Such an interesting framework on trust versus regulation, and high versus low. A classic 2x2.

I'm seeing this in my own upstate New York village, where there was a big fight over whether to build a dog park. The bottom up solution was owners letting their dogs run loose in an isolated corner of the park early in the morning. Lots of socializing, nobody was bothered, and people and dogs had fun.

The top down solution was building a fenced dog park. But county regulations required that the dog park be a certain size, which meant that it had to impinge on other uses, namely soccer fields. This set up a confrontation between soccer parents and dog owners.

After much acrimony, the dog park got built, but it is heavily regulated, locked up, and it's required that dog owners pay a fee and get a dog-park license or face high fines. Out-of-towners are barred. Posted on the gate is a list of 24 verbose rules written by lawyers.

Unsurprisingly, nobody's using the dog park. It's a double negative: It takes up space that could be used by soccer players, and it is deserted. Dog owners are returning to the ad hoc bottom up arrangement.

We had low trust and high regulation. Now there's even less trust and more regulation. Neighbors are at each other's throats and we have a white elephant sitting in the park.

Thank you, Chris, for giving me a framework through which to see sad events in my own hometown.

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