The first thing I thought of, naturally, was libraries. Public libraries have lately been under attack, but were a fixture of my childhood. On the other hand, we don't typically see public libraries in genre fiction. The libraries we see are usually private, or belonging to an educational institution like a university.
Wouldn't it be fun to see someone get a magic book on interlibrary loan?
Police and constabularies appear quite a lot in fiction. Less often do we see speculative firefighting, though Paul mentioned Sean Grigsby's Smoke Eaters, which features firefighters opposing dragons! In cities, firefighting is critically important. It can be dicey. When it's not run publicly, it can be run by competing private companies, but this sometimes can lead to people lighting fires so they can be paid to put them out! It's a pretty good idea to have firefighting be a public service.
Che mentioned the position of a public medical examiner. Does that person have to have any medical qualifications in order to serve? (It depends on where you are) Che recommends the Poisoner's Handbook for good information on poisons.
Coroner is a publicly paid job.
City Hall and other government positions are public, obviously.
What would speculative Animal Control look like? Che wants to see a speculative Parks and Rec.
What if dragons were a protected species and animal control needed to move them?
What would city exterminators look like? What would they have to deal with?
What kinds of health services are public? Which are not public? What effects does that have?
What is the public role in transportation? Is there such a thing as Caltrans? Are road crews run by a governmental body? How is it different if people are responsible for the upkeep of their own sections of road? Kimberly told us about how it works in unincorporated areas. If you want to upgrade the road so two fire trucks can pass side by side, you have to enlist all of the neighbors to contribute.
Lately, we've seen the phenomenon of techbros trying to reinvent public services like taxes...
Sewage and water are public utilities, as is electricity.
Che told us about the bluegreen algae bloom which has caused toxins to enter the water supply in Salem, Oregon. This can be contributed to by fertilizer in farm runoff. Cyanotoxins that result from the bloom are dangerous to children and old people, and to pets. There are water-filling stations available where you can access well water for drinking.
Public water standards are important for public health! Keeping/getting sewage out of drinking water is critical. Even the Romans understood this.
Kimberly mentioned that in very small communities, there are some tasks that get assigned to different families or groups each month, and there are other activities like barn raising that require a whole community to come together.
Preppers are people who are trying to get "off the grid" so they don't have to rely on institutions.
At the Exploratorium in San Francisco, they have a display where you can pedal to generate electricity to run different kinds of lights and sounds. It shows you just how much effort is necessary!
There are many places in the world where utilities are not reliable. You can have electricity at some times of day and not at others. Some places lack infrastructure. Some lack resources.
The solar panels on my own home are connected to the electrical grid, and if the power goes out in my neighborhood, my own power will also go out in spite of continued solar generation. When I was little, my dad built a solar collector and used it to heat our hottub. It was heat-based, not electrical, so was not connected to the grid at all.
Street sweepers are run by cities. Garbage collection is arranged by cities. People who clean storm drains are hired by the government. Trucks that water public trees with gray water are also run by the government. Parks and playgrounds are publicly funded.
Che remarked that Central Park in New York used to have sheep meadows and public livestock areas.
In Santa Cruz County (at least) they have teams of goats that the fire service uses to clear brush and eat poison oak, to keep fires from becoming as dangerous.
Cliff suggested someone should write a story with goats with fire hats and coats, and GPS tracking. What would the Department of Goats be?
If you are ever working in an offworld environment like a ship or space station, you have to pay special attention to air quality and radiation control.
The Port Authority is also an important publicly run group. It deals with import/export and logistics. It would be a major concern for space colonies!
Earth has an Outer Space treaty that was signed in 1967. It treats space like Antarctica and limits military use of space, and exploitation of space resources. People who want to mine asteroids are lobbying for changes. The Office of Planetary Protection is trying to keep Earth microbes off Mars, etc, and reduce space junk.
There are some kinds of tasks where government has an enormous advantage over private corporations.
The TV show The Expanse has different governments competing.
We are used to thinking of government as at odds with industry, but that is not necessarily the case.
Public money for art is really important.
Customs is another group run by the government. It's really important to quarantine people and animals to protect against diseases, parasites, etc. Cliff remarked that Alien is fundamentally about not following quarantine rules. Kimberly noted that in Andromeda Strain, the protocol wasn't enough.
The CDC is a public institution. Where is it in the zombie apocalypse? Well, apparently they did release zombie apocalypse guidelines...
The military is also a public institution. Compare it with mercenaries and local militias.
The courts of kings and queens are famous for funding the arts and giving us classic art and music we still appreciate today.
Who gets funded and why?
Does the government fund science? What about magical research, as Paul suggested?
Does the government fund universities? What is a public university's obligation to the community that supports it? One thing is open libraries.
There are also teaching hospitals, and dental and cosmetic schools.
Thank you to everyone who attended this discussion! I hope it gives you plenty of ideas for your fiction.
#SFWApro
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