Public Goods and the Free Rider Problem
If you want a perfect example of the problem of the provision of public goods and the free rider problem, look no further than yesterday's Oregonian:
"Clackamas County voters likely to decide Sellwood Bridge fee; rejection could doom project"
By the way, if you want a clear indication of how pathetic OregonLive is as a web portal for The Oregonian, go there and type 'Sellwood Bridge' in to their own search box and see what you get. You would expect a list of articles, beginning with the most recent, that mention the bridge. What you get is a hodge-poge of old articles. Ridiculous.