Speeding up repair of small bridges might go a long way to raising perceptions of government legitimacy.
Speeding up repair of small bridges might go a long way to raising perceptions of government legitimacy.
This is a real problem for organisations that received a subsidy to build something but none for the maintenance or repair. Organisations including local government. If they take the initial subsidy they're on the hook later, one way or another.
EDIT: Isn't this really a form of how rulers gain credibility by largesse? Roman emperors would build temples, churches etc. to gain credibility with the people. Infrastructure is nothing if not expensive, so isn't rebuilding car bridges really just a case of that?
Julius Cæsar killed a third of the Gauls and gained great popularity with Romans by using the spoils. Asking a wider branch of government to tax other people in other areas to pay the expenses the local government has assumed responsibility for is much less violent. Very much less violent.
There is an appeal to tradition (we follow the same hollow rituals that our ancestors did, see the last few scenes in The Parallax View to see that mocked or the Schoolhouse Rock version of “How a bill becomes a law” for something more earnest8 or a constitution (Not that great because nobody who’s been alive for the last century has given consent.). The right in the U.S. used to think it owned the constitution but it seems to have given up on that and these pillars of legitimacy now belong mainly to the Democrats.
The right now seeks legitimacy through “we take a really extreme position and stick to our guns.”
Similar to this one, which was closed in 2006, and scheduled to be replaced in 2020 - https://lebtown.com/2019/07/26/historic-inwood-bridge-off-th...
https://www.nj.com/news/2021/04/can-this-massive-rebuild-get...
Just blatant nepotism everywhere.