you to think it is?  More people read news now. People follow Google and LinkedIn and so forth, way more than they used to.  So news of departures and resignations is more widespread and ubiquitous.  Secondly, media is also instantaneous now, so you see it quicker and also in various, multiplied vehicles. Thirdly, we do have social media now and there is for certain “amplification” there.  Fourth, there may be some rising incivility as certain decorum factors and public / social compacts erode. That all being said, I would love to see research on this to confirm.  Even with all of this, tenure levels are not that bad.  And some are state/region/position dependent, it would seem. And how many are pull factors, e.g. self-actualized decisions to move on in search of more money, or a better place, or a move related to spouse / partner concerns?  Those are not necessarily separated in these news items on tenure.