Cover: The Post-Municipal City

The Post-Municipal City

by Anthony H. Pascal

Purchase

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback22 pages $20.00 $16.00 20% Web Discount

Attempts to sketch out the rudiments of a new approach to financing local government in an era of fiscal restraint, resistance to tax increases, fiscal controls, tax base erosion, and a decline in grants from federal and state governments. The paper stresses the stripping away of nonessentials, the employment of market-oriented mechanisms, and the imposition of direct charges to beneficiaries. In addition to pricing/rationing devices for providing services — a technique gaining increasing attention — the author suggests how special assessments and neighborhood-specific taxes might be employed. Also discussed are departures in procedures for allocating labor and capital across service agencies, and the prospects of interjurisdictional sales of services. Some ideas for a multipurpose public service voucher are offered.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Paper series. The paper was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 2003 that captured speeches, memorials, and derivative research, usually prepared on authors' own time and meant to be the scholarly or scientific contribution of individual authors to their professional fields. Papers were less formal than reports and did not require rigorous peer review.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.