Urban Myths
25 June 2006
Editor, New Orleans Times-Picayune
Dear Editor:
Mike Howells asserts that people's ability to afford to live in any city or town "is contingent on the degree to which the government is willing to support them" (Letters, June 25). His basis for this claim is our need for goods such as roads, sewers, and potable water.
But it's literally an urban myth that these things must be supplied by government. As documented in the important book The Voluntary City,* history teems with examples of affordable and efficacious roads, sewers, water, public transportation, fire protection, and even law enforcement being provided privately.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* The Voluntary City, David T. Beito, Peter Gordon, & Alexander Tabarrok, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Editor, New Orleans Times-Picayune
Dear Editor:
Mike Howells asserts that people's ability to afford to live in any city or town "is contingent on the degree to which the government is willing to support them" (Letters, June 25). His basis for this claim is our need for goods such as roads, sewers, and potable water.
But it's literally an urban myth that these things must be supplied by government. As documented in the important book The Voluntary City,* history teems with examples of affordable and efficacious roads, sewers, water, public transportation, fire protection, and even law enforcement being provided privately.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* The Voluntary City, David T. Beito, Peter Gordon, & Alexander Tabarrok, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Tuesday April 3, 2007 at 1:08pm