Maybe after they go thru bankruptcy (see WSJ http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/08/01/central-falls-becomes-second-muni-casualty-of-2011/). The city has entered receivership and "THE FAN" of SHTF fame will be working overtime. This could be a blueprint for the inevitable wave of municipal bankruptcies being readied now.
Across the country, get ready for "realignment" and "restructuring" more corporate-style than what local governments feel they are permanently insulated from. City by city, it will be reported that city budgets have been increasing (despite howls of budget cuts, etc.), year after year, while services have been decreasing, year after year, because... the workforce is retiring in increasing numbers into collectively-bargained, sweetheart pension plans that are.... uh oh, not funded. I've witnessed this phenomenon up-close in California in sleepy li'l San Luis Obispo and now San Francisco. When will these failing machines break down and get fixed?
Let's be real. Cities have to do what they can to maintain as strong a credit rating as possible, because they WILL have to borrow more money even if their house is in order - receipts don't always match up in time with necessary expenditures. So they will pay back interest and principal on their existing bonds and other debt come hell or high water. What they will sacrifice are their biggest cost items - labor contracts and unsustainable pension provisions. What mayors and councils haven't been able to do, court-appointed receivers will.
Look for some previously unthinkable solutions to surface... receivers are business accounting and legal folks who don't owe anything to government management traditions. Could neighboring cities merge like corporations to reduce costs? Hmmm. More cities are outsourcing their services to their host counties... but that's just a partial step. Surely there will be more outsourcing to hungry private-sector operators. Services might even get a favorite private sector tactic - value pricing - good, better, best service standards with corresponding fees.
You may feel that you are not receiving much in the way of "city services" these days. You need to get ready for less service and/or higher fees. Not much can be taken for granted when your city bites the bullet and really tackles its fiscal problems. That time is here... so all the cities that say they have a bright future can at least have A future.
