Fred Foldvary

Private Urban Communities

Spencer Heath originated the concept of the proprietary community in his 1936 manuscript Politics versus Proprietorship.

Heath was influenced by the 19th-century American economist Henry George, who had written that a city could finance its service from its land rent.

Heath took that concept in another direction.

He said that entrepreneurs could develop proprietary communities which would be funded from the increased rentals that the goods and services would generate.

In his book Citadel, Market, and Altar, published in 1957,

Heath described the hotel as a community with functions similar to city governments.

A hotel is an organized community with services such as policing, water, lighting, transportation, streets and parks (corridors and the lobby).

The word "hotel" comes from the French term for a large house or town hall. Hotel service was started in the early 1800s.

These common services are not charged individually but from the rental that the guests pay.

The rentals are subject to market supply and demand, unlike typical city sales and building taxes.

If the hotel owners do not provide good service, demand will decline and he will get less rental income.

So the interest of the management is in harmony with the interests of the guests.

The site rent provides a measure of the successful functioning of a community.

Pathology is signaled by declining rent.

In large real-estate complexes, the owners and managers provide administration and coordination that are more flexible and market-oriented than zoning and typical land-use laws.

These ideas were carried further by the grandson of Spencer Heath MacCallum,

Spencer MacCallum.

Since World War II, real estate has been developed that features a unified ownership and administration of landed communities.

Examples include shopping centers, mobile home parks, medical centers, marinas, mobile home parks, and large multi-purpose complexes.

These all finance services from market rentals.

In contrast, in the viewpoint of Spencer MacCallum, state and local governments finance their activities by, as he says, cannibalizing society, with taxes on productive activity.

In his book The Art of Community, 1970,

MacCallum presents the proprietary community as resolving the problems of free riding and transfer seeking.

Proprietary communities combine market and government.

Unlike city governments, private communities are organized by contract.

The two basic types are proprietary communities with a single owner, and civic associations.

A civic association consists of a contract among co-owners to own collective property and provide common services.

A residential community association (RCA) primarily services homeowners and their tenants.

They typically have a master deed and bylaws.

Other forms include co-ops, land trusts, and condominiums.

In a co-op, the members own equity shares, but each member has one vote.

A member has rights of occupancy to a unit, but the co-op owns it and the board must approve any new resident.

In a condominium, the member has a title to his unit and owns a share or fraction of the common facilities.

In the residential association, the association owns the common facilities, and the member only has title to his own unit.

These civic associations operate like local governments, except that they have explicit contracts, and the members are all legally equal. There is no legal immunity for the board members.

Civic associations seem like governments internally, but act like private enterprises externally.

New members have a choice of communities, and supply and demand determine the market for communities.

Competition can also provide for greater product variety, various types of communities such as for retirement.

The earliest known civic associations were in London in the mid 1700s.

Lord Leicester established a park in Leicester Square, and adjacent property owners agreed to an assessment to fund it, which benefitted them by increasing their property values.

Another private community in Great Britain was Victoria Park, near Manchester, which was laid out in 1837 and operated privately until 1954.

The sale of its lots carried with it "certain conditions, the 'laws' of the Park, which would protect its amenities".

Besides annual "rates," Victoria Park levied tolls on some of its roads.

In 1775, the British writer Thomas Spence wrote about the concept of assembling landed property and letting it out on leaseholds.

In the US, in 1898, Ebenezer Howard developed a theory of civic associations in his book Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path To Real Reform.

The second edition was entitled Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902).

The basic idea was a "voluntary plan of public finance" using leaseholds of land:

One essential feature of the plan is that all ground rents,

based upon the annual value of the land,

shall be paid to the trustees, who, after providing for interest and sinking fund,

will hand the balance to the Central Council of the new municipality,

to be employed by such Council in the creation and maintenance

of all necessary public works, such as roads, schools, parks."

Howard envisioned combining the qualities of city and country environments. He wrote: "Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together...

Town and country must be married".

The architecture of the garden city would be varied,

but there would be a "general observance of street line or harmonious departure from it,"

over which the municipal authority would have control.

The town would have a unity of design, planned as a whole.

There would be a cluster of towns around a central city.

To the lease holders, the town would issue a prospectus indicating the scope of operations.

A Board of Management, elected by leaseholders, would govern the city.

