Equality and the Fire Department

This post is inspired by previous posts regarding anarchism and government services, in particular the fire department.  My thanks once again to all for the interesting and thought provoking responses.

It is among many of us an article of faith that equality is a good thing, and in particular that government services should be granted either equally or with the intention of creating greater general equality.  Yet, this is almost always not the case.  Most of us believe that fire departments serve to offer all citizens equal protection from fire, and that this is a right that should be extended to all citizens equally.  But this is an excellent example of how government services indeed create inequality rather than decreasing it.  

Take the example of New York City.  Ought Bed-Stuy receive the same level of service from the FDNY as the Upper East Side?  The conventional answer is yes, naturally.  But it doesn’t work out that way, does it?  But why?

The easy answer is because the Upper East Side is filled with wealthy, well-connected residents, and Bed-Stuy is not.  Of course, Bed-Stuy does receive a plausibly decent level of FDNY coverage; it would be politically bad to do otherwise.  But this is a poor remedy, because the power of this pressure can only do so much.  Residents of Bed-Stuy are less likely than those of the Upper East Side to vote or to make political contributions.  The neighborhood of Bed-Stuy alone is not enough to sway a mayoral election or even Brooklyn Borough President.  And it is politically useful for Bed-Stuy’s representatives on the City Council to both sacrifice some community needs to curry political favor for other needs with other representatives and the Mayor, as well as useful for them to maintain Bed-Stuy’s status as being underserved by the city, so they have something to run against in the next campaign.

But the interests of politicians are only one reason why the UES is better served than Bed-Stuy by the FDNY.  Other factors come into play.  For example, residents of the UES are more likely to be insured.  Insurance companies profit most when people buy insurance but do not file claims, so they are going to lobby the city to protect the residents of neighborhoods where the highest numbers of insured people live (and where the insured property has the highest value).  The businesses of the UES are also much more profitable and valuable; UES stores such as Giorgio Armani are also very valuable, both as part of New York City’s tax base and as tourist attractions.  The tourist industry is also a major factor by itself; problems in heavily visited areas and highly visible ones are much more harmful than problems in outer boroughs.  Finally, the UES has a high number of public buildings – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick, The Museum of Natural History, the Whitney and more.  Beyond the issue that much of the contents of those museums are priceless, those properties are controlled by the city and insured by it.

This leads to a troublesome question: is it in fact the right thing to do to ensure greater fire protection to the Upper East Side compared to Bed-Stuy?  Overall, both neighborhoods have similar population densities.  But the value, both public and private, of the Upper East Side is considerably higher.  It makes sense, after a fashion, to protect more the more expensive and valuable of two resources.  Not only is such a choice clearly better for the survival and success of politicians, but also for taxpayers.  I live in the East Village, which means I will not be at risk even if both neighborhoods are destroyed.  But as a taxpayer, the cost of the Upper East Side burning will hit me much harder.  To cover those costs, either my taxes would have to go up or the services the city provides would have to decrease in cost.  While my interest in the lives and property of all New Yorkers is present in both cases, more is present in the case of the UES.

It is easy to say that my considerable concern for the lives of all residents of New York ought to trump all other concerns.  But it clearly does not do so.  Providing excellent service up to a point is something we all want.  But politics happens at the margins; the difference between excellent and very excellent is where the disparity occurs.

Most New Yorkers know about many fires in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that took place in 2005, after several engine companies of the FDNY were closed.  What is particularly interesting about these fires is the collision between suspected arson and the removal of a level of service by the FDNY.  The firefighters who attended these fires did their very best, I am sure.  But the fact remains that the residents who were burned out were generally poor, living in rent-controlled apartments in property whose value was skyrocketing with the new Atlantic Yards development as well as the real estate boom in Brooklyn.  The reality is that not only was this area unlike the UES in being an area where nearly every New Yorker had a strong interest in preventing fire damage, but an area where certain powerful and politically connected interests would gain from fire damage.

The purpose of this exercise is not to suggest that government is a source of inequality and ought to be replaced by other services.  No doubt these disparities would at the least continue or be made greater if that was the case.  But the evidence clearly indicates that in spite claims towards equal treatment, even such essential services are provided in a manner which mirrors existing inequalites, for reasons which are both value-based and simply political in nature.  Whether we hope to remedy these inequities or simply to understand how our world works, understanding the disparities and the reasons for them are essential for an informed citizenry.