Home on the Urban Range: An Idea Map for Reforming the City

by K. Filip Palda and Filip Palda

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889751862
• ISBN13: 9780889751866
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Fraser Inst
• Length: 117 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Cities need an overhaul and Palda's suggestions are novel

As an ecologist I naturally tend to view cities with suspicion. They are big dirty places that crowd people and push pollution into the sky and gush it in to rivers. Palda's book confirmed my view but also gave me a new insight into why things are so wrong with the cities we have now. Palda's thesis is that cities waste resources because higher levels of governments do not allow cities to charge the true price of their services. In Canada and the US cities get the bulk of their funding from state or federal governments. These subsidies allow cities to undercharge for water use, public transportation, police and fire services, and to provide roads for free. If users were forced to pay for what they consume the smorgasbord of cars rolling into cities and making them a congested hell would end, people would waste much less water than they now waste, and people would be less flagrant about calling police and firemen on whims or when their alarms go off. In addition if cities charged directly for garbage collection people would be much more selective about buying overpackaged goods. So in sum, cities scramble important messages contained in prices that ordinarily would be a wakeup call to those who want to waste city resources. Palda also has some novel ideas about how to charge cars for being in the city center at peak hours so that only those who really need to be there go. The other side of Palda's book is that it explains why it is important to give the private sector more of a share in how the city is run. Private subways, streets, curb rights, public utilities have all proven to be more efficient than the public sector. Why not give them more of a chance?Palda is pessimistic that his ideas will get implemented anytime soon. City democracy is dead because property taxes on pay for about 20% of true city costs. The rest of the tab gets picked up at a higher level of government. Why bother voting if the spending power is somewhere else?All in all I found this a refreshing and original book, much different from the run-of-the-mill calls for more government planning or those useless calls for greater civic spirit. On top of being well referenced academically this book also is suprisingly well-written and witty.