Heavy reading this week; not particularly uplifting. Both Havery's and Shatkin's pieces reminded me of my undergraduate outrage at privatization of public services and commodification of basic human necessities (think expensive bottled water).
Shatkin's piece on planning the privatopolis brought to mind my worries about the charter movement in public education in the US. Charter schools, in a way, are a first step towards privatizing universal public education. Charter schools receive per pupil funding from the local government, but are not beholden to the local educational system. They also raise large amounts of money from local and national non-profits, in some cases giving them a financial leg up over traditional public schools. The notion that public charter schools will compete with local schools so that all schools will improve or shut down some how ignores the fact that competition inherently creates winners and losers and in the case of education the loser schools will harm the unlucky children who had no other option than to attend their neighborhood school.
I firmly believe that the market should not decide the fate of basic services: education, health, water, air etc. City planning in the hands of private developers places makes decisions about those basic human issues the responsibility of business men and women who are first and foremost after a profit, not just a better world for all mankind. Worrisome.
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