Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
Electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, roads, and mail service are handled by the government in many jurisdictions. In other words, those government bureaucrats can be mighty effective.
The issue with private enterprise is pretty much as you suggested: they tackle the low hanging fruit, which leads to inequitable access to services and infrastructure. They also tend to ignore large scale projects because of the risks involved.
I'm not suggesting that government intervention is the best solution. The problem is that there are times when government intervention is the only solution.
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True, there are times when a single provider is necessary. It is impractical
to have competing electric lines, water mains, sewer systems, and road
networks - to select from.
Garbage Collection can, and is, often provided on a competitive basis for
business customers even if residential collection is provided by the city.
Despite support by the government, (in many ways, not just financial),
the mail service continues to show itself as being unable to compete with
private service providers. Not to mention with e-mail.
As to "under-served" areas; first, they should be free to adopt whatever
lawful measures they can to address the problem, using their own resources.
Second, if there is a benefit to be had, that is worth the cost - for a larger
community, then it might make sense for that larger community to subsidize
providing the service to that "under-served" area". A big problem being that
there will be radical advocates and contract seekers making the case for a
subsidy under very suspect logic.
Luck;
Ken