The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. – San Francisco (2009)

Re:The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. – San Francisco (2009) by michaelochurch on Friday January 25, 2013 @08:05AM (#5115186)

I don't think this is because private companies are inherently more competent. I think the reason for the discrepancy is that private companies aren't going to build in places where there isn't a very good chance of the project turning a profit.

The public ends up funding projects that might be valuable to society, but that won't turn a profit. Of course, this tendency needs to be monitored to make sure that the projects actually are of value, but I would say that public transit in San Francisco-- if nothing else, it brings down real estate prices-- is clearly in that category.

I do not intend to say that public projects are always well-managed, because that's demonstrably false. However, there are a large number of badly-managed private projects as well. In terms of turning a profit, though, the private sector almost always has better material to work with, because it takes the projects that are visibly likely to be profitable.

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Re:The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. – San Francisco (2009) by ry0ohki on Friday January 25, 2013 @09:05AM (#5115421)

Yep, that's definitely part of it. Also government funded systems are still built by private companies, but instead of figuring out the best way to save money (as they would do if self-funded) they pad their margins and make the systems incredibly expensive to be built with public dollars.

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Re:The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. – San Francisco (2009) by mc32 on Friday January 25, 2013 @02:31PM (#5117191)

Also, with publicly funded systems, there are always questions about alignment. Some local rep wants it to go thru her neighborhood, another thru theirs so they end up all sinuous/cicuitous (ala Seattle) whereas private entities don't have this issue.

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