The Politics of Fireworks
July 4, 2009
Auto-posted while I am in Philadelphia for Independence Day.
When I was growing up, the suburb where I lived supposedly had the best Fourth of July fireworks around; this year it will not have anything. With the economy putting many municipalities on hard times, it's not surprising that many cities and suburbs are either cutting back their fireworks budgets or canceling shows altogether.
One thing I've never quite understood about local fireworks displays is why there isn't more collaboration among municipalities. For example, why do five medium sized suburbs (say with 40,000 population each) need to organize and fund their own fireworks displays? Why don't they collaborate, pool their funds and host a single kick-ass fireworks display? The launching site for the fireworks could rotate each year or it could be based on how much the municipalities contribute to the fund.
It seems silly to have neighboring cities compete for the best fireworks shows each Fourth of July. If they collaborated, they could each spend less money and the resulting show would be superior to what each little municipality could have put together itself. In the old days, maybe there was some political value for a mayor who could lay claim to the best fireworks around. Nowadays, it seems like there would be a lot more value for a mayor who could cut the city's budget without necessarily sacrificing the quality of the Independence Day fireworks.
When I was growing up, the suburb where I lived supposedly had the best Fourth of July fireworks around; this year it will not have anything. With the economy putting many municipalities on hard times, it's not surprising that many cities and suburbs are either cutting back their fireworks budgets or canceling shows altogether.
(from Flickr user suneko)
One thing I've never quite understood about local fireworks displays is why there isn't more collaboration among municipalities. For example, why do five medium sized suburbs (say with 40,000 population each) need to organize and fund their own fireworks displays? Why don't they collaborate, pool their funds and host a single kick-ass fireworks display? The launching site for the fireworks could rotate each year or it could be based on how much the municipalities contribute to the fund.
It seems silly to have neighboring cities compete for the best fireworks shows each Fourth of July. If they collaborated, they could each spend less money and the resulting show would be superior to what each little municipality could have put together itself. In the old days, maybe there was some political value for a mayor who could lay claim to the best fireworks around. Nowadays, it seems like there would be a lot more value for a mayor who could cut the city's budget without necessarily sacrificing the quality of the Independence Day fireworks.