The extent of town services would be limited by the willingness of leaseholders to pay the rents. Howard envisioned charitable institutions sponsored by public-spirited residents.

Some communities in the United States such as Arden village and the Reston Association

have implemented Howard's plan to a remarkable degree.

Arden is an intentional community.

Howard's primary goal was the reform of economic arrangements

rather than mere architectural innovation.

The "Garden City" was to be a model for a large-scale reform of society.

His emphasis was on the city rather than the garden,

with a view towards decentralizing government.

Likewise, Heath and MacCallum had economy-wide reforms in mind,

with the proprietary community a building block

as well as prototype of institutional innovations.

Howard recognized two camps of reformers:

those who advocated increased production and greater efficiency,

and those who urged a more equitable distribution of wealth.

The "Garden City" approach merged both goals, in Howard's view.

The greater reform envisioned by Howard, Heath, and MacCallum would involve a decentralization of governance to the neighborhood level.

Private communities would then federate into local groups.

These would then federate into higher level associations, on up to the national level.

Early examples of developments with RCAs in the U.S.A. are Louisburg Square in Boston

and Gramercy Park in New York City, both established in the early 1800s.

Louisburg Square, established in 1828, was the first homeowners association in the U.S.,

made up of townhouses.

In St. Louis, neighborhoods with privately-owned streets were developed within the city.

By the end of the 1800s, developers were incorporating RCAs into deeds to support common areas and maintain architectural standards.

In 1891, for example, an RCA organized in conjunction with a 1230-acre development by Edward G. Boulton in Baltimore provided water, roads, and sewers.

The first housing cooperative in the U.S. was established in New York City in 1918,

and the first condominium, The Greystoke, was constructed in Salt Lake City in 1962 (Community Associations Factbook, 1988).

Large-scale development began to replace lot-by-lot subdivisions during the 1960s.

During the 1970s, RCAs were mainly in California, New York,

and Florida, but since then they have spread throughout the country.

There are over 130,000 residential community associations in the United States.

In 1960 there were fewer than 5000.

These contractual communities affect some 25-30 million persons.

Of these RCAs, 54% are organized as condominiums, 5% as housing cooperatives,

and 41% are under homeowner associations (HOAs), also called residential associations.

Over half of the RCAs are in townhouse and low-rise developments.

Community associations make up more than 50% of the market share of new home sales in the 50 largest metropolitan areas.

In California, nearly all new residential developments create RCAs.

RCAs may currently constitute the most significant privatization of public goods in terms of its substitution for government operations.

RCAs were once largely limited to retirement, luxury, and resort developments,

but are now available to all income levels.

The growth and success of community associations

also turns the market-failure argument for public goods on its head.

Members of RCAs are required to pay taxes for municipal services whether or not they provide local private substitutes.

In addition, the amortization funds and the common property of RCAs have been subject to property and income taxation.

RCA members pay local government property taxes for similar services received by other homeowners, but not by the community association residents.

The use of RCAs enables developers to offer cost savings relative to autonomous housing.

By clustering and stacking units, developers reduce construction costs per unit and make more efficient use of land.

Clusters save costs in building streets and utilities, leave more open space, and facilitate the production of an environment and amenities beyond that which local government officials wish to provide and maintain.

Local governments benefit as well by receiving tax revenues without having to supply and maintain the infrastructure.

Moreover, RCA owners pay a property tax on any higher land values that are due to their own services.

Since the association assessments are not currently deductible from income taxes,

the federal government and some state governments also benefit from the substitution of privately provided services for those paid from tax-deductible sources.

Among the facilities operated by RCAs are swimming pools (69%), a community meeting place (46%), tennis courts (41%), playground (28%), park or nature area (20%), exercise facility (17%), lakes (16%), and golf courses (4%). Services offered include landscaping (94%), exterior building maintenance (82%), parking (79%), garbage removal (74%), water and sewerage (68%), private streets (62%), sidewalk maintenance (59%), exterior lighting (56%), passive security (39%), and active security and protection (33%).

All RCAs provide rules enforcement.

Many RCAs, especially the larger ones, hire a professional manager or management company.

Contrary to the practice of many sovereign governments,

which issue debt to finance capital goods and projects or even operating expenses,

it is typical for many RCAs to have a reserve fund for future repairs and other capital goods.

