Let's begin with a syllogism: 

A normal person doesn't notice curb cuts. 

I notice curb cuts.

Therefore, I'm not normal.

Please keep the foregoing in mind as you read the rest of this.

On my daily walk this morning, I once again noticed that parks, streets, and other public places in my hometown of Scottsdale, Ariz., are not as well-maintained they as used to be.  That's a red flag for a city of 230,000 that is largely dependent on tourism and on winter residents who have second homes here.

Do normal people notice such deterioration?

I also observed large, expensive projects underway to cut away curbs and sidewalks at intersections for the pouring of sloped concrete to make crosswalks more wheelchair accessible. The work included the installation of dimpled rubber pads, which, I assume, are designed to alert blind people that they are about to step into the street.

I've lived here for over 25 years and have never seen one blind person or one wheelchair-bound person on a sidewalk, let alone one crossing a street.  Not one.

Granted, there is a double-amputee in my neighborhood whom I see and speak with quite often.  But even he doesn't use a wheelchair on the sidewalk.  Instead, he rides a hand-cranked, three-wheeled trike in bike lanes for exercise.  (My mom is also wheelchair-bound.)

So, not being normal, I wondered this morning why the city is spending money on curb cuts instead of general maintenance.  Even in the highly unlikely event that a wheelchair-bound person needed to go from a sidewalk to a street, the person could do so just 15 feet from where the curbing is being cut, because at that point the steep curbing turns into curved curbing that can easily be crossed in a wheelchair. 

Other questions floated through my mind:  Is government capable of making tradeoffs?  Does it conduct cost-benefit analyses?  Is the city doing this on its own or is it obeying some federal mandate?  What special interests will make money from this?  If a member of the city council were to come out against this waste of money, could the politician ever be reelected in the face of an opponent or interest group accusing him of being hardhearted?

The answer to these questions can be found in the political/economic theory known as concentrated benefits and dispersed costs—or why special interests can get stuff from the government at the expense of everyone else.  

Typically, the special interest will be more determined, better organized, more vocal, better financed, more focused, and more skilled at working the levers of government and media than the general population.  This applies to advocacy groups for the disabled, to trade associations for cement companies and sidewalk contractors, and to tens of thousands of other interest groups at the municipal, state and federal levels of government across the country.

For the average bloke to fight just one of these interest groups, he would have to organize a counter-group with as much political power, media influence, and funding as the opposing group.  Who the hell would be willing to do this to stop the city from wasting money on curb cuts?

The average block is even more powerless to stop large and powerful interest groups at the national level from getting some benefit from the government and dispersing the cost across all taxpayers.  Consider what it would take to overcome teachers unions, AARP, or organized crony capitalists.

More than anything else, the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs explains why government is so big, why deficit spending is the norm, why politics is so bitter, and why reversing the nation's course is so impossible.  Curb cuts are just a tiny symptom of a much larger problem.

My morning walk ended as it usually does, with me asking myself why I'm so abnormal.  Why do I notice things like curb cuts but normal people don't?  What goes through the minds of normal people as they drive or walk by construction sites where perfectly good sidewalks and curbs are being jackhammered?  What are they thinking about?  Lunch?  Sex?  Bills?  Their job?  By contrast, why am I thinking about tradeoffs, cost-benefit analyses, and concentrated benefits and dispersed costs?

Maybe I need psychotherapy.  If so, maybe AARP or the American Medical Association can get taxpayers to pick up the tab.