Full Description
The Voluntary City assembles a rich history and analysis of large-scale, private and voluntary, community-based provision of social services, urban infrastructure, and community governance to restore the vitality of city life. Such systems provide education, transportation, housing, crime control, parks and recreation, health care, employment, and more, by being more effective, innovative, and responsive than those provided through special-interest politics-as-usual and bureaucracy. ""The Voluntary City"" reveals how the process of providing local public goods through the dynamism of freely competitive, market-based entrepreneurship is unmatched in renewing communities and strengthening the bonds of civil society.
Contents
Foreword; Paul Johnson; Overview; Ramesh Ramanathan; Contributors; 1. Toward a Rebirth of Civil Society; David T. Beito; * Peter Gordon; * Alexander Tabarrok; PART I - Building the Voluntary City; 2. Laissez-Faire Urban Planning; Stephen Davies; 3. The Private Places of St. Louis: Urban Infrastructure through Private Planning; David T. Beito; * Private Place Development: Initial Stages; * Why St. Louis?; * Coping with Free Riders; * The Private Place as a Community; * The Private Places and Land-Use Regulation; * The Private Place during the Twentieth Century; 4. The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods?; The Turnpike Companies of Early America; Daniel Klein; * Turnpike Creation and Operation; * Unprofitability; * ""Clear from the Beginning""; * The Quest for Indirect Benefits; * A Public-Goods Problem?; * Turnpike Provision; * Towns, Independent and Vigorous; * The Cooperative Citizenry; * Selective Incentives (Social Pressure, etc.); * Conclusion. 5. Entrepreneurial City Planning: Chicago's Central Manufacturing District; Robert C. Arne; * Entrepreneurial Planning in Chicago's Central Manufacturing District; * Entrepreneurial and City Planning Compared; * Conclusion; PART II - Law and Social Services in the Voluntary City; 6. Justice without Government: The Merchant Courts of Medieval Europe and Their Modern Counterparts; Bruce L. Benson; * The Medieval Law Merchant; * The Absorption of the Law Merchant into Royal Law; * The Modern Law Merchant; * The International Law Merchant; * The American Law Merchant; * Non-merchant Influences on the Evolution of Arbitration; * Rent-a-Judge Justice; * Private Courts for Non-commercial Disputes; * Community Conflict Resolution; * Conclusion; 7. The Private Provision of Police during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries; Stephen Davies; 8. ""This Enormous Army"": The Mutual-Aid Tradition of American Fraternal Societies before the Twentieth Century; David T. Beito; * Confraternities and Guilds; * The Rise of Freemasonry; * British Friendly Societies; * American Fraternal Orders: Initial Development; * The Odd Fellows: The First National Insurance Order; * The National Life Insurance Order; * Conclusion; 9. Medical Care through Mutual Aid: The Friendly Societies of Great Britain; David G. Green; * What Services Did the Friendly Societies Provide?; * Self-Reliance and Mutual Support; * Character Building; * Collectivism without the State; * Participatory Democracy; * Who Were the Members?; * Equality and the ""Rule of Law""; * Medical Care; * Traveling in Search of Work; * Conclusion; 10. Education in the Voluntary City; James Tooley; * Education without the State, Part 1: Nineteenth-Century England and Wales; * Education without the State, Part 2: America; * Education without the State, Part 3: Twenty-First-Century India; * The Federation of Private Schools Management, Hyderabad; * Why Do Poorer Parents Send Their Children to Unaided Private Schools?; * Conclusion; PART III - The Voluntary City and Community; 11. Proprietary Communities and Community Associations; Fred E. Foldvary. * Heath on Proprietary Communities; * MacCallum on Proprietary Communities; * Civic Associations; * Contractual Constitutions and Law; * Community and Entrepreneurship; * Conclusion; 12. Contractual Governments in Theory and Practice; Donald J. Boudreaux; * Randall G. Holcombe; * The Theory of Local Governments; * The Formation of Contractual Governments; * Contractual Governments and Constitutional Rules; * Some Examples of Contractual Governments; * Sawgrass Players Club; * Contractual Governments and Traditional Governments; * Conclusion; 13. Privatizing the Neighborhood: A Proposal to Replace Zoning with Private Collective Property Rights to Existing Neighborhoods; Robert H. Nelson; * The Rise of the Neighborhood Association; * A Proposal: A Five-Step Process; * Advantages over Zoning; * From Zoning to Neighborhood Associations; * The Property-Right School of Zoning; * The Origins of Private Neighborhoods; * Theorizing about Private Neighborhoods; * A Monster Let Loose?; * Neighborhood Associations in Inner-City Areas; * Landowner Associations in Newly Developing Areas; * Suburbanites versus Farmers; * A Proposed Solution; * Secession, Voting Rules, and Provision of Public Services; * Dismantling a Progressive Legacy; * Conclusion; 14. The Case for Land Lease versus Subdivision: Homeowners' Associations Reconsidered; Spencer Heath MacCallum; * Managing the American Subdivision; * ""Catch-22""; * Ebenezer Howard; * Multiple-Tenant Income Properties (MTIPs); * Advantages over Subdivision; * Objections to the Land-Lease Community Idea; * Collectivism and Private Local Government; * Conclusion; PART IV - Epilogue; 15. Market Challenges and Government Failure: Lessons from the Voluntary City; Alexander Tabarrok; * Public-Goods Theory and Practice; * Large-Scale Development and Contracts as Methods of Internalization; * Prices and the Discovery Process; * Motivational Assumptions and the Free-Rider Problem; * Law and Government as Privately Created Public Goods; * Public Goods Created by Neither Government nor Firm; * Education; * The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again (?) of the Voluntary City; * Why the Public Sector Sometimes Remains; * Conclusion; * What Sort of Civilization Do we Want?