Since the capital stock is being consumed, i.e. depreciates,

it is economically appropriate for that consumption to be funded concurrently.

The annual placement of funds into a reserve account

is not an arbitrary savings account for funds left over after expenses

but a payment for an annual expense that accrues.

Associations are reported as paying 58% of what governments would spend for similar police services, and 70% of similar sovereign expenditures for street maintenance.

One factor accounting for the less efficient government service is

the independent civil service, which is less responsive to the residents.

A case study.

Walt Disney World, the world-famous resort, is a proprietary community, a corporation running a retail community and transient residential communities. It is also noteworthy in having influenced the design of other communities, and it offers an example of proprietary autonomy.

The Walt Disney World destination resort (WDW), located southeast of Orlando, Florida, has an area of 45 square miles (29,000 acres), about equal in size to San Francisco.

When it opened in 1971, it was the largest and most expensive tourist attraction ever built (Zehnder, 1975, p. 2).

The territory encompasses a contiguous though irregularly-shaped tract of land in both Orange and Osceola counties.

The developed part is mostly in Orange Country; half the Disney land in Osceola County is leased for cattle and timber (Allen, 1989, p. 17).

The site includes a permanent wildlife conservation area of 8200 acres.

The three principle tourist attractions are the Magic Kingdom Park,

with 107 acres; EPCOT Center, 260 acres;

and the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park, 135 acres.

Over 5000 acres of the resort have been developed.

During the peak tourist season, total employment is about 35,000 (Facts & Figures, 1987, p. 1). There were 30 million visits in 1989, up to 150,000 visitors per day,

three-quarters of them adults.

WDW calls the visitors "guests," as a hotel would.

About 70% of the guests are return customers.

Half of the revenues and two-thirds of the operating profits of The Walt Disney Company

derive from its theme parks (Kerwin and Fins, 1990),

which also include Disneyland, and others, such as Tokyo Disneyland, and Euro Disneyland.

The Magic Kingdom Park, the heart of WDW, opened in 1971

and contains Main Street and 43 attractions within six other theme "lands":

The park is designed so that at any of the lands, one has the feeling of being in one specific environment - each is visually closed off from the others (Sehlinger, 1991, p. 166).

The resort facilities also include three golf courses, pools and lakes, boating, a nighttime entertainment complex, a shopping village, a conference center, and campgrounds.

The Walt Disney World Village Office Plaza, at Interstate 4, contains 100,000 square feet of office space (Facts and Figures, 1990).

The development of WDW

To avoid holdouts as well as to keep the land prices in the area from escalating,

Walt Disney had by 1964 acquired the land in small parcels using various holding companies, subsidiary corporations such as the Buena Vista Land Company.

"Using middlemen, stealth and more than 100 dummy corporations, he went on a secret land-buying spree near Orlando, paying about $400 an acre" (Allen, 1989, p. 13).

Disney's father had unsuccessfully tried to raise cattle and grow oranges in that same central Florida area before moving to the midwest (ibid.).

One reason for including so much land, much more than is currently developed or held for conservation, is to create a buffer zone and avoid the motels, fast-food stores, and unsightly neon cacophony that developed around Disneyland in California (Clark, 1973).

These developments are in part substitutes for goods sold in Disneyland, and the haphazard ugliness contrasts with the carefully planned image that WDW seeks to invoke.

Hence, Disney is able to control the immediate environment around its theme parks.

Disney officials also learned from Disneyland that they would profit

from owning the land surrounding the theme parks,

which would rise in value due to the business the parks would attract.

Having obtained the land, Disney now needed self-government to fulfill his vision for WDW as a proprietary community.

On November 15, 1965, Disney representatives met with government officials at Orlando to discuss zoning and other laws, Disney's commitment being contingent on reaching an agreement (Zehnder, 1975, p. 43).

The governor of Florida assured Disney of his cooperation (p. 63).

The circuit court approved the request for a separate drainage district that included the WDW land and a few other small lots (p. 71).

Roy Disney, Walt's brother, stated,

"We must have a solid legal foundation before we can proceed with Disney World.

This foundation can be assured by the legislative proposals we are presenting to the next session of the Florida legislature" (p. 87).

The Reedy Creek Drainage District (RCDD) was formed in May 1966 under Chapter 298 of the Florida code, "Drainage and Water Control."

