I referred to non-profit local government work, that is obviously a wrong formulation, since many local government functions are privatised, semi-privatised or contracted out to private enterprise. It is just that where I worked, it was mainly non-profit.
Local government agencies often have low social status, but when people no longer get the public services they take for granted (as if they had arrived naturally in the built environment, for people to use, consume and exploit), they start to scream and yell and suddenly rediscover social interdependence. I gather it is a real issue now in New York as well, reflecting the trend to privatise relentlessly, then running into budget problems, and then trying in various ways to recover incomes through various tax hikes. J.
