The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil SocietyDavid T. Beito, Peter Gordon, Alexander Tabarrok The rise and decline of American civic life has provoked wide-ranging responses from all quarters of society. Unfortunately, many proposals for improving our communities rely on renewed governmental efforts without a similar recognition that the inflexibility and poor accountability of governments have often worsened society's ills. The Voluntary City investigates the history of large-scale, private provision of social services, the for-profit provision of urban infrastructure and community governance, and the growing privatization of residential life in the United States to argue that most decentralized, competitive markets can contribute greatly to community renewal. Among the fascinating topics covered are: how mutual-aid societies in America, Great Britain, and Australia provided their members with medical care, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance, and other social services before the welfare state; how private law, known historically as the law merchant, is returning in the form of arbitration; and why the rise of neighborhood associations represents the most comprehensive privatization occurring in the United States today. The volume concludes with an epilogue that places the discoveries of The Voluntary City within the theory of market and government failure and discusses the implications of these discoveries for theories about the private provision of public goods. A refreshing challenge to the position that insists government alone can improve community life, The Voluntary City will be of special interest to students of history, law, urban life, economics, and government. David T. Beito is Associate Professor of History, University of Alabama. Peter Gordon is Professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and Department of Economics, University of Southern California. Alexander Tabarrok is Vice President and Research Director, the Independent Institute. |
Contents
Toward a Rebirth of Civil Society | 1 |
LaissezFaire Urban Planning | 18 |
The Private Places of St Louis Urban Infrastructure through Private Planning | 47 |
The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America | 76 |
Entrepreneurial City Planning Chicagos Central Manufacturing District | 102 |
Justice without Government The Merchant Courts of Medieval Europe and Their Modern Counterparts | 127 |
The Private Provision of Police during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries | 151 |
This Enormous Army The MutualAid Tradition of American Fraternal Societies before the Twentieth Century | 182 |
Education in the Voluntary City | 223 |
Proprietary Communities and Community Associations | 258 |
Contractual Governments in Theory and Practice | 289 |
Privatizing the Neighborhood A Proposal to Replace Zoning with Private Collective Property Rights to Existing Neighborhoods | 307 |
The Case for Land Lease versus Subdivision Homeowners Associations Reconsidered | 371 |
Market Challenges and Government Failure Lessons from the Voluntary City | 405 |
Contributors | 435 |
| 439 | |
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American arbitration areas assessments Beito benefits Britain building Central Manufacturing District chapter Chicago CIDs commercial Community Associations Community Associations Institute companies condominium constitutional contractual governments costs courts covenants create crime disputes economic efficient Ellickson enforcement England entrepreneur example existing Foldvary fraternal Freemasonry friendly societies Frug George Mason University Heath History Homeowner Associations homeowners housing incentive individual infrastructure institutions interest Journal land land-lease landlord law merchant lodges London Louis Republic MacCallum 1970 market failure ment municipal neighbor neighborhood association nineteenth century organizations owners ownership P. E. Taylor Park percent planning police political private neighborhoods private places private schools problem property rights proprietary communities prosecution associations residential Residential Community Associations residents roads rules social Spencer Heath streets subdivision tion towns turnpike United University Press urban vate voluntary associations Voluntary City voting York zoning