Opinion: The Slippery Slope of Privatizing Public Works

In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Brett Christophers warns of the dangers of privatizing public works, writing that “The consequences for the public at large, whose well-being depends on the quality and cost of a host of infrastructure-based services, from energy to transportation, are unlikely to be positive.”

As Christophers explains, “The signature feature of the New Deal was public ownership: Even as private firms carried out many of the tens of thousands of construction projects, almost all of the new infrastructure was funded and owned publicly.” Biden’s policies, Christopher notes, are “dismantling the Rooseveltian legacy” and making space for asset management firms to step in.

“The story of asset-manager-led infrastructure investment is overwhelmingly a negative one,” Christophers cautions. Because of their focus on profit and returns, “Many users of infrastructure that has come under asset manager ownership have suffered, as service rates have risen quickly and service quality has deteriorated.”

The same has occurred in the housing market, where the United States has much more experience. In the Sun Belt, eviction rates have spiked in part due to the rise of asset-management-owned housing.