What’s an externality? My friends tell me that in the Vondelpark, a delightful reserve in central Amsterdam, it is illegal to let your dog off a leash. But it’s perfectly legal to have sex in the park, so long as it is not in view of a children’s playground. The argument is that the dog may make a mess that imposes costs on the unwary walker, while the couple imposes no costs on other park users.
I wonder which of these two actions would be more likely to be outlawed in the U.S. Implicitly, how do attitudes toward negative externalities, as expressed in city ordinances, differ between the U.S. and the Netherlands-or among other Western countries?
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Dan, not sure if I follow you.
It is perfectly legal do many things in the Vondel park. For example, to barbecue and then throw up afterward (even in sight of playing kids), to pick your nose or scratch your pants, to play a flute, to wear clogs, or to walk around carrying 200 pounds of body fat. It is even legal to smoke a cigarette.
Dogs use parks to dump poo, which is a health threat, especially when dogs mistake a children’s playground for their toilet.
Amsterdam is densely populated city where dog owners don’t collect dog-droppings but pay dog-tax instead so that the city-council can hire someone to clean up the park. The dog-poo externality is priced in!
The incidence of people having sex is low especially in Fall, Winter and Lent, but it may rise a bit because of global warming, or drop a bit as demographics and attitudes are taking a more coy direction.
I think it’s pretty clear, you’d more likely to step in dog doo doo than you are on a pair of naked people having a good time. Even if you do step on the end result of said good time chances are it won’t stink up the elevator when you get to work.
“while the couple imposes no costs on other park users”
It depends on what you consider a cost.
It is very possible that the cost to a person walking in the park and coming upon a couple doing a lunchtime quickie is a lot more than the cost of a brown spot of grass or a stinky smell stuck to their shoes.
Unless they’re porn stars and putting on a great show, I would MUCH rather step in a dozen piles of dog poo than walk up on a couple of people getting it on in a park. Most people are ugly without clothes, and sex isn’t a pretty sight except when it’s choreographed with beautiful people. (I count myself among the ugly-without-clothes category, too.)
We’d stand a better chance of colonizing Mars before the puritanical hypocrites here in the states would allow such a thing.
That is hilarious. A friend and I backpacked through Europe a few years back and when we were in Amsterdam we got lost, but knew our hotel was right next to Vondelpark, so as we wandered we kept asking people to direct us to Vondelpark. We kept getting odd looks and vague waves of the hand and after a while we really started to wonder why. One guy even furrowed his brow and asked “Why do you guys want to go THERE?” Finally we met a man who cheerfully pointed us in the right direction and one of us asked him why such strange behavior from all the other people we had asked.
“Oh, Vondelpark is where homosexuals go to have sex at night.”
Oh, well that would explain it.
@2 You make think it’s sensible, but I’d rather step in dog poop than witness people having sex in a park (sadly, both have happened to me).
In general I think it’s a bad idea to have dogs running around where people are having sex. You don’t want the dogs licking or biting something inappropriate, you don’t want to take the chance of landing in dog poop (kills the mood), and you CERTAINLY don’t want the dogs to think they’re welcome to start participating.
Well…the couple may be disturbed by the dogs. Rule makes perfect sense!