The City on the Bill
The idea of providing municipal public services through competitive tendering - or “contestability” - became popular in the 1950s when cities in southern California began to recognize its inherent advantages. Now, Britain routinely uses competitive tendering at the local government level, and it is a successful facet of municipal services delivery in such big US cities as Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. These policies have produced results - the cities using them have experienced significant improvements over traditional methods in the safe and efficient delivery of government services. In the 5th paper of AIMS Urban Futures Series, Andrea Mrozek and Don McIver make the Canadian case for contestability.