Among many other things, the Rob Ford era was highly educational. Here are 20 things the past four city hall years taught us.

1. Our accountability laws put too big a burden on regular people.If a Toronto politician seems to have overspent the campaign spending limit, nothing can be done unless a resident asks a city committee to approve an audit. If a Toronto politician seems to have violated conflict-of-interest law, nothing can be done unless a resident files a lawsuit. If a Toronto politician seems to have breached council’s ethics code, nothing can be done unless a resident files an integrity complaint. It doesn’t have to be this way.

2. Municipal controversies fade easily. Parliament and the provincial legislature each have a question period that allows the opposition to hold the government’s feet to the fire. Toronto’s council has no forum like it, leaving it to the media to try to find novel ways to keep pertinent questions alive. The city council of London, England, has a 10-times-yearly “mayor’s question time.” Toronto could benefit from something similar.

3. Simple works.Ford’s transit mantra, “subways, subways, subways,” was empty even by the standards of political slogans. Because of it, though, even people who ignore local politics know him as The Subways Guy. Wouldn’t have happened if he had given a bunch of eloquent pro-subway policy speeches.

4. Toronto is a divided city. There’s no other way to read the map of election results in 2010 and 2014. The results reveal stark divides between rich neighbourhoods and poor neighbourhoods, between the inner portion of the city and the suburbs of the northeast and northwest. They aren’t vanishing just because the new mayor is more polite than the old one.

5. No transit vote is final until the transit is actually built.Until there are real-life voters riding real-life trains, municipal and provincial politicians can and will revisit the big decisions they just made.

6. People don’t always trust the media.Two well-known reporters reported in the country’s largest newspaper that they saw a video that clearly showed the mayor inhaling from a crack pipe. Half the population didn’t believe the video existed — and when someone produced a low-quality fake that purported to show how easy it was to produce a high-quality fake, that video went viral as some sort of proof of something.

7. People believe what they want to believe. When the news of the crack video broke, thousands of people immediately concluded Ford was the victim of an elaborate hoax conspiracy. When the news of his tumour broke, thousands of other people immediately believed Ford was the perpetrator of an elaborate hoax conspiracy.

8. Yes, your government can keep big secrets from you. Ford’s addiction problem was discussed around city hall long before there was enough proof for the Star to print an article. Had Ford not shown up impaired to a military ball, and had Councillor Paul Ainslie not been there and willing to go on the record, the secret could have remained hidden much longer.

9. You can’t get rid of a mayor.In a municipal party system, a caucus mutiny would likely have forced Ford to step down. If he were the premier or the prime minister, he would surely have had to go before he brought his entire government down. Because he is the mayor, in a system without council impeachment or voter recall, he could stay as long as he pleased.

10. You can fight city hall. Regular people successfully persuaded councillors to reject budget cuts and a waterfront overhaul backed by the mayor, plus a casino proposal backed by wealthy corporate interests.

11. Municipal literacy is poor. Almost nobody knows what powers the mayor actually has. Too few know who their councillor is. Thousands of Torontonians wrongly believe Ford was elected on the strength of support in Vaughan and Mississauga, which are not part of Toronto at all, because that's what they think when they hear Ford got votes in “the suburbs.”

12. It’s possible: people can care about local government.Lots were paying close attention to city hall even before the crack scandal. Mostly to Ford’s other outrages, no doubt, but also to policy. Will the interest evaporate when the mayor is more normal?

13. He-said, she-said journalism doesn’t cut it. Many news reports gave equal credence to the false assertions of the mayor and the true assertions of others. Media “balance” shouldn’t mean letting evident inaccuracies go unchallenged.

14. Bigotry is alive and well. The mayor of a city whose motto is “diversity our strength” shunned the gay community and used racial slurs to describe Jews, blacks and Italians; much of the population barely shrugged. Muslim candidates’ signs were defaced with racist graffiti. A mayoral candidate born in Hong Kong faced a racist newspaper cartoon, racist Facebook comments, racist comments at debates. Toronto is an accepting city on the whole, but there’s a long way to go.

15. Council is actually important. Councillors can be doormats for the mayor. They don’t have to be. This council made important and difficult decisions the mayor didn’t like.

16. …but any popular mayor can control council. As a councillor himself, Ford was mocked and ignored by his colleagues. When he became mayor, many of the people who couldn’t stand him lined up for key roles in his administration. Ford could have easily dominated the legislative agenda had he been more interested in policy and more conciliatory.

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17. The “weak” mayor exercises power in hidden ways. Ford asked high-ranking bureaucrats to accompany him on his constituent visits. They did. Ford asked high-ranking bureaucrats to order unscheduled road repairs outside his family’s office. They did. Toronto has a “weak mayor” system, but legislative power is far from the only power.

18. Toronto’s non-government leaders are exceedingly cautious. The only significant corporate figure who was openly critical of Ford, even after he became an international laughingstock, was Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke — a new-in-town American. Community groups were quiet about Ford’s slurs. Hard to imagine the response being the same in, say, New York.

19. Early narrative is hard to shake. The Fords were masters at establishing their own version of events before others could establish theirs. Even when the truth eventually emerged, the first version, the Ford version, was what a lot of people remembered. Who ever saw the video that eventually showed Ford was not actually hit by a cup of thrown juice he claimed had injured him?

20. All politics is personal. Ford has earned the loyalty of thousands of people by simply returning their phone calls and showing up at their doors. Ford opponents who criticize his time-management decisions have a point — but they are also missing the point. Making people feel like they matter matters.