Boo Hoo

The left is reacting to Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's efforts to stabilize parks funding through public-private partnerships with their usual "The Sky is Falling" rallying cry.

They're freaking out that every park will be cluttered with a Starbucks and that green space will be developed at an alarming rate.

Of course, this in not what Walker proposes. He's seeking ways to allow some commercial interests access to marginal areas of park land in exchange for revenue which will help the county parks system thrive.

Some, like Seth, bemoan the possible loss of wide swathes of open public space where dirty hippie types and others can congregate.

...But let's just entertain Walker's dream for a moment and imagine the best case scenario: the Milwaukee County Parks are transformed in the image of
Central Park.

What exactly does that entail?

In the 1970s, NewYork City hit upon tough financial times in much the same way Milwaukee County is facing a fiscal crisis today. The public service that felt the brunt of the budgetary troubles in New York was the parks, just like here in Milwaukee today. As a result, Central Park suffered,full-time employees were axed, seasonal work crews were cut, supplies went unordered, maintenance went undone, trash wasn't picked up (any of these cuts sound familiar?). Suffice to say, Central Park largely went into the toilet during the 1970s.

At the end of the 1970s, an influential group convinced the city to privatize as a means for revitalizing Central Park. In 1980, the non-profit Central Park Conservancy was formed to manage Central Park privately under contract with the city. To make a long story short, the park was revitalized to its current form under the control of the Conservancy, which generated funds through individual, corporate, and charitable foundation donations. All in all, the Conservancy has raised over $300 million to date.

Through the revitalization, Central Park has rebuilt many of its monumental treasures, established two successful upscale restaurants, and hosted hundreds of youth and community programs each year. All good, right? Not completely.

Before the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, Central Park was a flourishing public park that served as the site for numerous oppositional political and social movements. Women suffrage activists met there in the early twentieth century, gay and lesbian activists used the park to march as part of their liberation movement in the 1960s, and numerous love-ins' 'be-ins,' and 'fat-ins' took place in Central Park during the sixties to challenge conventional norms in a public venue.

Since the Conservancy took over in 1980, however, public meetings such as these have not taken place. Instead there are fences surrounding green spaces and rules regulating noise levels and activities. The effect is that the number of places in New York City to meet publicly for political purposes or to challenge social norms has severely decreased since Central Park was privatized.

Wow. That evil Scott Walker. He's trying save the parks, but only to squelch the free speech rights of liberal activists.

I hear he loves animals but eats puppies for breakfast, too.

And how long before someone on the left whines that I just called suffragists dirty hippies????