Driving by watching this park develop years ago it surprised me as I noticed this circular pavement being built not knowing what it was going to be.
When basketball goals went up I became irritated and was reminded of this irritation again every day as a drove by. Anyone who plays or watches basketball knows this is not what a basketball court looks like or how it is played. In fact it is dangerous. Not just because anyone who has played much basketball builds a muscle memory of the court being rectangular with corners extending to a baseline, but simply because the natural flow of play will take people off of the edge of this circular court.
Of course, this is not something to go to the mattresses over. As frustrating as it is, this incorrectly built basketball court is not the problem; it is just a symptom.
The problem is that even though a strong public goods case can be made for local government’s role in parks, government is ill-suited to successfully provide parks. It is not for lack of good intentions and not even necessarily for lack of good, intelligent people. Rather it is because of a lack of good incentives or perhaps more accurately a good incentive structure.
Government doesn’t have the right feedback loop. Government actors do not have the tools they need to course correct as they make decisions. It doesn’t matter that it won’t be the same people who designed and built this park trying to run healthcare or trying to guide the financial system or trying to fight wars or trying to [insert whatever grandiose project you want government to do]. And it does not matter that there will be enormously greater resources devoted to the grandiose project; in fact that probably makes it worse.
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