Question

Suppose that a city mayor proposes to pay for the construction of public parks by implementing a 10-year local sales tax. Some residents argue that the financing mechanism should instead be spread out over many more years, noting that a person who moves in 11 years from now would get to enjoy the parks but under the current proposal wouldn't pay for them. How should the mayor respond to this concern from the residents? PROVIDE CLEAR EXPLANATION

Answer 1

The city mayor proposes to build a park and he wants that to financed by a 10-year local sales tax. However, some people want such a tax to spread for more than 10 years as they are concerned that anyone moving in after 10 years will enjoy the benefit for free. This concern of some residents is ideally correct but rationally illogical.
Some goods in economics are considered public goods and parks are one of that. Public goods are goods or services such as national defense or street-lights which are provided by the government for a greater well being of the society. These are non-excludable which means it is free for all to use and a person or group can not be excluded from its usage even if he is not paying for that. Public goods are not paid by people directly and produced from the collective tax which a user may or may not be paying. However, this can not be the basis of usage policy.

The residents who are arguing about this are completely missing the point of public goods and if such an argument is accepted then it will create exclusivity for such goods which is impossible to justify and even maintain. For example, if a resident of this city moves to another city which has cleaner air. This is because the residents and local bodies in that city are environmentally aware and have planted many trees then they can oppose a new resident because he is getting a fresh and healthy environment without doing anything for that.
Public goods are for the general public and it should remain that way for the greater well being of the society.