Home on the Urban Range

Peter Martin, of Peter Martin & Associates, is the founding publisher of
the Canadian Book Review Annual.

The main argument presented in this book is that user fees should pay
for urban amenities and services, replacing our present opaque mixture
of property taxes, business taxes, and transfer of funds from superior
taxing bodies (provincial, federal). This idea seems to suggest
potential benefits. Put out less garbage, for example, and your
refuse-collection cost drops. Besides, we are already accustomed to user
fees. Gasoline taxes ensure that the further we drive, the more we pay.
In many jurisdictions, water consumption is metered, so we pay for the
water we use.

However, user fees as replacement for general taxation fail on two
practical grounds. The first practical failure arises from the hideous
complexity of getting user charges right. In the case of a streetlight,
for example, who should pay—passing motorists, pedestrians, or nearby
householders? The moral failure arises most obviously from the way in
which the idea punishes the innocent: the kids who need an after-school
program most are precisely those whose parents are least able to pay.
The idea’s second practical failure is a little less obvious: we have
learned—and are still learning—“that equal opportunity societies
are more successful than hierarchical ones.”

Home on the Urban Range is incoherent, self-contradictory,
mean-spirited, and deceitful. It is meant to be about cities, but it
shows no understanding of the origin or dynamics of urbanism (citations
are skimpy and do not include, among others, Mumford, Braudel, or
Jacobs). It bashes unions for no good reason (though this may be
mandatory for a Fraser Institute publication). Most egregiously, it
characterizes municipal politicians as greedy louts; one doubts that
Palda has ever watched a city council at work.