Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Longread #135 -- Private Cities -- 8/14/12
Given the financial disaster that is the budget of many municipalities across the country, this story of privatization presents an interesting case study. Privatization is a hot-button issue because while it typically comes with big promises of efficiency and cost-savings, it often falls far short of delivering on those promises. As this article discusses, one of the keys is precision in writing contracts and actually leveraging a competitive bid system. I am concerned, though, about how well a model like this would translate to a larger, more diverse, and less affluent city. As highlighted in the article, there are also significant concerns about this sort of privatization plays out from an equality perspective -- "separate, yet equal" typically is only the former.
"A Georgia Town Takes the People’s Business Private" by David Segal
Published in the New York Times, June 23, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/business/a-georgia-town-takes-the-peoples-business-private.html?pagewanted=all
Eric
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Really interesting model and I think the question is can that type of idea really be rolled out successfully in large environments. The successes both appear to be relatively small towns and the failures large (Chicago, NYC). As someone who has made a career of outsourcing I fully buy into the concept as most times companies specializing in a service will do a superior job to "all around" employees. Not sure where I stand on the race concept or impact of other counties from losing their taxes Seems to be if an area can figure out a better way to do business they should.
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