26 3.3 – LARGE-SCALE RESOURCE COORDINATION
- LARGE-SCALE RESOURCE COORDINATION
Government action is required in the provision of resources that would not otherwise be available to the general population. The construction of the U.S. interstate highway system would have been unimaginable without the vast economic resources available to federal and state governments. Federal and state funding for public universities enables a larger percentage of the general public to have access to secondary education. Publicly funded hospitals allow state and local governments to increase the public’s access to healthcare, especially in rural areas. Publicly funded sewage systems, water treatment facilities, water drainage infrastructure, and public health regulations are all examples of government actions that, in general, are not efficiently provided by private actors (McClain and Tauber, 2016).
A number of examples exist of times when the vast resources of national and state governments make them the only actors in the policy process that have the ability to act in the public’s interest. Natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, and tsunamis are responsible for unimaginable levels of destruction to public and private property that often cost billions of dollars to repair. More important than the financial costs associated with natural disasters is the expedited effort required to rescue the survivors of such incidents. Often, national/state/local governments are the only actors with the resources available to coordinate large scale disaster relief efforts.
