Then, while on assignment today I noticed this...
It's a handrail. Scraped and scratched up from skateboards ... well caused by people practicing their skateboarding skills on it anyway. In some places along the rail it's conceivable that someone could possibly scrape or cut their hand if they attempted to use it. Leading me to my point, maybe one reason we are not willing to make the commitment to keep public areas public is lack of respect. For most of us they are something we've always had and can't imagine them ever going away. A given in our society to this point, and we really (unrealistically) don't think we should have to pay more taxes to keep it that way. Obviously, this is only one example. The railing may seem like a small and trivial thing, and maybe it seems I'm making something out of nothing. Hey, I'm all for them having fun and perfecting their sport. Lack of respect is the real issue on my mind here. Granted it's only one piece of a larger issue, but really it's all the seemingly small things like this that add up and create the bigger issues, like privatization.
3 comments:
I've long been a capitalist and Libertarian (read "minimal gov't"). But recently I saw, "Enron - The Smartest Guys In The Room". Call me naive, but I just didn't think that people proceeded in business without any conscience whatsoever. Clearly I was wrong. Thus, it's also clear to me that uncontrolled capitalism is not good for society. But on the other hand, every government organization and gov't worker is generally accountable for their performance or lack thereof. In the case of your railing, maybe somebody is being paid good money to take care of that but just choosing not to. Up here in Vancouver I constantly see City Engineering trucks parked by the beach with the fellows inside asleep. The question therefore is where should the balance between public & private be?
But on the other hand, every government organization and gov't worker is generally accountable for their performance or lack thereof. In the case of your railing, maybe somebody is being paid good money to take care of that but just choosing not to. Up here in Vancouver I constantly see City Engineering trucks parked by the beach with the fellows inside asleep. The question therefore is where should the balance between public & private be?
Well, it's true someone is likely paid to repair or replace the rails. However there is a sign posted, actually a handful around this park, citing a city ordinance that says skateboarding is prohibited in this area. Again, I don't care if they skateboard there, I don't even care that they do it against a city ordinance. It's the fact that they basically vandalize public property while they are doing it. All the while, slowly draining funds from public works for their own pleasure.
I think the balance between public & private is at an acceptable place in the U.S. (at least where I'm living in the U.S.). Acceptable only because it's unrealistic to think we could go back. However, I am sure I'm in the minority here, and that we will continue to see more public facilities with naming rights being sold and so on and on it goes. Privatization is really just one symptom of the bigger problem here in the U.S.
One of the most discouraging things I saw in The Corporation (either the movie or its copious DVD collateral) was a sincere and earnest prediction by a businessman that the day was coming when everything... every acre of trees, every park, every stream, even the air, would be owned and/or administered by a private concern with a for-profit interest. The obvious underpinning of his philosphy was that in having shareholders have a monetary interest in these formerly public properties, they would be cared for by enlightened self-interest. What he failed to explain was how enlightened self-interest hasn't so far avoided Love Canal, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, thalidomide, DDT, and on and on and on. But he seemed satisfied this was the trend and the way of things, and that it was coming.
On the other hand was a carpet manufacturer from the US southeast who had been shocked into learning just how environmentally-intensive his product was. He set out to make his product "environmentally sustainable" -- that is, it took no more from the environment to make it than it took out. This involved a lot of recycling and finding more energy-efficient processes, and was an ongoing project of his company... a goal to which they were working towards. He urged every business to do the same.
I get the feeling Mr. Own Everything is probably in the lead, however.
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