The Disney Company proposed an improvement district that would assume the functions of the drainage district, enabling WDW as landowner to control the environment and construction.

In 1967, Florida enacted Chapter 67-764 (House Bill No. 486) for the benefit of the Walt Disney Corporation, radically transforming the governance of the Reedy Creek Drainage District.

The new law, changing it from a "Drainage District" to an "Improvement District," "abrogated nearly all state laws" concerning building and development (Berliner, 1978, p. 4).

The RCID law combined features of different Florida district acts into one "powerful entity."

The District's 180 workers are civil servants. Its $20 million annual operating budget is funded mainly from taxes which Disney pays to the District (De George, 1988, p. 49).

The District has control over water, waste disposal, airport facilities, transportation, public utilities, and roads - the civic goods normally provided by cities and counties.

The District is governed by five supervisors who serve four-year terms.

The law specifies that all board members be owners of land within the district,

thereby providing for proprietary governance of a sovereign-authorized district.

The board members are elected at annual meetings of the landowners.

Each landowner is entitled to one vote, which may be by written proxy, for every acre or major fraction of an acre owned.

In fact, the Walt Disney Corporation (WDC) owns 98% of the land in the District,

thereby controlling the Board.

The Corporation has "routinely sold" to employees and other associates land within the District "on the understanding that the land must be deeded back when such a person stops being Supervisor" (Berliner, 1978, p. 5).

The District boundaries match the land owned by WDW, so that governing the District is tantamount to governing WDW (p. 9).

WDW provides a mass transit system, garbage disposal, a wildlife preserve,

and "no pollution to speak of."

In sovereign cities, garbage is stuffed into cans by the residents, placed outside, and then taken to dumps or incinerators by trucks.

WDW faces the same problem of garbage disposal, but as a for-profit organization, it "bears the burden" of its customers' displeasure at the sights and smells of the garbage.

These are not externalities at WDW; being internalized, the displeasure reduces the revenue. Besides fewer fees from the theme parks, the unpleasantness induces less shopping, and "the rent which Disney Corporation can charge will be reduced" (p. 29).

The WDW garbage disposal system uses pneumatic tubes that take the refuse to a disposal plant. Its monetary cost is probably higher than conventional disposal would be, but WDW has evidently also taken into account the social costs of the alternative, making the pneumatic system the preferred approach.

Under a sovereign government, residents provide some private preventive protection, such as extinguishers and fire-resistant materials, but they rely on the government to deal with fires.

WDW has installed sprinklers in all its buildings, which provide more immediate protection.

Walt Disney World is well known for its clean environment.

"Maintenance is performed so promptly that nothing is dirty or in disrepair".

The mission to conserve part of the area in its natural state may provide indirect benefits for the corporate image and utility to the owners, and it may reduce outside environmental regulation.

The conservation area includes wetlands and a stand of virgin cypress.

One stated goal is to demonstrate that development can be achieved without disturbing the ecology of the adjacent areas (Zehnder, 1975, pp. 155-6).

This includes a program of building new wetlands for wildlife disturbed by construction (Bloch, 1991, p. 32). However, environmental preservation has an opportunity cost, limiting its extent. Aside from the designated conservation area, the undeveloped land has been stripped of its native vegetation and bulldozed into a "giant empty greenbelt" (Allen, 1989, p. 14), making the monuments of the park visible from afar.

As the District law indicates, WDW was to use innovative technology, and it takes pride in its high-tech civic goods. The resort has the first commercial all-fiber-optics telephone system in the U.S. and the world's first completely electronic telephone company, Vista-United Telecommunications, a Disney partnership ("Prototype," 1987). The Digital Animation Control System (DACS) coordinates the hundreds of Audio-Animatronics puppets in the Magic Kingdom. DACS sends signals to the puppets, controlling their voices and gestures as well as stage lifts, doors, lighting and curtains. WDW has a computerized central monitoring system, the Automatic Monitoring and Control System (AMCS), for its utilities, which are operated in a 9.5-acre basement under the park into which trucks can drive.

