Government planning is susceptible to two interesting of challenges, one for small projects, one for big ones.
In small efforts, there is the tendency to expect a role or say in the modest, readily comprehensible effort.
For example, suppose a restaurant wanted to put a sign up. It’s not hard to understand a project like that, and because everyone can understand a sign, so suddenly everyone wants a say in it. How big, what color, how many colors, what design?
A small public project that requires official approval is a prime target for everyone’s petty say. Did you want blue for the lettering on your sign? What shade of blue, exactly? It’s tempting to ask a question like that, and expect an answer, from the owner and designer of the sign. It’s tempting because it’s easy to comprehend and question the project.
There’s an expression for that sort of question: “What color is the bike shed?” from C.N. Parkinson, author of Parkinson’s Law.
Many are tempted to meddle in a small project like a bike shed. (One odd aspect of the bike shed problem – Parkinson described the meddlesome tendency, but never addressed color in his original example.)
In big projects, like vast hydroelectric plants, the scale and complexity is intimidating, so public officials initially avoid trying to direct the details of design. Instead, they cooperate with special interests with knowledge of ways to benefit from the intricacies of funding a large public project. No one asks about small details; legislators and lobbyists unite covertly to make sure that their interests are protected in funding the public effort. Shades of blue don’t matter, so long as the painting contract goes to someone in Legislator X’s district.
Over time, that may change, as maintenance funding of the project may present opportunities for new hordes of lobbyists, who may seek to expand the original design for their own benefit.
In private projects, the risks of these tendencies are less. A society that doesn’t regulate a small restaurant’s sign specifications is a less meddlesome one. The restaurateur creates his own sign, and no one pesters him.
A company that funds a large project privately without legislative interference is better shielded from legislators and lobbyists who see the public project as a common, public trough from which they will be gorge themselves.
Discussions like this are available at the Cato Institute’s blog, and over at the Volokh Conspiracy, a group blog of law professors, economists, and others.
Blog names may sound odd, but that shouldn’t put you off – plunge in and swim around.