In point of fact, pollution in major cities has gone down considerably, although I have not seen figures for Sydney in particular, and I would be the first to credit pollution controls on autos and other emissions laws.

I have never said that government has no role in preventing people or companies from dumping poisonous crap in other people's yards, air, or rivers. It's a property rights issue if anything is. The problem I have with the modern environmentalists is that they now seem to equate humans changing or influencing the environment at all with "damage."

It's obvious that the author is much more concerned about social issues than environmental ones.

As for private financing, i.e. money from voluntary sources invested in worthwhile endeavors, I see no reason to view this as any kind of a negative, or feel the need to "balance" it with money taken from taxpayers.

Heck, if I were mayor of a city, and the offices and plazas and parks were getting built by private investment instead of coming out of my treasury, I'd be as happy as a clam about it.

The reason the author of the article is concerned about it is that private financers will not typically invest in the kind of social engineering "projects" the author probably tends to like. I hear a lot of this kind of thing from artists who turn out unsalable dreck, too.