We have a few good things going for us, in Chicago and Illinois. We have a little slice of Lake Michigan, a wonderful resource.
Here’s what it looked like after hosting a crowd on Memorial Day:
(Photo from Fox 32 Chicago)
Does this behavior help explain why Chicago and Illinois finances are in such bad shape?
Yes, this is one reason. But it isn’t the cleanup costs. It’s something called the “Tragedy of the Commons.”
When individuals and well-organized groups can feast on public resources in their own self-interests, they tend to deplete these resources and avoid the costs.
Sadly, government can become one of the means by which they pull the levers; even while government service can (and should) be viewed as a trust for the general welfare – the common good.
Those levers include false accounting and financial reporting, hiding the garbage under a thin layer of sand, Memorial Day after Memorial Day. Until it can’t go on anymore.
Some communities and governments are better than others, in terms of culture, on this score.
Chicago and Illinois aren’t among them.