As Levy described, pneumatic tubes collect solid waste. The tubes, a Swedish system named the Automatic Vacuum Collecting System (AVAC), speed the garbage to a central collecting area at 60 miles pe hour, where the trash is compacted and trucked to be burned. The incinerator plant uses wet scrubbers to avoid pollution. Waste water is recycled for irrigation; it is fed into ponds where water hyacinths absorb the nutrients left after initial treatment. The energy plan includes a waste heat recovery system. The sprinkler system is tied into the AMCS, and use of sprinklers in all buildings reduces the extent and cost of the fire-fighting department. The Dynamic Economic Energy Dispatch System (DEEDS) compares several energy-generating options at the Reedy Creek Utilities Company Central Energy Plant and selects the most cost- effective methods. High-voltage electric power is monitored by computer for WDW, a system "more sophisticated than those in most current municipal uses" ("Prototype," 1987). The photovoltaic power system atop the pyramid-shaped "Universe of Energy" building at EPCOT is the largest privately-funded solar power system in the world.

The exemption from building codes has enabled WDW to use innovative methods and building materials, as proposed in the Charter. WDW built what was at the time the tallest reinforced masonry building in the United States, namely the TraveLodge motel, 16 stories high. No code in the U.S. would have allowed such a building over 12 stories (De Michael, 1973, p. 61). As a result of its freedom to innovate, the Disney Company has become a premier patron of architecture, commissioning works by major architects. Recent constructions include hotels at WDW and an administrative building at Lake Buena Vista. (Previous to the administration of Chairman Michael Eisner in 1984, Disney buildings had been designed in-house.) As one example of innovation, the core of the Team Disney office building at Lake Buena Vista is an open cylinder fastened with a 74-foot beam at the rim, forming one of the world's largest sundials (Andersen, 1991, p. 66).

WDW has made extensive use of its power to provide for innovative transportation. Services, many provided with admission to the parks and hotels, include four monorail trains (13.7 miles of beamway), ferryboats, motor launches, trams, 123 busses, and water taxis. The resort contains 125 miles of paved roads. WDW has what it calls the "fifth largest Navy in the world," with over 750 watercraft. The Mark IV Monorail system links several parks and resorts using 250-passenger trains, moving 80,000 passengers per day. To service air transport, there is a STOLport for short take-offs and landings. As Levy notes, much of the ground transportation is not specifically charged for, being included in the general fees; the marginal price paid by a user is zero.

Foot traffic has also been attended to. On Main Street, the sidewalks are paved with a resilient asphalt, which keeps legs from aching, and there are places to sit (Zehnder, 1975, p. 259).

The residential land of Arden is owned by a non-profit trust which collects the site rent from the leaseholds, the buildings being owned separately by individuals. The rent is then used by the community, governed by majority vote, to finance its civic goods. The trust also pays the state property taxes, including taxes on the buildings, so that the owners pay a charge independent of the value of their improvements. The site rent is also used to pay the expenses of the trust. Since only some of the economic land rent is collected by the trust, the rest is retained by the leaseholders, giving the sites positive site values much as occurs with fee simple land titles.

Since each leaseholder contracts with the trust for a leasehold, Arden is a contractual community, its civic goods provided by a market process, as defined in Chapter 5.

Historical background of Arden

The following history is instructive for the market-failure proposition, because it reveals that not only was government of the sovereign type not needed for the provision of the Arden civic goods, but that in fact it impaired the contractual nature of the community and stifled its local provision of civic goods. Unlike other intentional communities, the history of Arden also shows that this model works for a population not necessarily ideologically committed to that model.

Arden was founded in 1900 by followers of Henry George who wanted to build a model community which would test George's theory of public finance. George (1890, p.1) had proposed implementing his theory of funding public goods from land rent by reforming the tax system: "We propose to abolish all taxes save one single tax levied on the value of land, irrespective of the value of the improvements in or on it." During 1895-6, some of George's followers from nearby Philadelphia had campaigned in the Delaware election to elect officials favorable to the single-tax concept. Delaware had only 40,000 voters and was nearby. They sought to have the state adopt the system, hoping that others would follow a successful model.

But the officials of Delaware resisted this "invasion," arresting over 20 of the speakers. The project backfired. Not only did the campaigners obtain only 3% of the vote in 1896, but in 1897, Delaware reacted to the campaign with a constitutional amendment preventing the legislature from enacting such a tax system (Wynn, 1965, p. 16; Wiencek, 1992, p. 128).

Two of the campaigners, Frank Stephens, a sculptor, and Will Price, an architect, then set out to found a settlement to demonstrate that a town could be operated with this system. The community trustees would implement the "single tax" by collecting the community's land rent to provide for the community's goods.

