Cutting Back City Hall

by Robert W. Poole

Describes methods, including private contracting, user charges, and more effective planning, that local governments can use to reduce the costs of most types of public services

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Patrick Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020-07-18 - I read this shortly after it came out in 1980. Excellent book. Gave the history and theory of how and why private provision of local services are cheaper and higher quality than having the city governments do it themselves in most all cases. The exceptions are when cities write the contracts or requests for proposals so badly, so corruptly, that they get only awful crony contractors.

The facts in the book may be dated history now, but the reasoning and rationales are still spot on.

Kudos to Robert Poole, founder and long time president of the Reason Foundation which continued to back up the truth of the book's findings with ongoing research to this day.