From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Thu Aug 08 2002 - 05:23:52 MDT
On Wednesday, August 07, 2002 4:05 PM Charles Hixson
charleshixsn@earthlink.net wrote:
> OTOH, there exist jobs that require large scale planning and
> implementation. The streets of a city occur as a reasonable example.
> Thus a conflict. All of the traditional mechanisms for promoting
large
> scale planning and implementation require the centralization of power.
> What are the alternatives? It seems like there should be *some*
> reasonable approach that works without being corrupted.
On private roads, see "Private Roads, Competition, Automobile Insurance
and Price Controls" by Walter Block at
http://libertariannation.org/a/f84b1.html
and Daniel Klein's many papers at
http://lsb.scu.edu/~dklein/papers/default.htm -- e.g., "Curb Rights:
Eliciting Competition and Entrepreneurship in Urban Transit," "Toll
Lanes: Phasing in Congestion Pricing a Lane at a Time," "Private Toll
Roads: Learning from the 19th Century," "The Voluntary Provision of
Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America," "Economy,
Community and Law: The Turnpike Movement in New York, 1797-1845,"
"Responding to Relative Decline: The Plank Road Boom of Antebellum New
York," "Use, Esteem, and Profit in Voluntary Provision: Toll Roads in
California, 1850-1902," "Plank Road Fever in Antebellum America: New
York State Origins," and "From Trunk to Branch: Toll Roads in New York,
1800-1860." Whew1:) That a virtual library on road privatization and
it's by no means the only work in that area.
On urban transit planning, see also "Planning and the Two Coordinations,
With Illustration in Urban Transit" by Daniel B. Klein at
http://www-pam.usc.edu/v1i1a1s1.html Back issues of the _Indepedent
Review_ (http://www.independent.org/review.html) also treat the matter
of urban planning and community planning. It's a big topic and there
has been a lot of work on private alternatives to the all too common
government "solutions" here. Of course, the private alternatives are
usually dismissed if not all together ignored... (The same applies to
other areas, such as healthcare and the like -- as we see with some
members of this list.)
It seems to me the private alternative has more of history and better
theory backing it than conventional wisdom would have us believe.
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:57 MST