Price and Stephens bought an abandoned farm containing 162 acres for $9000, of which $6500 was financed by a mortgage from Joseph Fels, a Philadelphia soap manufacturer and adherent of George's ideas (Wynn, 1965, p. 21-2). The rolling hill country looked to them like the beautiful woodlands of Warwickshire, England, site of the Arden Forest in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Stephens and other George-adherents had used Shakespeare's plays as practice for their oratory for campaigns. They founded the town and named it "Arden" in 1900, and the community has kept alive the memory of its origins ever since. "Founders Day" in May is still celebrated as an "Arden Day" holiday, and the Shakespeare legacy been retained. Stephens built an open-air theater to present Shakespearean plays, performed by the Arden residents. The tradition is carried on by the Players Gild, and the theater, now called the Frank Stephens Memorial Theater, is still in use for weddings and memorial services. Also, in 1930 a barn in Ardentown was refashioned into a "Robin Hood Theatre" and is still used.

The original Deed of Trust of 1901 gave the three trustees (Price, Stephens, and Frank Martin, another Philadelphian) a high level of control over the community's operation and the assessment of the leaseholds. It was, though non-profit, a proprietary community. But then, to attract more residents, the Trustees altered the community's Deed of Trust in 1908, providing for assessors elected by the residents and limiting the powers of the trustees, and new leases were drawn up.

This was the beginning of a shift towards ever more democratic control over the governance, and it demonstrates the proclivity towards democratic governance common in contractual residential communities where the residents have site-specific investments, for the same reasons that citizens prefer a democracy over a dictatorship. Even though a single member has little control over the governance, the ability of a majority to overturn the leadership is regarded as a check against arbitrary power, not present under a non-elected governance. Perhaps stronger constitutional constraints against site exploitation may have reduced the desire for democracy. At any rate, the case of Arden as well as other contractual communities is consistent with this proposition: Contractual communities tend to have a democratic governance unless the assets owned by the residents is mobile, or the site-specific investment is fungible or guaranteed by the management. Entry and exit are key elements of a market process, and where the exit of one's assets is too uncertain, the exit (replacement) of the governors is a substitute, however imperfect.

Article I, Section 10, of the U.S. Constitution states that "No State shall ... pass any ... Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts..." The Trustees had entered into a contract with each leaseholder, by which terms the Trustees had the authority to set the rent, as with any landlord. But in 1935, despite the Constitutional provision, the government of Delaware impaired the contracts between the trustees and the leaseholders.

In 1934, the Assessors made a second 10% reduction in rentals, and the Trustees rejected this recommendation. The dispute was brought before the Delaware Chancery Court, which determined that the Trustees must delegate their authority to the Town Meeting and elected Board of Assessors. The reasoning of the Court was that "This is a charitable trust. Courts are disposed to greater liberality in dealing with trusts of that character than with trusts of a purely private nature." Furthermore, the leases left the holders in a "state of uncertainty and insecurity and the potential victims of the arbitrary will of the trustees in the matter of future rental obligations" (Court, 1935, pp. 18-20).

The 14th Amendment requires "the equal protection of the laws," and the language of the U.S. Constitution does not specify any different treatment for charitable trusts. Moreover, any tenant is subject to the "arbitrary will" of a landlord when a lease is renewed or if it allows the landlord to set the rent. He should know this when he commits the constitutional act of signing a lease agreement. The will of a landlord may be arbitrary, but his ability to set rent is not, since too high a rent will leave him without tenants.

However, the site-specificity of the leaseholders' investments in buildings at Arden reduced their exit option and led to the lawsuit. The founders failed to recognize this principle and enact safeguards (as MacCallum (1977) does in his rules for Orbis) for the leaseholders' investments. This was a constitutional failure.

The State of Delaware by this Court ruling effectively transformed Arden from a proprietary community owned by an outside corporation, like Walt Disney World, into a democratic civic association such as a condominium, although the Trust remained as the legal holder of the land title and the collector of the rent.

In Walt Disney World, legal autonomy gave a private corporation the chance to demonstrate that the private provision of civic goods is feasible and successful. The proposition that the provision of residential civic goods requires a public sector was turned on its head with this court decision; rather than public goods requiring government, government prevented the proprietary provision of the goods.