Developers and infrastructures

Today's Journal Record has a story about the impact fees cities collect for building infrastructures to connect to new neighborhoods.

Imagine if developers owned and built their own such infrastructures. Or if they could hire companies that had to compete with each other to construct and maintain such systems.

Apparently, the benefits of privately owning such systems, or developing innovative strategies for privately funding such systems, is too much for some developers to bother with. But in a free market, such developers would be able to sell their infrastructures to somebody who does want to bother.

In today's mixed economy, cities maintain monopolies on utilities and infrastructures, and collect fees from those who use them. But in a free market, the possibilities would be endless.