A Paver’s Paradise
While city planners around the country are busy creating more livable space in America’s downtowns, developers are headed in the other direction. They’re building massive office complexes out in the suburbs where the air is clean and the land is cheap. To accommodate the big spenders, county governments pave over farmland in order to build new roads with fun names like Mercantile Drive and Industrial Boulevard. These roads should all be called Taxpayer Street since we’re the ones paying for them. Sprawl, it’s the American Way.
Governments should sell road names to the highest bidder. If Acme Corporation wants to build a work center and expects to receive a new road in return, then the local government should say: “You want a new road? You pay for it. Then you can name it whatever you like.” Before long Acme employees will be taking Acme Boulevard to get to Acme headquarters every day.
I’m guessing Pepsico ® would pay a nice sum for the rights to name a road running past the headquarters of Coca Cola ®. For once taxpayers could benefit from marketplace dynamics. Competition, it’s also the American Way.
infrastructure, roads, street names, public financing, taxes, infrastructure repair
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