Is your City Hall sinking?

Gabrielle Gurley's article Municipal Meltdown, in the Fall issue of CommonWealth, is both fascinating and scary, and we've been getting a lot of reaction to the idea that cities and towns are facing a moment of reckoning (cut spending or raise taxes?). Check out the latest comments, both thoughtful and provocative, on our main Web site. To give you a taste of the discussion, here are a couple of points from anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson:

Home rule is a nice tradition but it needs 21st-century adjustment to allow more regionalization. Collective bargaining is a 19th-century anachronism and should be abolished...

And on public education:

Maintenance should be encouraged and new buildings should forego architects, instead using basic blueprints labeled "school."

Presumably, Anderson has in mind something a bit more elaborate than this.

Comments

[Peter Porcupine]

How many 'Carnaigie' schools and libraries - all identical - were built at the turn of the century? I atended two myself; serviciable and brick, and being used for over 100 years. What would be wrong with THAT?