Electing mayors in Britain?

Did you know that most cities in England do not have elected mayors? The current government there thought that having such might improve local governing. And so, what did they  do?  PM Cameron authorized referendums for ten of the biggest  communities in Britain. And the result? Only one city approved the idea - Bristol. The majority of communities seemed to be wary of allowing a semi-strong local, elected  personage to sort of rule over them. London's experiment where, since the year 2,000, elected mayors tended to accumulate influence, even without formal powers may have swayed them negatively. An interesting difference from the fount of democracy, compared to our own; where we seem to like the idea of having heads of local government elected just about everywhere. But, the most interesting aspect of this process was - establishing referendums where the people's wishes would determine the outcome. Direct democracy was certainly put well into play. Sometimes the results are surprising - but very clearly it was what the  citizens wanted that counted.