Tag: Parks

Privatize everything!

In Jennifer Burns biography of Milton Friedman, the famous economist is portrayed as affable and polite even under duress.

Still- he had many detractors. People in this camp, I suspect, might have been turned off by the thought that every service or enterprise is done better in the private sector.

Here is a section from Milton Friedman, the Last Conservative explaining how easy it would be to charge to enter the National Parks. And there is a small fee to access the park, as there is the cost of a stamp to post a letter.

“The entrances to a national park like Yellowstone, on the other hand, are few,” continued the Friedmans. It would be easy to set up tolls at the entrance. “I the public wants this kind of an activity enough to pay for it, private enterprise will have every incentive to provide such parks,” they concluded. Similar logic extended to the post office, public housing, toll roads, and even Social Security. Each of these could be more efficiently handled by private enterprise, the Friedmans proposed, enumerating a list of fourteen “activities currently undertaken by government in the U.S.” that could not be justified by their principles. “This list is far from comprehensive,” the authors noted.

But haven’t you ever wondered why some things remain in public hands while some are replaced by private alternatives?

Why are most parks public? Why is USPS still around after all the alternative forms of communication have evolved? Why do toll roads exist only in limited markets?

History continues to challenge the Friedmans’ view that all goods and services respond best in traditional private markets.

Louis and Clark Caverns, Montana

Mysteries around Google Maps

I started posting my photos to google maps about four years ago, undoubtedly because some AI trick prompted a friendly message onto my screen encouraging me to do so. As I became more familiar with maps, and the cooperative efforts of people around the world to share what they were seeing on the ground, I began to value the service. Which led to more postings.

For instance, I was going through childhood travel pictures and family members could not recall the location of this fortification.

Google Lens was helpful, but it suggested more than one fortified option. The choices spanned destinations from the Punjab to Egypt and in between. Fort Attock Khurd looked the most promising so I went to Google Maps and found it sitting beautifully overlooking the River Indus.

Then I paged through the photos posted by recent visitors to the area. With a little adjustment for perspective, the ramparts, curved walls, the river all came into focus. It’s truly (I’m going to show my age!) spectacular that I can access vacation photos from someone on the other side of the earth. It allows for such ease in piecing together a road trip taken half a century ago.

So now I am asking my AI friend, if he/she is listening: Explain the mystery of why some of my photos get so many views and some not. For example, this park is located in a sleepy little suburb and the park itself is nice but not as heavily used as others. The numbers under the playground equipment are particularly strong– it doesn’t seem like the best photo to me out of the group. Why so many views?

I wrote about this DQ about three weeks ago and the views on it have taken off. I guess it is ice cream season. And people often search for food and restaurants. Still it seems like a lot in comparison to other photos of equal quality.

I liked the shot of the Minneapolis skyline from under the I94 Bridge. Maybe I’m biased because we had such a nice bike ride along the river. The river flats area is famous for being the low income housing area of a century ago.

My all time high views is of a beautiful beach at Fish Lake Regional Park in Maple Grove. I do love that park. In addition to the beach, there are walking trails, you can rent a variety of water craft and there is a dog park. We have an extensive regional park system in Hennepin County, and maybe the numbers reflect the number of patrons planning visits.

Still– if AI big sister is listening: Please explain the variance in views!