The Miracle of the Commons

It is hot in Arizona right now. Every day, the temperature creeps up from its balmy low in the mid-eighties, as the sun pours its terrible heat down upon us, and punishes everything that still has the audacity to live here. Before we know it, it's above 100 and stays that way until the sun gets tired of beating our poor, dumb asses, and takes the night off. There is no escaping it. I walked Mrs. Done by Forty from our car to her building on campus this weekend, when our car thermometer showed a temp of 115. Delirious, I pondered our situation as we took shelter in the shade for a bit.

I wondered aloud how hard it must be for the homeless to get a little break from this heat, "Where do they go?"

"Wherever they can," Mrs. Done by Forty said.

"I'd hang out here, under this covered walkway," I said. It felt twenty degrees cooler in the shade.

My guess is that public spaces are some of the only spots the homeless can go to get out of the heat: the library, under a tree or pavilion in a park, or even the state university campus.

And that's the beauty of public spaces: they're here for anyone and everyone. You don't need to show ID or pay any money to use most public assets; which is kind of incredible, if you think about it. The land and building and amenities are worth millions, and yet they're free to use.

Suffering in the heat, you can walk into an air conditioned library and drink as much cool, clean water as you'd like from the fountain. While you're there, feel free to choose from the thousands of books or magazines on every subject imaginable, and enjoy it in the embrace of a comfy leather chair. Want to browse the internet and learn about any topic known to man? No problem: just pull up next to one of the dozens of computers. And, please, grab a Blu-ray on the way out, if that's your sort of thing.

Libraries are just the beginning, of course. Within walking distance of our house, we have world-class parks with baseball and soccer fields, a frisbee golf course, and a senior center with a weight room and ten pristine billiard tables that you don't even have to be old to use. Need a ride there? Just jump on the neighborhood trolley that comes by every fifteen minutes. All free.

This sort of free-to-the-public set up doesn't make a whole lot of sense in a capitalist economy.  When I think about the money I earn, I'm usually thinking of how I can spend it on myself, or maybe my family if I'm in a good mood. Generally, my personal funds are going to be used for acquiring more personal, private property and experiences.

Why would I want to pay taxes, just to give free rides and air conditioning and internet service to some homeless guy I've never met, or some weirdo who lives across town?

Well, because I can use that stuff, too. We all can. I get the same access as anyone else.

Second, I actually get better options of books and movies and media via the library than I'd get by purchasing those things myself. The people running those organizations are better at selecting that stuff than I am. Their expertise gives me more and better things to choose from than I'd pick on my own.

And it's way, way more efficient to pool our money via taxes than it would be for me to build a private library. That single, twenty dollar DVD can be shared with a practically unlimited number of citizens, forever. When I buy it for myself, it is only used by me, probably once, and then sits on my shelf unused, forever.

I always hear about how inefficient government is. And yet all around me, I see these examples of public assets which are thousands of times more efficient than their private counterparts. Just by the miracle of sharing, a single book in a library, or basketball hoop in a park, or seat on a bus, completely destroys the efficiency of its privately-owned counterpart.

Can you imagine the huge collective cost if everyone bought their own computers and books and other media, just to build a personal library? Or if we all drove our own personal vehicles everywhere instead of using the cheaper and more environmentally-friendly public transportation?

Oh, wait.

Despite their amazing efficiency, complete accessibility, and free admission, our public resources are woefully underutilized.

I'm certainly a culprit myself. I haven't taken the trolley once since I've lived here, even though it goes directly to the library, and has a stop within a quarter mile of my house.

Which is fine, I suppose. If you have the money to drive your own car, or want to collect fancy books, or want to build a home gym complete with the Europlate Vibration Exercise Machine, who cares? Convenience is a perfectly acceptable thing to buy, if you can afford it.

If you're achieving your financial goals and have money left over, by all means, go buy what you want.

But that's the rub. How many of us Americans are achieving our financial goals? You keep hearing crazy stories, like how a third of workers have less than $1000 saved for retirement. Or how less than half of parents are saving anything for their children's education.

With sobering stories like this, it's crazy to me that ninety five percent of American households have a car, probably with a terrible loan attached.

It's going to sound judgmental, but when you aren't addressing even your basic financial goals, shouldn't you ditch the car (and the car loan)? Especially when you've got a fancy public transportation system in your neighborhood?

We've set up this web of buses and light rail that can take us almost anywhere we want to go, subsidized it, air conditioned it, and made it accessible from just about anywhere in a few minutes, if you have a bike.

Anyone can use the system, of course. But for those of us looking to squeeze a bit more out of our paychecks so we can get out of debt, or finally start saving, or maybe even invest for the first time, shouldn't our public resources be the very first place we look?

The commons was made for us. For our enjoyment, our convenience, for our safety. Let's use these public resources to improve the public's finances, too.


*Photo is from the Seattle Municipal Archives, at Flickr Creative Commons.